Greg Abel: We envision holding Japan investments for 50 years or forever

Well, I'm going to extend the same goodwill to Japan that you've just extended to me. I let the people of Japan determine their best course of action in terms of economics. It's an incredible story. It's been about six years now as you pointed out. I was just going through a little handbook. It probably had two or three thousand Japanese companies in it. One problem I have is that I can't read that handbook anymore. The print's too small. But here were these five trading companies. They have a special name for them in Japan, but they were selling at ridiculously low prices. So I spent about a year acquiring them, and then we got to know the people better, and everything that Greg and I saw we liked better as we went along. So we got fairly close to the 10% limit that we told the company we would never exceed without their permission. And so we did ask them reasonably whether that limit could be relaxed, and it's in the process of being relaxed somewhat. I would say that I'll speak for Greg beyond me that in the next 50 years, and I hope he's running things, we won't give a thought to selling those. Japan's record has been extraordinary actually. My guess is that Tim Cook would tell you that iPhone sales there are about as great as any country outside the United States. American Express would tell you that they sell their product very well in Japan. Coca-Cola, another big investment of ours, does extraordinarily well in Japan. They have a number of habits in a civilization that operates differently than ours. Japan is by far the biggest. This is the container they've always preferred. There's soft drinks and they have a whole different distribution system there. But we have been treated extremely well by the five companies. They talk with Greg primarily. I went over there a year or two ago, but Greg is more cosmopolitan than I am, so he's saying much actually, but very little.

When you think of the five, there's definitely a couple meetings a year, Warren. And I think the thing we're building with the five companies is one, it's been a very good investment, but we are really, as Warren touched on, we envision holding the investment for 50 years or forever. But I think we also are building relationships to do incremental things with each of those companies. And we really do hope to do big things with them globally. They bring different perspectives and different opportunities, and that's why we're building that long-term relationship with them. It's super long-term. They have different customs and different approaches to business. That's true around the world. We don't have any intention of trying to change what they've done because they do it very successfully. Our main activity is just to cheer and clap, and I can still do that at 94.