http://business.watoday.com.au/business ... -e571.html

Browne’s down

CHRISTOPHER H. Browne, best known on these shores for The Little Book of Value Investing, is stepping down from day-to-day duties at Tweedy, Browne Company, the US fund manager that has about $A11 billion under management.

‘‘This has been a difficult decision for me, but in the past two years I have had to deal with some personal health issues, and there are other things I want to accomplish with the rest of my life,’’ Browne said last week. ‘‘While my health issues are now mostly resolved, I took this as a wake-up call about the fragility of life.’’

He noted that he was leaving virtually all his personal investments with the firm. Browne’s father, Howard, was a broker and market maker for Warren Buffett.

It is also the firm that raised stink about the (lack of) governance of Hollinger which resulted in Conrad Black and a few others serving time.

Only tangentially related to above. I am sure that Shareguruians will discover the link.

I have been indulging myself at book stores. Mainly browsing but with some cash in the wallet which got hotter and hotter as I browsed - fortunately, I leave our ATM/credit cards/cheque book at home otherwise I'd be completely broke.

But I did buy a couple of items. One being Benjamin Graham on Investing It is a compendium of his articles between 1917 to 1927 for The Magaizine of Wall Street. Just fascinating stuff from an historical perspective. Still elements which have relevance today such as the discussion on how small shareholders were ignored "it cannot be denied that they [the big shareholders] have displayed a callous disregard of the legitimate rights of their smaller partners."

To offset this high brow stuff I also bought the Conan Doyle Short Stories and the Annotated Sherlock Homes. Bring back "Boy's Own."

Judd

If you are into Victorian novelists then Anthony Trolloppe has a few characters and situations that seem very familiar to us. Like life insurance companies that took in premiums but never paid anybody out, while the directors lived very handsomely on the investors' money. And a notable trader who dabbled 5000 pounds of his father-in-law's money on futures over a cargo of guano from South America. This particulary chappie ended up stepping in front of an approaching train. The guano is probably still in a warehouse somewhere in London, we were never advised of its fate.


Cheers

LJ

Yes, I have the Chronicles of Barsetshire and Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite. It is a bit of a sad reflection on our day that if you placed his writings in front of the younger and not so younger generations, they would reel back in horror at the, shall we say, ponderous nature of his tales. Pity as the more you delve and become involved the more interesting his novels become.

I must make a note to myself to search for and obtain for some of of his other works. It is becoming a bit of a stretch now as we already have seven bookcases, two in bedrooms, stuffed full with books and also strewn on the floor.