Whenever a large investment has been made in a particular area, whenever there is a lot capital, people, and ego tied up with some operation, the transition away from that operation is apt to be far slower than what an objective observer would have expected.

As an investor, it’s easy to look at a corporation from afar and see the business the way a rational capital allocator would see it. But, very few people within the organization are able to take such a farsighted view. They are not able to asses the matter dispassionately. There are jobs at stake. There is the admission of defeat. And there is the question of identity. Just as importantly, these problems hang over the managers every day. Staying too long in a dying business is rarely the result of one major misstep – rather, it is the result of a series of seemingly innocent steps that merely serve to delay the inevitable.

Recognizing the terrible importance of the inflexibility of an enterprise that is tied to a particular line of business, mode of production, or labor force is a difficult task. Many value investors have been caught in this trap. Some business appears to offer excellent value today; but, if it should cling too long to its old ways, that value will be destroyed. It’s tempting to think that managers will see the obvious danger, act to remedy the problem, and forever change the organization, before the inevitable occurs. But, that kind of thinking requires a leap of faith. It is too easy for the investor to believe what he wants to believe – to assume that somehow tomorrow will take care of itself.

Even Warren Buffett, a man who has been ever vigilant in his efforts to avoid prolonged entanglements in businesses with poor economics, has suffered from delusions of an easy transition. There are probably three good examples of such delusions from Buffett’s career. Discussing only two will be sufficient (the third would be Baltimore department store Hochschild-Kohn).

Buffett suffered from his most recent delusion in late 1993. That’s when Berkshire Hathaway acquired Dexter Shoe. Buffett now realizes that deal was a mistake. In the 2001 annual letter to shareholders he wrote:

“I've made three decisions relating to Dexter that have hurt you in a major way: (1) buying it in the first place; (2) paying for it with stock and (3) procrastinating when the need for changes in its operations was obvious…Dexter, prior to our purchase - and indeed for a few years after - prospered despite low-cost foreign competition that was brutal. I concluded that Dexter could continue to cope with that problem, and I was wrong.”

Buffett lists three separate decisions. I don’t think the way he presents the Dexter Shoe debacle is simply a thoughtless arrangement. Buffett is admitting he shouldn’t have bought Dexter Shoe at all. He shouldn’t have bought it with stock or cash.

His purchase was based on a false premise. It wasn’t simply a matter of overpaying (by using stock). It’s also interesting to note the third decision he describes: “procrastinating when the need for changes in its operations was obvious”. That’s a pretty harsh admission.

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