Warren Buffett's 'most gruesome mistake' was buying Dexter Shoe. Here's the story of his $9 billion error.

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• Warren Buffett's "most gruesome mistake" was buying Dexter Shoe in 1993, a Maine shoemaker that soon collapsed under pressure from cheap foreign imports.
• The famed investor paid for Dexter with 25,203 Class A shares in Berkshire Hathaway, worth about $8.7 billion today.
• "I gave away 1.6% of a wonderful business ... to buy a worthless business," Buffett said in his 2007 letter to shareholders.
• "As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records," he wrote in his 2014 letter.
• View Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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Warren Buffett's "most gruesome mistake" was buying Dexter Shoe in 1993. The Maine shoemaker quickly became worthless; the Berkshire Hathaway shares he swapped for it are worth about $8.7 billion today.

The so-called Oracle of Omaha acquired Dexter for 25,203 Class A shares, worth $433 million at the time. 

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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