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Fri, Jul 13, 2001 - Page 21 News List

Warren Buffett returns to Sun Valley

BLOOMBERG , SUN VALLEY, IDAHO

Warren Buffett is now the Oracle of Omaha and Sun Valley, Idaho.

The chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc returns to Herbert Allen's annual technology retreat this week, where in 1999 he warned participants to avoid Internet companies.

Since then, several online companies including EToys Inc and Webvan Group Inc have gone bankrupt.

Buffett, returning to the annual, invitation-only meeting with a talk entitled "A Conversation with Warren Buffett, Part II," may tell attendees the 62 percent decline in the NASDAQ Composite Index since March 2000 has not yet made stocks in the US attractive.

"Everybody realizes how smart Warren is; I don't think that's a secret," said John Malone, Liberty Media Corp's chairman, who heard Buffett's speech two years ago. "I guess he'd say that stocks are still wildly overvalued. I don't think this has been enough of a correction to turn him bullish."

More than a hundred private jets have begun flying attendees to the gathering of billionaires, entrepreneurs and money managers to hear presentations from Home Depot Inc Chief Executive Robert Nardelli, Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bezos and Intel Corp Chairman Andrew Grove, among others, along with Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Sensitive to criticism the event gives participants privileged information, Bezos kicked off his presentation with a slide photograph of the "Fair Disclosure" regulations adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year to bar companies from giving information to some shareholders and not others.

"The real benefit of this conference is in making relationships which can lead to deals," said James Goss, a media analyst with Barrington Research Associates in Chicago.

Last year, 400 guests attended the conference sponsored by the New York investment firm.

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