Warren Watch: Combs no ‘glory hound

We're learning more about Todd Combs, the 39-year-old Connecticut hedge fund manager hired by Warren Buffett to manage part of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s investments.

The job puts him in line to succeed Buffett as Berkshire's investment decision-maker, when the time comes, so he is attracting intense scrutiny from the press, including the New York Times, Fortune magazine and various websites.

Among the tidbits:
Ÿ His middle name is Anthony.
Ÿ He once set auto insurance rates at Progressive Insurance, putting him in direct competition with Berkshire's Geico subsidiary.
Ÿ At Progressive, he met Charles A. Davis, a director who also was CEO of Stone Point Capital, a private hedge fund with connections to Goldman Sachs Group. They remained in contact, and in 2005 Stone Point started Castle Point Capital Management, giving Combs his start as a fund manager.

Davis told the New York Times that Combs is a “private, humble, shy guy,” a dedicated family man who recently gave a well-received lecture at a course on applied investing at Columbia University, where he also studied.

“He's one of those rare people in finance who just really enjoys the process,” Davis said. “He really wants to find the truth, and what is the value of a company. He's not a person who wants to delegate that to someone else or not do his own work. ...

“Todd's not a glory hound. He just really loves what he does.”
Combs bought Berkshire stock for Castle Point during late 2009, which was good timing, but Berkshire isn't one of the fund's biggest holdings.
Combs has long been “enamored” with Berkshire, Buffett said, and applied for the job as investment manager.


'Too expensive'
Li Lu, a California fund manager, decided to remain as a fund manager rather than join Berkshire, but there's another, unidentified person who also decided to stay in the lucrative fund management world.
Insider Monkey and other Internet sources speculate that the third person is David Einhorn, the 42-year-old chairman of Greenlight Capital Re, a reinsurance company that has earned more than 22 percent annually since 1996.
Einhorn made nearly $200 million before expenses last year and is “simply too expensive” for Buffett, the website said.


A significant other
The most important decision in your life?
Choosing the person you'll marry, Buffett told about 160 college students who met with him in Omaha recently.
That's because your spouse will “play such a significant part of who you are,” Gustavo Leone, a University of Wisconsin student, told the Wisconsin State Journal.
Other business students were from the University of South Dakota, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Villanova University, Pepperdine University and the University of Denver.
Buffett holds a series of such meetings each year with the goal of inspiring young people to pursue careers in business.
The students interviewed after the meeting said Buffett told them he likes to “sit in sweats on the couch and watch college football” on Saturdays. He didn't say whether he rooted for Wisconsin or Ohio State during their recent game.
Student Sandy Walter said she saw a picture of Buffett's desk that gave a hint: an autographed photo of former Green Bay Packers player Paul Hornung and coach Vince Lombardi.