Origin of Berkshire Hathaway

choi

Kris Hudson and Anupreeta Das, Mayoral Mission: Rescue Warren Buffett’s Bad Investment; Even Omaha billionaire isn’t interested in saving old headquarters.
Wall Street Journal, Dec 2, 2013 (front page).
http://online.wsj.com/news/artic ... 4579232351285066532

Quote:

"Control of the New England textile manufacturer was acquired in 1965 by an ambitious 34-year-old investor named Warren Buffett, who made Berkshire Hathaway the base of his own budding conglomerate.

"'One of the dumbest things was to make a textile company the base of other things we bought or invested in,' Mr [Warren] Buffett said. He never considered changing the name, though.

"The building 9was] built in 1927 by Hathaway Manufacturing Co * * * In 1955, Hathaway merged with Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates Inc. to become Berkshire Hathaway.

"For Mr Buffett, it was a Pyrrhic victory [to gain control in 1965]. Foreign competition eventually overwhelmed the mill, and Mr Buffett closed it in 1985. He wrote to his shareholders at the time: 'In the end nothing worked and I should be faulted for not quitting sooner.'

Note:
(a) The English surname Hathaway is “for someone who lived by a path across a heath, from Middle English hathe ‘heath’ + weye ‘way.’”
(b) “Thieves have torn away much of the oxidized copper molding that decorates its eaves.”

Search Google images with decorative molding.