Peddling credit cards isn’t so easy that a caveman can do it. That seems to be the conclusion Berkshire Hathaway ( BRKA , Fortune 500 ) chief executive Warren Buffett reluctantly reached last year, when he shut down a money-losing credit card business he had dreamed up for Berkshire’s Geico car-insurance unit. loadposition in-article The decision was disclosed in Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire shareholders, released Saturday. The letter called Geico’s brief foray into credit cards “a very expensive business fiasco entirely of Buffett’s own making.” Since Berkshire took over Geico in 1996, the company has grown rapidly, thanks to low prices and an advertising budget that has grown 25-fold to $800 million. Geico is best known for a series of television commercials featuring a gecko that talks with a Cockney accent. Since 2004, the company also has run spots on TV showing preppy cavemen protesting the claim that buying …

March 1st, 2010
Money maker
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