- Warren Buffett's daughter-in-law showed the investor her company's finances as a Christmas gift.
- Mary Buffett couldn't think of anything else to give the billionaire businessman.
Warren Buffett's daughter-in-law couldn't think of a good Christmas gift for him, so she showed him her company's finances.
Mary Buffett was married to the famed investor's son Peter from 1980 to 1993. The pair owned a music business together, which played to her strengths as a former Columbia Records executive who had also managed the music-publishing companies of Playboy's late founder, Hugh Hefner.
"The first year we were married, I realized, 'Warren is very rich,'" Mary told ThinkAdvisor in 2019. "'Therefore, he doesn't want anything.'"
"I didn't know what to get him, so I put together our music company's balance sheet to show him that we were making money," she said.
Unlike most people who walk Warren Buffett through their assets and liabilities, Mary Buffett wasn't seeking an investment.
"I just wanted to show him, 'Look, we're doing good,'" she told ThinkAdvisor.
She also described more broadly what Christmas with the Buffetts was like: lots of food, famous faces, and debates about intrinsic value.
"When the family got together in Laguna over Christmastime, all the titans of industry would be there," she said in the interview. "We'd have lunches and dinners, and they'd all talk about companies. Investing was the only thing Warren ever talked about!"
Since divorcing Peter Buffett, Mary Buffett has worked as a consultant and speaker, founded an online school, and taught business and finance to university students. She has also written nine books about Buffett, according to her website.