On November 23, 1999, I received a one-page fax from Bruce Cort that appended a Washington Post article describing an aborted buyout of CORT Business Services. Despite his name, Bruce has no connection with CORT. Rather, he is an airplane broker who had sold Berkshire a jet in 1986 and who, before the fax, had not been in touch with me for about ten years. I knew nothing about CORT, but I immediately printed out its SEC filings and liked what I saw. That same day I told Bruce I had a possible interest and asked him to arrange a meeting with Paul Arnold, CORT’s CEO. Paul and I got together on
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