US billionaire investor Warren Buffett yesterday said he was unfazed by the recent scandal at Japanese camera maker Olympus Corp and was looking for investment opportunities in Japanese companies.
“We’re looking for companies that have some kind of sustainable competitive advantage,” Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, said at a news conference in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. “The fact that Olympus happens here or Enron happens in the US doesn’t affect our attitudes at all.”
Buffett was visiting Japan for the first time to tour a plant of tool maker Tungaloy Corp, after canceling his trip in March, when the country was struck by a record earthquake. Olympus said this month that it concealed losses by paying inflated advisory fees, raising concern among investors about corporate governance in Japan.
Photo: Reuters
“There are lots of opportunities in Japan,” Buffett, 81, said in Iwaki City, adding that the earthquake had not changed his view on investing in the country.
He said he was interested in “businesses that would be around for many, many decades.”
Iwaki is about 40km from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant that leaked radiation after it was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Buffett, who became the world’s third-richest person through long-term value investing, said earlier this year that the disaster created a “buying opportunity.”
“The fact that a renowned investor like Mr Buffett is actually coming all the way to Japan and to the very place that became the center of the disaster means a lot and may shine a light,” said Shuhei Abe, president of Tokyo-based Sparx Group Co, Asia’s second-biggest hedge fund. “There are expectations that Mr Buffett may invest more in Japan.”
Iscar Metalworking Cos, an Israeli company that was Berkshire’s largest acquisition of a non-US firm, in 2008 bought a 71.5 percent stake in Tungaloy, which makes tools for cars and planes.
Buffett also said that Europe would eventually emerge from a crisis that has been amplified by the inability of eurozone members to print their own currency.
“One way or another, Europeans will solve their problems,” he said at the briefing.
“But in the process of solving them, there already have been very important dislocations and they will have effects on individual countries” and banks in the region that need capital, he said.
Buffett broadened the portfolio of Berkshire this year as he built a stake of more than US$10 billion in IBM Corp, injected US$5 billion into Bank of America Corp and completed the acquisition of Lubrizol Corp for about US$9 billion.
Among Berkshire’s Asian investments are stakes in Chinese carmaker BYD Co (比亞迪) and South Korea’s Posco, the world’s third- largest steelmaker. Iscar has invested in TaeguTec Ltd, a South Korean cutting-tools maker, and Berkshire announced a plan this year to enter India’s insurance market by selling motor coverage as a corporate agent of Bajaj Allianz General Insurance.
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