For the world’s most successful investor, ed hardy clothing the massive earthquake is a reason to buy Japanese stocks, while the short-term frenzy over products like the iPad is reason to stay away from Apple Inc.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Japan’s devastating earthquake is the kind of extraordinary event that creates a buying opportunity for shares in Japanese companies.
“It will take some time to rebuild, but it will not change the economic future of Japan,” Mr. Buffett said Monday on a visit to a South Korean factory run by a company owned by one of his funds.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, has been battling to bring an ed hardy shirts overheating nuclear plant under control after it was battered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that rattled global markets and prompted massive intervention in currency markets by the Group of Seven industrial nations.
“If I owned Japanese stocks, I would certainly not be selling them because of the events of the past 10 days or so,” Mr. Buffett said.
“Something out of the blue like this, an extraordinary event, really creates a buying opportunity,” he said.
Mr. Buffett, made the comments while attending a ceremony for a new factory being built by one of his affiliate companies, TaeguTec Ltd.
Mr. Buffett said his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which at the year-end was sitting on US$38-billion of cash equivalent and last week bought specialty chemicals maker Lubrizol for US$9-billion, was looking for more large-scale acquisitions anywhere in the world.
He said geopolitical risks associated with North Korea had not curbed his interest in South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Berkshire also owns a stake in a Chinese car and battery maker.
Mr. Buffett did not disclose any holdings in Japan Monday, and Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report did not show any major investments there. He had been due to visit Japan later this week, but cancelled due to the earthquake.
And while the man dubbed “The Oracle of Omaha” for his investing savvy looks poised to fire up another buying spree, the biggest stock success story of the past decade was not on his shopping list.
Coca-Cola Co., based in Atlanta, is “very easy for me to come to a conclusion as ed hardy shoes to what it will look like economically in five or 10 years, and it’s not easy for me to come to a conclusion about Apple,” he said.
Apple last year overtook Microsoft Corp. as the largest technology company by market value. The 8.6% stake in Coca-Cola is Berkshire Hathaway’s biggest equity holding, followed by Wells Fargo & Co. and American Express Co., according to regulatory data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Even though Apple may have the most wonderful future in the world, I’m not capable of bringing any drink to that particular party and evaluating that future,” Mr. Buffett said. “I simply look at businesses where I think I have some understanding of what they might look like in five or 10 years.”
In his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders last month, Mr. Buffett had said he was looking for more acquisitions.
“The United States is most likely where we will do something,” he said at a ground-breakingcheap ed hardy ceremony for a South Korean factory run by a unit of an Israeli firm owned by his investment vehicle.
Mr. Buffett will have yet more money to invest after Goldman Sachs buys back US$5-billion of its preferred stock from Berkshire Hathaway, which the fund bought at the height of the global financial crisis.
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