Transcript of the Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Investor Day 2008

May 16, 2008 – St. Regis Hotel, New York City

Bob Goldfarb:

Good morning, and welcome to our Investor Day. We're going to follow the same format that we have in recent years, which means that the day is going to consist strictly of questions and answers, and we'll take questions until 12:30. We have to vacate the room by one o'clock, but we'll be around between 12:30 and one o'clock to meet you and respond to any questions that you might still have for us.

There is one restriction I'm going to ask. If there are any journalists or Internet bloggers in attendance, we ask that this meeting be off the record. We prepare a transcript of the meeting for our clients and shareholders, and we prefer that all of our shareholders and clients receive the transcript at the same time and in full.

Before we begin taking your questions, I'd like to introduce our team. On my far left is Greg Steinmetz. Next to Greg is Jon Brandt, then David Poppe, who is President of our firm and co-manager of Sequoia. Rick Cunniff is on my right. As most of you know, he's our co-founder. To his right is Greg Alexander and to Greg's right is Joe Quinones, who runs the operations side of our firm as well as that of Sequoia.

Finally, I'd like to introduce the rest of our team who are seated in the front of the room on my left and to your right. In alphabetical order, they are Girish Bhakoo, Andy Ewert, John Harris, Jake Hennemuth, Arman Kline, Trevor Magyar, Tom Mialkos, Terence Paré, and Chase Sheridan. I'd also like to introduce Jon Gross who is our Director of Client Services. With that, we're ready for your questions.

Question:

I noticed that you trimmed your stake in Wal-Mart and increased it in Target. I was wondering if you might talk about Target, its position and why you like it so much.

David Poppe:

What I would say is we bought most of the Target before we sold any Wal-Mart. Sequoia still holds Wal-Mart.

Interestingly, I think if you look over the last seven years since 2001, Wal-Mart and Target have almost identical EPS growth rates. I think going forward, both are likely to have pretty good EPS growth rates. Right now, Wal-Mart might be a little bit better positioned in that its business is more oriented to food, commodities and staples.



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