Warren Buffett changed his investing strategy starting with American Express—and a salad oil scandal
This story brings together a tipster, a villain, a visionary, and Warrren Buffett, arguably the greatest investor of all time. And it’s mixed with salad oil.
The villain
Tino DeAngelis had an early business start in the meat industry. He was allegedly involved in black market sales during World War II. He paid $100,000 in damages for exporting substandard cooking fat to Yugoslavia. After acquiring control of a public meatpacker, he was required to pay new damages of $100,000 because of inferior products. Then another one of his companies was accused of exporting inferior lard to Germany, resulting in “the usual” $100,000 in damages. DeAngelis later created Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Refining Corporation (Allied)….
