The Irish Independent reports that the greater Dublin region got the lion's share of new hotels opened in 2006 and will also feature strongly when the 2007 figures are collated by Fáilte Ireland.

The Irish Independent also reports that Microsoft Ireland Operations, which employs 1,200 people in Sandyford, Co Dublin, paid dividends totalling €5bn to its Seattle-based parent over the past two years.

The Irish Times reports that plans to harmonise corporation tax across the European Union could undermine Irish sovereignty and threaten inward investment in the economy, an internal Government document has warned.

The document, a copy of which has been seen by The Irish Times, also warns that, while the unanimity required to implement the measure is lacking, the proposal has the support of all major EU states except Britain.

The Department of Finance memorandum, which outlines the Government's opposition to the Common Consolidated Corporation Tax Base (CCCTB) proposal, says that by harmonising the way corporation tax liabilities are calculated Ireland's rate of corporation tax could end up becoming higher.

At 12.5 per cent, Ireland's is among the lowest rates of corporation tax in the EU.

Instead of being calculated separately in each member state in which a company operates, as at present, if the plan succeeds, companies will have their liabilities calculated on an EU level.

The document states that problems could arise over how to calculate the shares of corporation taxes which, once levied at EU level, are repaid to member states in which such a company operates.

"The question arises as to which economic criteria would apply: proportion of assets, risk, employment, sales revenue in each member state? It is difficult to see how an appropriate division of the profit could be devised," the document states.

Under the CCCTB proposal, companies operating in Ireland could be forced to pay a higher rate of corporation tax on their Irish activities than is currently the case.

"This would reduce the effectiveness of our 12.5 per cent rate, with consequential negative impacts on Ireland's competitiveness and attractiveness for DFI [direct foreign investment]."

Such a plan would impact negatively on corporate tax revenue. "With the base harmonised, it will be easy to propose a common uniform EU tax rate. This is not a good feature," the document adds.

A confidential part of the memorandum lists Hungary, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Spain as fully supporting the plan.

Among the large countries of the EU, only Britain is opposed to the plan, supported by Ireland, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. The position of the remainder of countries is described in the document as "sceptical".

"Protecting Ireland's low corporation tax rate is of vital importance to the Irish economy and in terms of attracting inward investment into our country in the future," Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan said yesterday.

Tomorrow, a delegation comprised of Mr Ryan and representatives of the employers' body Ibec and the Irish Bankers' Federation will meet EU commissioner for taxation Lazlo Kovacs to lobby against the plan.

The Irish Times also reports that former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry has said he has been told he will not be facing charges arising from a substantial tax settlement with the Revenue Commissioners.

A statement on his behalf last night said Mr Lowry was "greatly relieved that the Director of Public Prosecutions has decided that there should be no prosecution in regard to the Revenue file sent to them".

The statement added: "This confirmed the long-held view of Mr Lowry's legal advisers that having made a voluntary disclosure to the Revenue, there is no sustainable case against Garuda Ltd [Mr Lowry's company] or Mr Lowry. The matter is now closed." The statement noted that Mr Lowry had paid the Revenue almost €1.5 million, which included "punitive penalties and interest".

Earlier yesterday, Mr Lowry had said that he had received the news "a number of weeks ago".

It was revealed at the Moriarty tribunal last year that Mr Lowry had paid €1,434,324 in respect of tax, interest and penalties due to the Revenue Commissioners.

The payments were for Mr Lowry's debt to the Revenue, and that of his company, Garuda Ltd, arising out of transactions discovered by the 1997 McCracken (Dunnes Payments) tribunal, as well as the Moriarty tribunal.

At the time, the question of a criminal prosecution against Mr Lowry, who availed of the 1993 tax amnesty, appeared to be a possibility. The terms of the amnesty required a full disclosure to the Revenue.

In an interview broadcast last night on the TV3 programme The Political Party, Mr Lowry said that he had remortgaged his house and sold assets to pay the Revenue.

He said that the media had been "regularly commenting on the fact that I would go to jail, those in competition with me in my constituency have been telling people not to vote for me because . . . I was going to jail".

He added that "for me probably the biggest relief that I have had over the past 10 years was the formal decision from the DPP's office that no charges could be sustained against me".

Mr Lowry said that "dark days" were over. They had been very stressful, very difficult and had consumed a lot of his time and energy, he added.

The Moriarty tribunal is investigating payments made to Mr Lowry, who is now an Independent TD for Tipperary North. It has issued its findings relating to the finances of former taoiseach Charles Haughey.

In his TV3 interview, Mr Lowry said there was no comparison, in his view, between Mr Haughey's position and his own position.

"The first thing has to be said is that any funds that found their way to me were in return for services rendered, so I'm quite confident that the big issue in relation to the Moriarty tribunal is the awarding of the mobile licence . . . and all of the officials from the department who have given evidence to the tribunal have indicated quite clearly and unequivocally that I did not at any stage attempt to influence the outcome of that decision."

He said there was a part of him which felt sorry for Mr Haughey, and, obviously, for his family.

Commenting on his resignation from the Rainbow cabinet in 1996, when details of his business arrangement with Dunnes Stores emerged, Mr Lowry said that the then taoiseach, John Bruton, remained a good friend. When an opportunity arises, they meet "and have a chat and review the current circumstances . . . and sometimes a glance back at the past". He insisted he had not been "in the pocket" of the company's former chief executive, Ben Dunne.

The Irish Examiner reports that EU plans to reform VAT rules to cut down on massive fraud were welcomed by Finance Minister Brian Cowan at a meeting of European finance ministers in Berlin this weekend.

Tax fraud costs governments up to €200 billion every year according to estimates, and the scope for fraud is growing as internet shopping increases.

Ireland has suffered less than many of the larger countries but the country has been used by criminals reclaiming VAT to which they are not entitled from the British government.

The EU’s 27 member countries are searching for a way to minimise or wipe out this expensive fraud but they are far from agreeing any single strategy yet.

Minister Cowan said, “We are very interested in more effective anti-fraud methods that would uphold the Single Market and help it function better, and would help business. This is the kind of agenda we believe in rather than some of the other areas the union gets involved in”.

VAT is usually paid by all customers in the supply chain and business to business buyers can reclaim the tax from the state.

But in what is called “carousel fraud”, some criminals pretend to export small valuable goods such as computer chips and mobile phones to another country and reclaim the VAT, which they have not paid.

Britain is considering changing the system so that VAT will only be charged to the final customer for these kind of products and not to any businesses, so ending the system of allowing refunds.

The finance ministers met in Berlin to discuss a proposal put forward by Germany and Austria.

They want to operate a small pilot project between their two countries for a limited period of time to test it out. Since this is a taxation issue it needs the all member states to agree to it. But they failed to win support from any country except Malta for the proposal.

Mr Cowan said they wanted more information about this. They expected this to be available to the June meeting of finance ministers.

The German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck said the German government would continue to block EU plans to simplify VAT until the issue was sorted out.

The Financial Times reports that Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal will contest the second round of the French presidential elections on May 6 following a huge turnout on Sunday by voters demanding change.

Mr Sarkozy, the neo-Gaullist former interior minister who has been the frontrunner for most of the campaign, appeared to have secured one of the highest votes yet achieved by a rightwing candidate in the first round. With 99 per cent of the vote counted, interior ministry figures showed him winning 31.09 per cent of the vote.

However, Ms Royal also scored a personal triumph by coming a convincing second with 25.78 per cent, confounding doubters in her own Socialist party and fending off the challenge from François Bayrou, leader of the centrist UDF party.

Ms Royal becomes the first female candidate to contest the second round.

An Ipsos poll conducted on Sunday suggested that Mr Sarkozy would beat Ms Royal in the run-off by a margin of 54 per cent to 46 per cent.

However, several of the 10 defeated candidates from the first round immediately declared their support for Ms Royal as they moved to build an anti-Sarkozy front.

Mr Bayrou, who came third with 18.53 per cent, gave no hint on Sunday night whom he would back in the second round. The UDF’s voters have traditionally been on the centre-right, but Mr Bayrou flirted heavily with the Socialist party during the campaign.

The next round will pit two wildly contrasting personalities and political programmes against each other. Mr Sarkozy, 52, the voluble son of a Hungarian immigrant, has been using near-Thatcherite rhetoric, calling for lower taxes and higher rewards for harder work. But the ex-finance minister is also highly interventionist on industrial policy and protectionist on European trade policy.

Mr Sarkozy appears to have succeeded in winning voters from the far-right National Front by talking tough on crime, immigration and national identity. However, this tactic has provoked outrage on the left, which accused him of pandering to racists.

Ms Royal, 53, has been running on a more traditional socialist programme, promising to raise the minimum wage and pensions. But she also wants to modernise the economy along the lines of Nordic economies, which combine high state spending and flexible labour markets.

Mr Sarkozy said on Sunday night that he welcomed the chance to debate with Ms Royal about “two ideas of the nation, two projects of society, two systems of values and two conceptions of politics”. Appealing to all voters from all backgrounds and all political persuasions, he said he wanted to realise a “new French dream” building on the republic’s ideals of fraternity.

Speaking later, Ms Royal said that a new campaign had begun to decide France’s destiny and give the country a new face. “I want to reform France without brutalising it and make human values win over financial ones,” she said, promising to put a smile back on France’s face.

Ms Royal’s supporters hinted that they would attack Mr Sarkozy personally for moving so far to the right in search of National Front voters. Vincent Peillon, one of her spokesmen, said: “All French people who are against racism, xenophobia and nationalism will reunite around the candidacy of Ségolène Royal.”

Voter turnout was one of the highest on record at nearly 80 per cent.

The challenge from Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front who came second in the 2002 elections, appeared to have evaporated. The early results put him in fourth place with only 10.55 per cent of the vote.

The FT reports that plans to introduce US-style plea bargaining for suspected insider dealers are being studied by the City watchdog to bolster its enforcement powers.

The Financial Services Authority has held talks with the Treasury on the introduction of immunity from prosecution and plea-bargaining for insider dealing.

This could see suspects offered lesser punishments, or even immunity, in return for co-operating with the FSA on identifying more important offenders.

Margaret Cole, head of enforcement at the FSA, said: “In the past, the idea of the plea bargain in this country has been looked at with disdain. But we have been studying the US experience and are now seriously looking at whether we can introduce a form of plea bargaining which can be hugely advantageous.”.

The FSA is also looking at linking fines more closely to individual wealth. Ms Cole’s statement comes at a time of heightened merger and acquisition activity, which has triggered concerns that insider trading has become a systemic problem in the UK

Referring to an FSA study which found that a quarter of all 2005 takeovers were preceded by suspicious share-trading activity, Ms Cole said: “This apparent prevalence of leakage of insider information is too high for comfort.”.

An independent study by the Financial Times into the share price movements of some UK bid targets over the past two years reveals several examples where share prices rose significantly more than normal just before the bids were announced.

Shares in Reg Vardy, the car dealership, rose 8.2 per cent relative to its sector four days before rival Pendragon made its $936m (£467m) offer. Such a share price movement was so rare it had a one in 3.5m chance of happening.

Likewise, Viridian, an Irish energy utility, had the biggest single-day share movement relative to other peer stocks on the day before Arcapita unveiled its official bid announcement. The price movement was so unusual that the chance of it happening is less than one in 1,000bn.

Four days before Babcock & Brown’s bid for PD Ports, shares in the ports operator rose 8p in the day, 6.3 per cent relative to the sector. The chance of its shares rising that much is one in 31,600.

In the US, much of the SEC’s success in imposing heavy fines rests on its ability to secure plea-bargain deals with alleged insider dealers terrified of the risks involved if their cases go to criminal trials. A plea bargain can consist of a defendant pleading guilty to a charge in return for a prosecutor dropping more serious accusations.

The FT study does not suggest that any of the companies mentioned here were themselves involved in any wrongdoing.

Reg Vardy declined to comment and PD Ports did not respond to requests for comment.

Viridian said: “We issued a statement on October 5 noting the rise in the share price and announcing that Viridian was considering

The New York Times reports that navigating the aisles of a GameStop video game store in Midtown Manhattan, Bennett Kirschner passed by the latest titles for consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Sony’s PlayStation 2 and 3, and Nintendo’s runaway hit, the Wii — all lit and displayed like best-selling novels.

Instead, from a less ostentatious corner in the basement, he selected a $40 game that would play more than reasonably well on his three-year-old Dell personal computer. The game is Civilization IV, part of a series of strategy games in which a player, like a god, develops a stone-age culture into a modern one.

“When I was a kid, I used to like Nintendo and used to play on consoles,” said Mr. Kirschner, a 28-year-old lawyer. “But right now I don’t have the time or money to invest in a $400 console and $50 in a game.”

Like other gamers drawn to the PC, however, he said the attraction went beyond convenience and cost. He said computer games seem more sophisticated than console games and offer a greater sense of accomplishment. “It’s not just killing unlimited enemies on a screen,” he said.

Not so long ago, PC titles were the mainstay of video gaming, but they have slumped in recent years, overshadowed by a new generation of game consoles. Now they are showing signs of a comeback.

Most prominent has been the strength of one of the most popular video games ever for PCs, World of Warcraft, a role-playing online adventure game that now has more than eight million subscribers.

But retail sales of other titles are on the rebound as well. PC manufacturers and chipmakers are promoting the game-playing prowess of ever more powerful computers. And Microsoft has inaugurated a program aimed at making PC gaming more attractive, incorporating console-like features and easier online play.

There is also considerable buzz about Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, a long-awaited game due in June from id Software, the creator of the blockbuster hits Doom and Quake in the 1990s.

Anita Frazier, an industry analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm, noted that in the first two months of 2007, domestic retail sales of PC games reached $203 million, a 48 percent increase over the $136.8 million in the period a year earlier. She noted that these figures do not include revenue generated by PC game sales online, or online subscriptions to play PC games.

“Yes, it does look like a fluke, doesn’t it?” Ms. Frazier said. “Rest assured it’s not.”

She said the bulk of this surge in sales is rooted in the role-playing video game genre that, itself, grew 43 percent over the same period last year. “The robust performance we’re seeing in PC game sales can be tied to several key titles across several genres,” she said, “but we’d be remiss not to address the continued success of World of Warcraft.”

The upsurge comes after some recent reversals. Over all, retail sales of PC-based games in the United States exceeded $970 million in 2006, an increase of about 1 percent of sales the previous year of $953 million, which represented about a 14 percent drop from $1.1 billion in 2004.

By contrast, according to the NPD Group, retail sales for console games in 2006 were $4.8 billion; another $1.7 billion was spent on games for hand-held devices like Sony’s PlayStation Portable.

“I think with three consoles out in the last couple of years, it’s natural to focus on consoles,” said Todd Hollenshead, chief executive of id Software, which was a pioneer in first-person-shooter games for the PC but today makes games for PCs and consoles. “There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of marketing dollars and a lot of hype for consoles.”

In an arena where the console makers market their wares heavily, he said, “we don’t have any champion of the PC game business to step in and leverage those sorts of marketing dollars.”

But that may change with new initiatives by several companies to use PC gaming as a showcase for their technologies and services.

Under the rubric Games for Windows, Microsoft is instituting a number of measures to raise the profile of PC games in retail stores while lowering barriers that have made buying and playing games on computers less attractive.

Last month, it announced that it would soon extend its Xbox Live online gaming and entertainment network to include games played on PCs, a program it is calling Games for Windows — Live.

And to minimize the confusion of ensuring that a particular computer has adequate graphics and processing capabilities to play a particular game, Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, is designed to evaluate any computer it is running on.

Based on its assessment, Vista gives the computer a “system score.” Under the Games for Windows program, games are assigned a score, giving shoppers an easy guide for determining if a game in the store will play well on their computer at home, said Kevin Unangst, director of global marketing for Games for Windows.

Another move, he said, is to permit gamers who are more comfortable playing games with Xbox controllers than with keyboards and mice to use their Xbox controllers, wired and wireless (by way of a special $20 U.S.B. wireless adapter) with their PCs.

“One of the greatest barriers to PC gaming is user interface, controllers,” he said.

In the meantime, as the latest generation of consoles are among the most powerful ever made, PCs, including notebook computers, can continually outstrip consoles in sheer power and speed. Computer development cycles, the rates of adopting faster and more powerful technologies, are always much faster than those of consoles, whose core components cannot be upgraded like PCs’, said Abizar Vahkaria, the worldwide head of gaming at Dell.

“Gaming actually started on computers and has been evolving on the PC for a very long time,” he said, noting that Dell is deeply committed to designing and building computers that cater to gamers’ needs and desires. “What we do at Dell is work with all of the game developers and publishers and do all we can to deliver a world-class experience with gaming.”

An example is Dell’s XPS 710 H2C, a hulking desktop tower that looks as if it could have been snatched from the machined clutches of “The Matrix.” Under its black shell, gamers can order, for instance, super-powerful hardware like an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Quad-Core processor and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards with SLi dual graphics technology.

The PC, which costs more than $5,000, is kept from melting into a pool of plastics and metals by a two-stage, thermoelectric-liquid-cooling system. It can also play games on an optional 20-inch high-resolution flat-panel monitor, Mr. Vahkaria said.

Dell also owns Alienware, which along with VoodooPC (acquired last fall by Hewlett-Packard) has a reputation for computers aimed at hard-core gamers.

This month, Hewlett-Packard executives unveiled an ambitious set of development initiatives to improve the video-game experience — from the networks they are played over to the computers developers use to create games and the PCs players use to enjoy them.

For now, what the company has to show are prototypes, like wrap-around display screens for gaming that resemble giant visors. But Rahul Sood, chief technology officer for Hewlett-Packard’s global gaming business unit, said new products would be ready later this year.

For computer makers, catering to gamers is more than a niche pursuit. Worldwide, where video games amount to a $36 billion industry, “the PC is, no doubt, the gaming platform of choice,” said Michael Arzt, senior vice president and general manager of the American office of International Cyber Marketing, the organizer of the World Cyber Games, a major video game festival.

And that market extends from professional gamers at high-end computers to those at more humble PCs.

“Not everyone wants to lay down the money for a console and a big-screen television to make it work,” Mr. Arzt said. “The thing about the economics of the PC,” he added, is that “everybody needs a computer.”

The NYT says that Warren E. Buffett is hardly a man of mystery.

But when investors gather in Omaha in two weeks for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, there will be a nagging question mark over the head of the 76-year-old chairman: who might someday replace him in each of the two roles he plays — chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, and its chief investment officer?

A bit more is known about the choice of a future chief executive. Mr. Buffett has said there are three candidates from various Berkshire-owned companies. Buffett watchers speculate that the list includes David L. Sokol of MidAmerican Energy Holdings; Ajit Jain, head of the reinsurance division of Berkshire’s National Indemnity Company; Tony Nicely, chief executive of Geico; Joseph P. Brandon, chairman of General Re; and Richard T. Santulli, founder of NetJets.

The bigger mystery is who will become the chief investment officer. Mr. Buffett says he does not know himself. On this point of succession, “frankly, we are not as well prepared,” he wrote in his 2006 shareholder letter last month.

Here is a clue, though. He or she will probably be a lot like Louis Simpson.

Louis who?

Mr. Simpson, 70, has long overseen the investment portfolio of Geico, the insurance company Berkshire owns, which is now valued at more than $4 billion. He is also the only man other than Mr. Buffett who has managed stock investments in Berkshire’s portfolio.

Mr. Buffett is a big fan. “He is the kind of person we are looking for: smart, classy, loyal,” he said of Mr. Simpson in a telephone interview on Friday. But Mr. Simpson is just six years younger than Mr. Buffett, who has written that “for the long term, though, we need a different answer.”

Applicants would do well to learn from Mr. Simpson, which is easier now that he has agreed to his first interview since Berkshire Hathaway gained total control of Geico in 1995.

In many ways, Mr. Simpson, whose title at Geico is chief executive for capital operations, is a lot like his boss. The two have the same general distaste for technology stocks. They both favor intensive research to find attractive companies to invest in, and they share a willingness to bet on returns from just a handful of stocks.

In terms of style, though, there are some major differences. Mr. Simpson, a deliberate, slow-talking executive, has maintained much lower visibility. “I have always felt I could do a better job in adding value by being somewhat removed from the circus and parimutuel atmosphere of the market,” he said.

Mr. Simpson works in Chicago, where he moved from the La Jolla district of San Diego two years ago because his second wife, Kimberly, a chemical engineer, missed the energy of urban life.

Though he is already well-connected among Chicago’s power brokers, he tends to describe people in terms like “fancy” if they are not the plain-spoken types that populate Berkshire’s host of companies.

Mr. Simpson’s work life is similarly low-key. On a recent spring day, he sat in his three-room office suite on North Michigan Avenue here, where he works with a small staff, explaining that it had been a particularly busy time.

Busy, though, is relative. There were no researchers running around, no Bloomberg terminals, and no interruptions. “We are sort of the polar opposites of a lot of investors,” Mr. Simpson said. “We do a lot of thinking and not a lot of acting. A lot of investors do a lot of acting, and not a lot of thinking.”

He does not crow about Geico’s performance except to say that “it has been very, very good,” and he is disarmingly honest about investments that have not worked out.

“Pier 1 was a horrible mistake,” he acknowledged. “It was our own doing. They were totally out of touch fashion-wise, and it was a disaster.”

Such mistakes notwithstanding, his track record has even led Mr. Buffett to brag about him periodically. In 2004, the only time that Berkshire ever stated Geico’s performance separately, Mr. Simpson over 24 years had posted a 20 percent average annual gain, surpassing the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index by 6.8 percentage points.

Since 2004, Geico’s results have been somewhat better than the S.& P. index, he said, declining to be specific. In 2005, the S.& P. was up 4.9 percent, compounded. In 2006, it rose 15.8 percent.

“He has an amazing record,” Mr. Buffett said in the interview. “He does not make a lot of noise about it. He is a very sensible, sound, decent guy.”

To find stocks, Mr. Simpson does not read analysts’ reports. “They have their own agenda,” he said.

Nor does he search data on the Bloomberg terminal for ideas. “If I have the Bloomberg on, I find I am looking at what the market is doing,” he said. “I am looking at every news story. I really like to be the one who is parsing the information, rather than having a lot of irrelevant information thrown at me.”

Sometimes he speaks with Mr. Buffett several times a week and sometimes not for a month or two. Mr. Simpson makes his own decisions and essentially works alone.

“The more people you have, the more difficult it is to do well,” he said. “You have to satisfy everybody. If you have a limited number of decision makers, they are more likely to agree.”

It is hard to know which stocks are Geico’s and which are Mr. Buffett’s picks. Mr. Simpson holds about 10 major positions: According to filings with the Maryland Insurance Administration, they are in American Standard, Nike, Comcast, Costco Wholesale, First Data, Home Depot, ServiceMaster and UnitedHealth Group (he bought it after the stock-option scandal). Geico’s biggest position is Tesco of Britain, a stock also owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

Mr. Simpson found Nike, one of Geico’s most successful holdings, through a stake in the rival Reebok. He had hired a journalist-turned researcher, and the researcher thought that Reebok was the “cat’s meow,” Mr. Simpson recalled, adding: “Paul Fireman ran the company, but not particularly well. The more we got into it, the more I saw the really quality company with the franchise and sports brand was Nike. It was truly a worldwide brand that did not have a lot of penetration in growing parts of the world such as Asia.”

Thomas Russo, a partner in Gardner Russo & Gardner, also studied that industry for investors. Geico “did an enormous amount of research,” he said. “They wanted to understand the management questions,” adding, “We were researching companies in that same sector, and we had a pretty good idea of what was going on.”

Mr. Simpson, who grew up in Chicago and has three sons, began his investing career at Stein Roe & Farnham. During a heady investment period in the late 1960s, he learned the perils of market timing when he worked for Shareholders Management, then a hot fund company run by Fred Carr. But when the market turned, Shareholders’ Enterprise Fund took a nose dive, and there were substantial redemptions. Mr. Simpson resigned. “I viewed myself an investor, and they were trading-oriented,” he said.

From there, he joined Western Asset Management where he rose to chief executive. Still, that firm basically followed analysts’ recommendations.

It was not until Geico’s chairman, John J. Byrne, called him in 1979 to become its chief investment officer that Mr. Simpson found a niche where he could put his own ideas to work. Berkshire Hathaway was already a shareholder in Geico, and Mr. Byrne sent several candidates to see Mr. Buffett about the management job. After a four-hour interview with Mr. Simpson, Mr. Buffett called Mr. Byrne. “Stop the search,” Mr. Bryne recalled him saying. “That’s the fellow.”

Mr. Simpson’s compensation has not been disclosed since Berkshire took over Geico in 1995. At that time, he received a moderate salary and a bonus based on how much the portfolio outperformed the S.& P. 500. He said that structure had not changed.

Mr. Buffett has noted that Mr. Simpson could probably make more money elsewhere. Mr. Simpson says he is not tempted.

Does the fact that Mr. Buffett seeks a younger heir for the long term upset him?

“If he would have asked me to take over the investments for Berkshire, I certainly would have done it,” Mr. Simpson said, “but I certainly did not seek it out or wait for it to happen.”

That kind of patience has proved to be its own reward. “Lou can keep running money as long as he wants,” Mr. Buffett said.