Warren Buffett and the Art of Stock Arbitrage

Synopsis

"Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to arbitrage and you will feed him forever." —Warren BuffettWarren Buffett and the Art of Stock Arbitrage is the first book to explore the secret world of Warren Buffett's arbitrage and special situations investing. Long considered one of the most powerful and profitable yet least understood of Buffett's investment operations, these special types of investments have been the edge that has made Warren Buffett the world's greatest investor.This book examines Buffett's special brand of arbitrage investing, which involves taking advantage of short-term price discrepancies that often occur when one company offers to buy another company. Though these discrepancies are small, they offer almost risk-free investment opportunities that have given Buffett an average annual rate of return of 23 percent on his invested capital. Buffett's strategies for investing in special situations like spin-offs, liquidations, recapitalizations, and tender offers are also explained. This body of investment opportunities, though small in number, has allowed Buffett to make substantial investments that give him high returns with very little risk.Mary Buffett and David Clark, the authors of four bestselling books on Warren Buffett's investment methods, take the listener deep into the world of Buffett's arbitrage and special situation operations, giving us his strategies, his math equations for determining value, and dozens of examples of his investments in this very lucrative segment of investment operations.In the years that Buffett's normal portfolio of long-term investments has done poorly, it is his investments in arbitrage and special situations that have lifted his performance to the record levels that have made him the second richest man in the world.