Berkshire Hathway's ACQUISITION CRITERIA

Source: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2000ar/acq.html

ACQUISITION CRITERIA

     We are eager to hear from principals or their representatives about businesses that meet all of the following criteria:

1. Large purchases (at least $50 million of before-tax earnings),
2. Demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of no interest to us, nor are "turnaround" situations), 
3. Businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt, 
4. Management in place (we can't supply it),
5. Simple businesses (if there's lots of technology, we won't understand it),
6. An offering price (we don't want to waste our time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).

Criteria 2,3,5 &5 can be used by retain investors when choosing their investments into secondary markets