Buffett widens lead in $1 million hedge fund bet
FORTUNE -- Results are in for the sixth year of the
competition sometimes called the $1 million bet, and Warren Buffett -- once a
piteous straggler in this 10-year wager on stock market performance -- has
opened up a sizable lead over his opponent, New York asset manager Protégé
Partners. Buffett's horse in the bet is a low-cost S&P index fund, and
Protégé's is the averaged returns to investors (after all fees) of five hedge
funds of funds that the firm carefully picked for the contest.
At the end of 2013, Vanguard's Admiral shares -- the S&P
index fund that's carrying Buffett's colors -- were up for the six years that
began Jan. 1, 2008 by 43.8%. For the same period, Protégé's five funds of
funds, on the average, gained only by an estimated 12.5% (a figure minutely
uncertain because some of the funds lack final figures for 2013).
By the terms of the bet, the names of those five funds of
funds have never been publicly disclosed (though Buffett knows their identity).
It has always been assumed that one of the five is a hedge fund of funds run by
Protégé itself.
