"The number one risk factor, you never see it, the number one risk factor is that this business gets the wrong management, and you get a guy or a woman in charge of it that are personable, the directors like them, they don't know what they're doing, but they know how to put on an appearance. That's the single biggest danger,"
Most definitely and perhaps this answer the question in my other posts why shareholders tend to 'expect' dividend payments from the mgt team / directors of the company. Perhaps it could be many decades of failed managements of NZ listed companies that it's kinda painted the investment area that it's probably not such a bad idea to get some form of payment than risk losing 100% of the investment.

I've been living in NZ long enough (25+ years) and see 1 example after another where mgt has failed. You know, 1 CEO or CFO or director sacked from their job and it's not just the smaller companies that behave this way, but also the larger NZ listed ones. I remember NZ Telecom looking for a CEO replacement when they hired a guy from overseas with a massive pay package ; his glorious idea was to change the to what we have Spark.

What is clear about investment rules is what happens in NZ is clearly different to what happens abroad. So what Warren Buffet says is of moot interest to the NZ investor (or so that's my perception I see here). Likewise with the difference in taxation where Kiwi Savers funds pay taxes every year + FIF / FDR on US listed equities (and then to investors at RWT) or the PIE rate. Whereas N. America, savers there pay no taxes to maximise compound growth and can control their rate of tax they pay at retirement (for which senior incomes are low as they quit their day job) are much less. I'm not at all comfortable of the NZ arrangement that investors in their 20s - 50s should be paying taxes on investment gains when those are the years they are "most productive". The deferring of taxing over in US/Canada is a definitely win for the middle class.