The Berkshire Hathaway executive, David Sokol sat down with CNBC this morning, in his first extended TV interview since he resigned from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Sokol said In the interview, his decision to resign this week wasn’t related to his purchases and sales of stock in Lubrizol, a company he helped convince Warren Buffett to purchase. Berkshire’s $9 billion acquisition of Lubrizol was announced just weeks ago.
Instead, Sokol said a resignation has been in my mind for about 2 1/2 years. He said, as Buffett said in his remarkable letter last night that he had tried to quit twice before but was talked out of it. Sokol said it was probably a mistake to decide to stick around at Berkshire the last time around.
Sokol also said he bought Lubrizol stock because he thought it was a good investment, and had no idea whether Buffett would bite on his idea to take over the maker of industrial lubricants and additives.
I didn’t know something others didn’t know about Lubrizol, said Sokol.
