Buffett Protege to Leave Berkshire, Start Own Firm--Update
September 18 2019 - 6:53PM
Dow Jones News
By Nicole Friedman
Tracy Britt Cool, one of Warren Buffett's key lieutenants in
recent years, is leaving Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to create a mini
Berkshire of her own.
Ms. Britt Cool joined Berkshire in 2009 at age 25 as Mr.
Buffett's financial assistant, a job he created for her. In 2014,
she became chief executive of Pampered Chef, a cookware company
owned by Berkshire.
Now 35, Ms. Britt Cool wants to build an investment vehicle that
acquires companies for the long term, like Berkshire does.
"I want to build a long-term platform and a long-term vehicle to
acquire and build businesses," Ms. Britt Cool said in an interview.
"There are companies that I think there's a lot of value in helping
them get to the next level, but they're too small for
Berkshire."
Ms. Britt Cool, who is based in Chicago, plans to leave Pampered
Chef at the end of March. She will also resign from the board of
Kraft Heinz Co. in the first quarter of 2020, she said. Ms. Britt
Cool will remain on Blue Apron Holdings Inc.'s board.
In her decade at Berkshire, Ms. Britt Cool specialized in
helping Berkshire companies that were struggling. At various
points, she served as chairman of Benjamin Moore & Co.,
Larson-Juhl, Johns Manville and Oriental Trading Co., meaning that
those companies' CEOs reported directly to her. She took over
Pampered Chef when its sales and earnings were falling.
"She was the fireman," Mr. Buffett said in an interview.
"Anything I've assigned her she's done a first-class job on."
In the second quarter of 2019, Pampered Chef's sales rose 19%
and its pretax earnings rose 52% from the prior year, Mr. Buffett
said.
Ms. Britt Cool has served on the Kraft Heinz board since 2015
and previously sat on the board of H.J. Heinz Co. Berkshire owns
27% of Kraft Heinz. The company's shares have dropped 34% this year
due to weak sales, asset write-downs and accounting errors.
Andrew Treanor, Pampered Chef's chief operating officer, will
replace Ms. Britt Cool as CEO, she said.
Ms. Britt Cool grew up in Kansas and attended Harvard Business
School. She first met Mr. Buffett on a trip to Omaha, Neb., where
Berkshire is based, with a student group that she co-founded for
women investors.
She worked for him for a summer in 2009, but the Berkshire
headquarters didn't have an opening. Later that year, Mr. Buffett
hired Ms. Britt Cool full-time as his financial assistant,
initially to oversee Berkshire's involvement in Berkadia, a joint
venture between Berkshire and Jefferies Financial Group Inc.
As financial assistant, "I worked directly with Warren on
anything that crossed his desk," Ms. Britt Cool said. "I've really
enjoyed learning about value investing and how to be an
entrepreneurial-minded operator at the same time."
Mr. Buffett said he understood Ms. Britt Cool's decision because
he also left a job he loved, at his mentor Benjamin Graham's
investment firm, to work for himself in 1956. He added that he
doesn't intend for Berkshire to invest in Ms. Britt Cool's new
venture.
Ms. Britt Cool is one of the highest-profile women at Berkshire,
which has three women on its board of directors and seven women
CEOs at its operating companies. Some Berkshire watchers have
speculated that she could take a future top leadership role at the
company.
Ms. Britt Cool has played a major role at Berkshire in convening
the company's dozens of CEOs to network and learn from each other.
Ms. Britt Cool organized the first Berkshire CEO gathering in 2013,
and they have been held annually in Omaha since. Berkshire CEOs say
the gatherings are a highlight and have sparked new working
relationships.
Ms. Britt Cool said she plans to apply the same strategies she
used at Berkshire businesses to help small companies grow. She
declined to comment on the structure of her venture or how she
plans to fund it.
Mr. Buffett has famously struggled in recent years to find
affordable companies to buy for Berkshire, as a decadelong bull
market has pushed up company valuations. Due to Berkshire's size,
Mr. Buffett is looking to deploy tens of billions of dollars at a
time.
"The toughest part is finding things to buy," Mr. Buffett said.
But as Ms. Britt Cool will be targeting much smaller companies, he
added, "she's got an easier job than I've got."
Write to Nicole Friedman at nicole.friedman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 18, 2019 18:38 ET (22:38 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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