Well, the investments began maybe close to four years ago, and I was looking at company after company, as I'll do every day, and I just thought these were big companies.

They were companies that I generally understood what they did.

Some were similar to Berkshire and that they owned lots of different interests, and they were selling at what I thought was a ridiculous price, particularly the price compared to the interest rates prevailing at that time.

So I started buying all five of the five largest trading companies, and by my 90th birthday, August 30th of 2000, whatever it was, we had bought just somewhat over five percent of each company, and we were buying identical amounts.

So we announced at that time that we bought this five percent interest in each of the five.

I wrote a letter to the CEOs of each of the companies saying the same thing, that Berkshire would never buy more than 9.9 percent without their consent, and that was my word.

And they all welcomed us in, and their results have exceeded our expectations since we purchased the group.

I think their dividends on average have gone up 70 percent or something like that, and we now own 7.4 percent of each of the companies.

And I just, Greg and I together, we wanted to come over and talk to them, and so we got on a Netshift plane and flew over, and we have had a terrific time meeting each of the five sequentially over the last two days, and it's been fascinating.

And we feel even better about what, but we couldn't feel better about the investment.

And over that time, we've sold periodically yen-denominated bonds.

So more or less, we don't do it precisely, but we've insulated ourselves from exchange rate changes.

So it's worked out very well so far, but we'll be in these stocks 10, 20 years.

I mean, we weren't buying with the idea they'd go next week, next month, next year.

But we have had revelations about each of the companies that, well, Greg and I are just fascinated by it.

Was it worth the trip?

Oh, absolutely.

It's been a great trip.

I mean, they've been exceptional in how they've communicated, both with their performance, but just their approach to business.

What'd you learn since you've been here?

I think the thing that stands out very quickly to us is they came to the meetings wanting to build a relationship and strengthen it.

So they understand we've invested in their companies, but from the very get-go, when we start the conversations with them, they come each with their own story, and it's around building trust in that relationship with them.

Meaning what?

That there are other potential deals that you all could do together?

We've clearly made it, each time we've met with them, we said we very much like the core investment.

But to the extent they can identify an incremental opportunity that we could do with any of the five companies, we would very much evaluate it quickly, and Warren highlighted the bigger the better, and that he'll answer the phone on the first ring.

And we'll never run out of money.

I mean, they can call us anytime, and it may be that what they have interests us, it may not, but they'll have an answer, you know, bingo.

And if we make a deal, the money will be on the way, and we look forward to it.

And I'm just astounded at how they really, they're all different, and they're all the same at the same time.

I mean, we'd learned about five different individual companies, but it was not exactly what we expected.

It was better than we expected in every respect.

People look at this and say, okay, Warren Buffett is putting his stamp of approval on investing in Japan, basically.

Is that an accurate read?

Well, yeah, it was an accurate read, but it was an accurate read a couple of years ago, too.

I mean, I was confounded by the fact that we could buy into these companies and, in effect, have an earnings yield of maybe 14% or something like that with dividends that would grow.

They actually grew 70% during that time.

And the people were investing their money at a quarter of a percent or nothing.

And that quarter percent, if they put it out for many years, wasn't going to grow, and the 14% was more likely to grow than not.

And if that doesn't look like something sensible to me, that's as easy as it gets, but it's turned out to be better than I thought it would be.