"What I've wanted to do for the last two-and-a-half years is step back and basically invest our family money and build kind of a mini-Berkshire, if you will."
-- David Sokol on CNBC, March 31.
You remember David Sokol, the fellow who resigned from Berkshire Hathaway
Sokol took advantage of the recent correction to buy another stock, that of Virginia community bank Middleburg Financial
In 1967, Warren Buffett, then a young money manager, took over a textile mill by the name of Berkshire Hathaway. While the textile business eventually died, Berkshire became the holding company under which he eventually built the hugely successful conglomerate we know today. Does Sokol have the same plans for Middleburg? Perhaps. There are, after all, other companies that model themselves to varying degrees after Berkshire Hathaway, including insurers Markel
All the same, Sokol knows he'll be hard-pressed to match Berkshire's success. Even if he had the same level of capital allocation acumen as Buffett, he's starting out much later in life than his former boss. Half of the trick is starting early and compounding returns over long stretches. Or, as Buffett wrote in June: "My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest."
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