Warren Buffett Bursting with Pride at Israeli Acquisition

Warren Buffett is currently on a whirlwind tour of Asia. The impetus of the trip was an invitation by Iscar CEO, Eitan Wertheimer to Buffett, to officially open Iscar's first metalworking production plant in Dalian China.

In yesterday's exclusive interview with Ha'aretz's Guy Rolnick, Warren Buffett could not say enough great things about his purchase last year of Israeli metalworking company, Iscar.

Below are some of Buffett's thoughts:

"Iscar is a dream deal. It has surpassed all the expectations I had when buying the company, and my expectations had been very high."

"Since I met Eitan Wertheimer [Iscar's CEO], and acquired Iscar, the people at Berkshire Hathaway think I'm a lot smarter".

When Rolnick asked Buffett how Iscar has performed since he acquired it, Buffett responded:

"Next week I have a board meeting in Columbus, Ohio....Only three Berkshire Hathaway companies will be making presentations there: two insurance companies and Iscar.... And when the people from Iscar make their presentation.... the buttons are going to burst right off his shirt because [I'll] be so puffed with pride about that deal."

For those readers who are not up to speed with the Berkshire acquisition of Iscar, here's a quick summary.

• In early 2006, Buffett received aone and a half page letter from Eitan Wertheimer, Iscar's CEO, describing the Iscar business. Buffett stated that when he read the letter something jumped out at him, and he invited Eitan to Omaha.
• Soon after meeting Wertheimer, the details of Berkshire's acquisition of Iscar were agreed upon.. Buffett did not use an investment bank or corporate advisors on the acquisition. He didn't even visit the Iscar plants.
• Berkshire paid $4 billion for an 80% interest of the business. This was Buffett's first acquisition outside of the US.

Soon after the Iscar acquisition, Buffett paid his first visit to Israel. Below is a 7 minute interview from that trip. Apart from the first 25 seconds, the interview is in English.

In the interview, he explains why he does not perceive Israel as a greater security threat than either the US or the UK.

Some Excerpts:

" I can give you an absolute, unequivicol answer....it's very impressive when a country of 7 million or so people turns out a business like this.... I haven't seen anything like this in the US."

"We weren't measuring Iscar against any other Israeli company. We were measuring it against everything we see in the world".

"If you compared Israel in 2006 with Israel in 1948, it's very very impressive".

"Israel should not be a secret....it's remarkable place... particularly the talent.... talent's worth far more than money."