Warren Buffett's Protege Is An Investor To Watch

Warren Buffett’s Protege Is An Investor To Watch

I explain why Tracy Britt Cool is likely on her way to becoming a superinvestor.

Warren Buffett’s protégé Tracy Britt Cool is an investor to watch based on what I’ve learned about her so far from Wall Street Journal and New York Times articles and her Kanbrick 2021 annual letter.

I was so excited to have randomly met her when I attended the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, NE this year because I think of her as a young Warren Buffett clone where she is one of the most direct disciples of his and Charlie Munger’s investing styles.

She’s applying what she learned under Buffett’s tutelage to her own long-term investment partnership firm called Kanbrick Business Systems, or Kanbrick for short, founded in 2020 with her business partner Brian Humphrey.

Both Britt Cool and Humphrey were the previous leaders (CEO and CFO respectively) of a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary called Pampered Chef.

I am super impressed with how Tracy publicly shares her investing insights and I look forward to following her journey as a millennial investor as she is sure to become an even more successful investor and businessperson than she already is. In many ways her career is just beginning even though she is already so accomplished!

Tracy has branched out in a different way from how Berkshire operates. Kanbrick focuses on midsize companies with earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of $10-$50 million. This is much smaller than the companies Berkshire typically acquires.

In addition, she plans on being more hands on with companies rather than how Buffett was mostly hands off.

Although Tracy claims she’s not trying to be a Berkshire 2.0, I would think you probably can’t help but make your firm in the likeness and model of your mentor’s to some extent.

Tracy has always been very business-oriented from a young age in helping her family’s farmers’ market business in Manhattan, KS.

After she attended Harvard for undergrad and her MBA, at age 24 she sent an unsolicited letter to Buffett asking if she could work for him for the summer. Tracy’s sense of initiative fortunately led her to working for him for over a decade before she struck out on her own!

Buffett has high praise for Tracy in saying she thinks like he would and she’s a fireman who has always done a first class job at anything he’s assigned to her. Tracy and Buffett have some qualities in common such as their Midwestern roots and close birthdays that I believe makes them peas in a pod.

As an investor, Tracy only looks at companies that are within her circle of competence and which she can buy with a margin of safety. I appreciated learning about her investment style in her annual letter and gleaned many investing lessons from what she wrote.

I plan on emulating this female investor because I think there’s a lot we can learn from Tracy. Like she had written, “if you aren’t learning, you’re dying.” While that may sound strong, her heart is in the right place as she wants to help improve companies’ culture, capital allocation, and people’s lives.

And while Kanbrick is a private equity firm, it’s not a typical one so I am glad she is offering a long-term home for growing founder- and family-led businesses. I can already tell they are in great hands with Tracy’s Kanbrick and I’ll be rooting for their continued success!

If you’re interested in learning how to take control of your finances and start becoming an investor like Warren Buffett, check out my free PDF guide.

I look forward to making more investor friends! Add me on Instagram: michellemarki