One of the earliest pieces I wrote for the blog was on Gotham’s decision to purchase Moody’s when it was spun out of Dun & Bradstreet in 2000. In many ways Greenblatt and Goldstein’s rationale (itself reverse engineered from Buffett’s purchase of Coca Cola in the late 1980’s) has been the blueprint for my own style of business analysis.
I think the story of Moody’s as a standalone company is still somewhat misunderstood. The wider investment community certainly knows that “price go up”, but why that happened does seem to be a little less well understood.
The late Charlie Munger once said:
Opportunity comes to the prepared mind,
He also said:
When you shout something out, you also pound it in.
I don’t mind searing in the all the warning signs that I might be looking at an outstanding business.
It’s time for a little revision.
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