1958: Sanborn Map Company

“For someone considering investing in Sanborn Maps when Buffett was investing, the assessment likely would have been as follows: Sanborn was a near-perfect business for a long time, a sole provider of a critical service, with high returns on capital; however, in the last several years prior to 1958, the business had faced serious substitution by newer technology, which had clearly and significantly eroded its core business within the fire insurance industry.” — Yefei Lu

This week, our featured book is Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett: Twenty Cases, by Yefei Lu. Today, we are happy to provide an excerpt from Lu’s chapter on one of Buffett’s earlier investments: the Sanborn Map Company.

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