Alice Schroeder
Encyclopedia
Alice Schroeder is an American author and insurance analyst. In the first week of October 2008, she published The Snowball, Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life is a biography about Warren Buffett by Alice Schroeder.Before this book was written, Warren Buffett rejected numerous approaches by biographers, journalists, and publishers to cooperate on an account of his life...

, which debuted as a #1 New York Times bestseller. Alice was Institutional Investor
Institutional Investor (magazine)
Institutional Investor magazine is a monthly periodical published by Euromoney Institutional Investor. A separate international edition of the magazine was established in 1976 for readers in Europe and Asia. Capital Cities Communications purchased the magazine in 1984...

's highest rated insurance analyst at Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....

. At the US FASB
Financial Accounting Standards Board
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is a private, not-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to develop generally accepted accounting principles within the United States in the public's interest...

, she drafted and oversaw SFAS No. 113, sweeping changes to the US reinsurance accounting rules. Since 2008, her columns have been published in Bloomberg News. In 2008 BusinessWeek
BusinessWeek
Bloomberg Businessweek, commonly and formerly known as BusinessWeek, is a weekly business magazine published by Bloomberg L.P. It is currently headquartered in New York City.- History :...

, chose her alongside Ben Bernanke
Ben Bernanke
Ben Shalom Bernanke is an American economist, and the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. During his tenure as Chairman, Bernanke has overseen the response of the Federal Reserve to late-2000s financial crisis....

 and Hillary Clinton as one of the "People to Watch in 2008." Snowball was named a finalist at the 2009 Gerald Loeb Award
Gerald Loeb Award
The Gerald Loeb Award, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was established in 1957 by Gerald Loeb, a founding partner of...

s for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism and shortlisted for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award
Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award
Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award is an annual award given to the best business book of the year as determined by the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs. It aims to find the book that has ‘the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues.’ The...

.

Early life and career

Alice Lynnette Davey is a native of Dallas, Texas. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother was a housewife. She has a BBA
Bachelor of Business Administration
The Bachelor of Business Administration is a bachelor's degree in Commerce and business administration. In most universities, the degree is conferred upon a student after four years of full-time study in one or more areas of business concentrations; see below...

 in finance and an MBA
Master of Business Administration
The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...

 from the McCombs School of Business
McCombs School of Business
The McCombs School of Business, also referred to as the McCombs School or simply McCombs, is a business school at The University of Texas at Austin. In addition to the main Austin campus, McCombs offers classes outside Central Texas in Dallas, Houston and internationally in Mexico City...

 at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

.http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/news/magazine/08f/oracle.asp In 1990, she married Harold Schroeder, a CPA
Certified Public Accountant
Certified Public Accountant is the statutory title of qualified accountants in the United States who have passed the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and have met additional state education and experience requirements for certification as a CPA...

. They divorced in 2006. Schroeder married executive search
Executive search
Executive search is the consultative process of recruiting individuals to fill senior executive positions in organizations. Executive search may be performed by an organization's board of directors, or by an outside executive search organization....

 consultant David Moyer in 2008.http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/200810/?pg=21#pg21

Accountant and Regulator

Schroeder worked as a CPA at Ernst and Young from 1980 to 1991. Until 1993 she was a project manager with the Financial Accounting Standards Board
Financial Accounting Standards Board
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is a private, not-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to develop generally accepted accounting principles within the United States in the public's interest...

. At the FASB she was responsible for three projects designed to curtail abusive accounting by insurers:

Wall Street

Schroeder began work on Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

 in 1994 at broker-dealer Dowling Partners, then moved to CIBC Oppenheimer and PaineWebber before joining Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....

 in 2000. She was ranked as a member of the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team for seven years and named the #1 Property-Casualty insurance analyst two years in a row. In 2002. Schroeder was voted one of ‘’Business Insurance’’ magazine's Rising Stars. That year, she was also named analyst/researcher of the year by ‘’The Review,’’ a reinsurance industry publication.http://www.thereview.biz/thereview/staticResource.jsp?disp_name=TRV_review_worldwide_reinsurance_awards_winners Schroeder was also considered an expert on the effect of the September 11 attacks on the insurance industry.
Coverage of American International Group

Schroeder followed AIG
American International Group
American International Group, Inc. or AIG is an American multinational insurance corporation. Its corporate headquarters is located in the American International Building in New York City. The British headquarters office is on Fenchurch Street in London, continental Europe operations are based in...

 closely as an analyst and for years was a strong supporter of the stock. In 2002 she stated that AIG’s CEO Hank Greenberg was so revered that “What investors really want is for Hank to be immortal.”http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/08/08/8267642/index.htm In October 2000, Schroeder declared that market concerns about AIG’s reserves were “overblown.” Subsequently, Greenberg was terminated from AIG at the insistence of New York State Attorney General
New York State Attorney General
The New York State Attorney General is the chief legal officer of the State of New York. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government of New York.The current Attorney General is Eric Schneiderman...

 Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Laurence Spitzer is an American lawyer, former Democratic Party politician, and political commentator. He was the co-host of In the Arena, a talk-show and punditry forum broadcast on CNN until CNN cancelled his show in July of 2011...

 and five employees of General Re and AIG were indicted in connection with an accounting fraud at AIG that overstated reserves in this and subsequent quarters. The accounting rules violated were those Schroeder oversaw as an FASB project manager in 1993 and 1994. Schroeder testified at the federal criminal conspiracy trial in Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...

 and stated that had she known the company’s true financial status it would almost certainly affected her opinion on the stock. The defendants were convicted on all counts and are appealing.
Coverage of MBIA

In 2002, activist hedge fund manager Bill Ackman challenged bond insurer MBIA's AAA rating
Bond credit rating
In investment, the bond credit rating assesses the credit worthiness of a corporation's or government debt issues. It is analogous to credit ratings for individuals.-Table:...

  calling for a division between MBIA's bond insurers' structured finance business and its municipal bond insurance side. Ackman published a controversial report http://www.briem.com/files/Ackman_MBIA_12092002.pdf on MBIA criticizing the company as undercapitalized
Undercapitalization
Under-capitalization refers to any situation where a business cannot acquire the funds they need. An under-capitalized business may be one that cannot afford current operational expenses due to a lack of capital, which can trigger bankruptcy, may be one that is over-exposed to risk, or may be one...

. He gave Schroeder’s team an early draft and suggested they downgrade MBIA. Schroeder and her colleague Vinay Saqi responded to Ackman’s report, generally supporting Ackman’s thesis. A few months later Morgan Stanley downgraded MBIA. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer later investigated Ackman’s activities, but no charges were filed. Ackman continued to pursue MBIA until 2008, when rating agencies
Credit rating agency
A Credit rating agency is a company that assigns credit ratings for issuers of certain types of debt obligations as well as the debt instruments themselves...

 downgraded the bond insurers.
Meeting Warren Buffett

Schroeder met Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world. Often introduced as "legendary investor, Warren Buffett", he is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is...

 in 1998 when his company, Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies. The company averaged an annual growth in book value of 20.3% to its shareholders for the last 44 years,...

, acquired General Re
General Re
Gen Re is a leading property/casualty and life/health reinsurance company and is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.-History:General Reinsurance Corporation’s history began in 1921 when two Norwegian companies, Norwegian Globe and Norwegian Assurance, merged and took the name General Casualty and...

, a stock she covered as an analyst. For six years, Schroeder was the only Wall Street sell side
Sell side
Sell side is a term used in the financial services industry. It is a general term that indicates a firm that sells investment services to asset management firms, typically referred to as the buy side, or corporate entities...

 analyst to whom Buffett http://topics.dallasnews.com/topic/Warren_Buffett spoke. Schroeder’s 1999 PaineWebber report on Berkshire Hathaway was the first significant Wall Street coverage the company received.

Writing The Snowball

In June 2003, Schroeder, then a managing director at Morgan Stanley, gave up her analyst duties and became an advisory director to the company. At this time, she began to write The Snowball with Buffett’s stated cooperation and access to his personal records, an unprecedented level of access. As later recounted in the book, Buffett told Schroeder, where accounts of his life differed, to always use the “less flattering version.” In researching The Snowball, Schroeder spent 2,000 hours with Buffett and interviewed 250 other people.

Notable Reactions to the Snowball

The Snowball was published September 29, 2008 and debuted at #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

lists of hardcover nonfiction best-sellers. New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...

 called it one of her ten favorite books of 2008. Time Magazinehttp://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1864143,00.html and People also named The Snowball one of the ten best books of the year. Other notable best of the year lists on which The Snowball appeared were included those of Publishers Weekly http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/ca6610357.html, The Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/92bc4efc-bc1a-11dd-80e9-0000779fd18c.html, BusinessWeekhttp://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_50/b4112081259662.htm, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/2008-12-21-years-best-business-books_N.htm, and The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/features/2008/holiday-guide/gifts/best-books-of-2008/. The book was named a Top 100 Editor’s Pick, the #1 business and investing book, and one of the five best biographies of the year by Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 editors. http://www.amazon.com/Best-2008-Books-Holidays-Seasonal/b?node=1239030011

After the book’s publication, Buffett reportedly stopped speaking to Schroeder, displeased with his portrayal in the book. He canceled the yearly dinner Schroeder hosted in Omaha at which she interviewed him before several hundred people. In a New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

cover story
Cover story
Cover story may refer to:* a story in a magazine whose subject matter appears on its front cover* a fictitious account that is intended to hide one's real motive, e.g. when a terrorist pretends to be farmer to buy fertilizer or to provide an explanation in case it is found; the story in the case of...

, author Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis (author)
Michael Lewis is an American non-fiction author and financial journalist. His bestselling books include The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Panic and Home Game: An...

 wrote that Schroeder fit neatly into a pattern in which Buffett brought “attractive, intelligent women” into his life, but unlike the rest Schroeder had failed to “shelter and protect” Buffett.

Goldman Sachs Pistols Controversy

On November 30, 2009, Alice Schroeder published an opinion piece
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...

 on Bloomberg News
Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=ahD2WoDAL9h0 stating that several Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational bulge bracket investment banking and securities firm that engages in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients...

 bankers, in a show of prescience about potential social unrest, had obtained pistol permits. Alice Schroeder based this information on a Freedom of Information Act
Freedom of Information Act (United States)
The Freedom of Information Act is a federal freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure...

 Letter she had received from the New York City Police Department
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...

. The column made fun of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
Lloyd Blankfein
Lloyd Craig Blankfein is an American business executive. He is currently the CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs. He has been in this position since the May 31, 2006 nomination of former CEO Henry Paulson as Secretary of the Treasury under George W...

 for having installed a security gate at his house shortly before the fall of Bear Stearns
Bear Stearns
The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. based in New York City, was a global investment bank and securities trading and brokerage, until its sale to JPMorgan Chase in 2008 during the global financial crisis and recession...

 and used Goldman's famous economic prescience as a metaphor for the potential perils of government intervention in free markets
Regulatory economics
Regulatory economics is the economics of regulation, in the sense of the application of law by government that is used for various purposes, such as centrally-planning an economy, remedying market failure, enriching well-connected firms, or benefiting politicians...

. In a December 9, 2009, Wall Street Journal blog post http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/12/09/are-goldman-sachs-bankers-really-carrying-guns/, journalist Susanne Craig reported that New York City Police Department spokesman Paul J. Browne retracted certain earlier information it had earlier given Alice Schroeder, which was part of the basis for the column. Bloomberg has since re-published the column on its website in corrected form.

First Call Controversy

In 2002, Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a provider of information for the world's businesses and professionals and is created by the Thomson Corporation's purchase of Reuters Group on 17 April 2008. Thomson Reuters is headquartered at 3 Times Square, New York City, USA...

 First Call, a research database that compiles earnings estimates by Wall Street analysts, agreed to include a broader range and interpretation of the judgment factors that analysts use to estimate earnings after complaints from several brokerage firms. The dispute with First Call became public when the Wall Street Journal reported that First Call had removed Schroeder’s estimate on Chubb Insurance
Chubb Corp.
Chubb Corporation is the eleventh largest property and casualty insurer in the United States, with over 120 offices located in 29 countries, and offers commercial, specialty, surety, and personal insurance services...

from the database after Schroeder refused to raise her estimate on Chubb to match that of other analysts.

External links



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