ClaimsWarren Buffett

“we offered a solution in a couple of days to something that was getting close to the brink.”

Warren Buffett, Berkshire CEO, annual meeting 4 May 2024 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting 2024 Transcript (Good-Investing)

Factual Economics and markets

Buffett said Berkshire offered a solution within a couple of days to something in Canada that was getting close to the brink.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

This claim is about what Buffett said. True: a transcript or video of the 2024-05-04 Berkshire annual meeting shows Buffett saying that Berkshire offered a solution within a couple of days to something in Canada that was getting close to the brink (for example, Home Capital Group in 2017). Mostly true: he made the statement, but a minor detail differs (wording, or the Canadian context is only implied). Mixed: he made the statement, but it was not about Canada. Mostly false: he made a loosely similar remark that differs materially. False: the transcript shows he made no such statement.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (2)

  1. E1 Transcript: Berkshire's 2024 annual shareholder meeting - Steady Compounding Steady Compounding · 5 May 2024

    “We did it some years ago, not that many years ago, but there was a financial institution up there.”
  2. E2 Exclusive: Buffett on how he struck the Home Capital deal The Globe and Mail · 22 June 2017

    “a deal in which a subsidiary of Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is poised to invest as much as $400-million into troubled Canadian mortgage lender Home Capital came together at breakneck speed – from first contact to a handshake deal in three days flat.”

Reasoning

An independent transcript of the 2024 Berkshire annual meeting (E2) has Buffett describing a deal "some years ago, not that many years ago" with "a financial institution up there." The quoted text points to Canada only through "up there" [E2]. The quoted excerpt does not include the exact "solution in a couple of days... close to the brink" wording. The Globe and Mail's 2017 report (E3) backs up the episode itself: Berkshire's deal with troubled Canadian lender Home Capital came together in three days. Because the excerpt only partly captures the statement and only implies the Canadian setting, the claim is rated mostly true rather than true.

Cite this claim

Warren Buffett, “Buffett said Berkshire offered a solution within a couple of days to something in Canada that was getting close to the brink.” (said 4 May 2024). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_481539121ef7, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_481539121ef7

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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More factual claims by Warren Buffett

  1. Mostly true Factual 4 May 2024
    “But now we’ve created a structure that didn’t exist when he came in 1986.”

    Berkshire has created an insurance structure that did not exist when Ajit Jain joined in 1986.

  2. Mixed Factual 15 December 2020
    “big businesses, generally have done very well about travel and entertainment”

    Big businesses have generally done very well, with travel and entertainment mentioned in a way the quote leaves unclear, though they still have difficulties.

  3. Mostly true Factual 15 December 2020
    “the big ones have done terrifically”

    Large food manufacturers have done terrifically during the pandemic.

  4. Resolved true Factual 15 December 2020
    “we've shut down a lot of people in this, in this particular induced recession and others are prospering”

    The pandemic-induced recession has shut down many people's businesses while others are prospering.

  5. Mostly true Factual 27 February 2017
    “I first used it back in 1963 when American Express had this great Salad Oil Scandal that people were worried about it bankrupting the company.”

    In 1963, during American Express's Salad Oil Scandal, Buffett visited restaurants to see how people used the American Express card, an approach he first used then.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.