The Snowball_ Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder [177]
From there, he expanded into insuring taxicabs, then he put up the stakes for radio-station treasure hunts, hiding the clues in lipstick cases, burying them himself, using clues so obscure that only one prize was ever claimed. He soon became the fastest-moving, most swashbuckling, energetic businessman in Omaha. His daughter referred to him by the racy-sounding nickname Jet Jack. He managed National Indemnity’s investments himself, buying tiny positions in hundreds of stocks, scribbled almost illegibly on ledger sheets: fifty shares of National Distillers, 2,500 of Shaver Food Marts. He carried around hundreds of stock certificates in an old gym bag.
In the early 1960s, Buffett had called his friend Charlie Heider, who was on the board of National Indemnity, and asked whether Ringwalt had any interest in selling. Heider’s answer was intriguing.
“For fifteen minutes every year, Jack would want to sell National Indemnity. Something would make him mad. Some claim would come in that irritated him, or something of that sort. So Charlie Heider and I discussed this phenomenon of Jack being in heat once a year for fifteen minutes. And I told him if he ever caught him in this particular phase to let me know.”
One gray and gloomy February Omaha day in 1967, Heider was having lunch with Ringwalt, who said, “I don’t like this weather.” The conversation wound around to the fact that he wanted to sell National Indemnity. Ringwalt had convinced himself he was better off without it; the fifteen-minute window had appeared. “There’s somebody here in town who might want to buy it,” Heider said. “Warren Buffett.” Ringwalt allowed as how he might be interested. Heider called Buffett afterward and told him that Jack Ringwalt would possibly sell the company for so many million. “Do you care to meet with him in the coming days?”
“What about this afternoon?” Buffett said immediately. Ringwalt was leaving for Florida the next morning, but Heider convinced him to go down to Kiewit Plaza first.19
Buffett asked Ringwalt to explain why he hadn’t sold to anyone yet. Ringwalt said that all the offers came from crooks. He started laying down conditions. He said he wanted to keep the company in Omaha. Sensing that the fifteen-minute window was about to disappear, Buffett agreed he wouldn’t move the company.
Ringwalt said he didn’t want any employees fired. Buffett said that was okay. Ringwalt said all the other offers had been too low. “How much do you want?” Buffett asked. Fifty dollars a share, said Ringwalt, fifteen dollars more than Warren thought it was worth. “I’ll take it,” Buffett said.
“So we made a deal in that fifteen-minute zone. Then, Jack, having made the deal, really didn’t want to do it. But he was an honest guy and wouldn’t back out of a deal. However, he said to me after we’d shaken hands, ‘Well, I suppose you’ll want audited financial statements.’ And if I’d have said yes, he would’ve said, ‘Well, that’s too bad, then, we don’t have a deal.’ So I just responded, ‘I wouldn’t dream of looking at audited financial statements—they’re the worst kind.’ Then Jack said to me, ‘I suppose you’ll want me to sell my insurance agencies to you as well.’”
It would have been natural for Buffett to want the agencies. They controlled relationships with some of the customers who did business with National Indemnity. “I just said, ‘Jack, I wouldn’t buy those agencies under any circumstances.’ If I’d said yes, that I wanted him to sell the agencies to Berkshire—he would’ve said, ‘Well, I can’t do that, Warren. We must’ve misunderstood each other.’
“So we went through about three or four iterations like this. And finally Jack gave