54 THE WARREN BUFFETT WAY
margins. The company stands to benef it not only from increasing unit
sales but from steadily improving prof it margins as well. Gillette’s fu-
ture appears bright. “It’s pleasant to go to bed every night,” says Buffett,
“knowing there are 2.5 billion males in the world who will have to
shave in the morning.”^13
The Washington Post Company
The Washington Post Company today is a media conglomerate with
operations in newspaper publishing, television broadcasting, cable tele-
vision systems, magazine publishing, and the provision of educational
services. The newspaper division publishes the Washington Post,the
Everett( Washington) Herald,and the Gazette Newspapers, a group of
39 weekly papers. The television broadcasting division owns six televi-
sion stations located in Detroit, Miami, Orlando, Houston, San Anto-
nio, and Jacksonville, Florida. The cable television systems division
provides cable and digital video services to more than 1.3 billion sub-
scribers. The magazine division publishes Newsweek,with domestic
circulation of over 3 million and over 600,000 internationally.
In addition to the four major divisions, the Washington Post Com-
pany owns the Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Centers, a large network
of schools that prepare students for college admission tests and profes-
sional licensing exams. Best known for its original program that helps
high school students do well on Scholastic Aptitude Tests, Kaplan has
aggressively expanded its operations in recent years. It now includes
after-school classes for grades K-12, the world’s only accredited online
law school, test-prep materials for engineers and CFAs, and campus-
based schools with programs in business, f inance, technology, health,
and other professions. In 2003, Kaplan’s sales totaled $838 million,
making it a signif icant element in the Post Company.
The company owns 28 percent of Cowles Media, which publishes
the Minneapolis Star Tribune,several military newspapers, and 50 per-
cent of the Los Angeles-Washington News Service.
Today, the Washington Post Company is an $8 billion company
generating $3.2 billion in annual sales. Its accomplishments are espe-
cially impressive when you consider that seventy years ago, the com-
pany was in one business—publishing a newspaper.
In 1931, the Washington Postwas one of f ive dailies competing for
readers. Two years later, the Post,unable to pay for its newsprint, was