Media Spotlight: The World's Greatest Money Maker - BBC2 presented by Evan Davis
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There’s one man whose investment tips are followed by an almost cult-like band of followers. That man is Warren Buffett, also known as the sage of Omaha.
Buffett heads the $150bn empire that is Berkshire Hathaway, a company which enjoys success thanks to the success of others. This is a man who has more money than the gross domestic product of more than half the world’s countries.
His annual shareholders’ meetings are unlike any others, attended by thousands of devoted followers hoping to glean that crucial nugget of investment advice that will make them millionaires or if they’re lucky, billionaires.
The question on everybody’s lips is - how does he do it?
The World’s Greatest Money Maker: Evan Davis Meets Warren Buffett was the BBC’s take on revealing the man behind the public front.
Davis, one of the frontmen of Radio 4’s Today programme, was dispatched to Buffet’s home town to find out how he achieved the investment equivalent of nirvana.
As he trails Buffett from his office through a seemingly unending barrage of journalists and investors the picture quickly builds of a man who is the opposite of the stereotypical fat cat.
From his home - bought more than 50 years ago for $31,000 - to his car and his taste in food, Buffett comes across as a simple man.
His public image is one of a rare specimen in the financial and business world - a person with common sense who can seemingly do no wrong.
Buffet has invested in family firms and made average Joes extremely wealthy. And he has done this with good humour, turning his back on consensus and trusting his own skill in investment analysis.
Yet this is the same man who has aggressively bought shares in global brands such as Coca-Cola, Walt Disney and American Express.
Buffett also poured $5bn into investment giant Goldman Sachs - no mean feat considering the timing of the deal was September 2008, forever imprinted on the public mind as the height - or depth - of the financial crisis.
“I did not think we would be dumb enough in a prosperous country like America to let a misfunction in the financial engine bring the nation down,” he says. “But there were times when I wondered about it.”
Buffet has recently turned his hand to making money from derivatives despite having previously slammed the instruments as “financial weapons of mass destruction”.
Throughout the show the cynical viewer waits for the mirror to crack, the façade to fade and Buffett to be revealed as just another money-grubber, although perhaps one who is better at hiding it than most.
But this grand unmasking moment never arrives. It seems Buffett is a rare breed indeed - a genuinely nice guy who just happens to be good at making money.
As for the key to his success, it’s hard to pin down. Buffett pulls off being a gentleman to everyone he negotiates with, whether this is a small-time firm or the US Federal Reserve. Yet he’s ultimately chasing returns - driving a bargain for cheap companies that go on to rack up billions of dollars in profit.
The financial services industry would do well to abide by one key Buffett motto - don’t get into debt.
“A smart person can’t go broke unless they leverage,” he says. “And if you’re too dumb to understand an investment you shouldn’t be dealing with it anyway.”
Hear hear.
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