Investing Guidelines: Business Tenets 69cases of soft drinks annually ( having converted sales from gallons to
cases). That year, an article in Fortunenoted, “It would be hard to
name any company comparable to Coca-Cola and selling, as Coca-Cola
does, an unchanged product that can point to a ten year record anything
like Coca-Cola’s.”^10
Today, nearly seventy years after that article was published, Coca-
Cola is still selling syrup. The only difference is the increase in quantity.
By the year 2003, the company was selling over 19 billion cases of soft
drink in more than 200 countries, generating $22 billion a year in sales.
The Washington Post Company
Buffett tells Berkshire’s shareholders that his f irst financial connection
with the Washington Postwas at age 13. He delivered both the Wa s h -
ington Postand the Times-Heraldon his paper route while his father
served in Congress. Buffett likes to remind others that with this dual
delivery route he merged the two papers long before Phil Graham
bought the Times-Herald.
Obviously, Buffett was aware of the newspaper’s rich history. And
he considered Newsweekmagazine a predictable business. He quickly
learned the value of the company’s television stations. The Washington
Posthad been reporting for years the stellar performance of its broadcast
division. Buffett’s personal experience with the company and its own
successful history led him to believe that the Washington Postwas a
consistent and dependable business performer.
Gillette
Few companies have dominated their industry as long as Gillette. It was
the lead brand of razors and blades in 1923 and the lead brand in 2003.
Maintaining that position for so many years has required the company to
spend hundreds of millions of dollars inventing new, improved products.
Even though Wilkinson, in 1962, developed the f irst coated stainless
steel blade, Gillette bounced back quickly and has since worked hard to
remain the world’s leading innovator of shaving products. In 1972,
Gillette developed the popular twin-blade Trac II; in 1977, the Atra
razor with its pivoting head. Then, in 1989, the company developed the