Warren Buffett: the unheard voice mail

The American investor Warren Buffett, one of the three richest men in the world, might have averted the banking crisis if he had just checked his voice mail. That's the implication of an extraordinary revelation made on the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bank collapse.

At Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit, Buffett revealed that a year ago Barclays Bank was considering making a bid for the troubled investment bank and wanted to know whether Buffett might use his billions to insure Lehman's assets.

But when Buffett asked Barclays chief Bob Diamond to fax him more information, he never received a response and put the matter to one side.

What Buffett revealed to the world's most powerful women was that Diamond did come back with the required information - but instead of faxing it, he left a voice mail on Buffett's cell phone. And Buffett, something of a technophobe, did not know how to retrieve it.

Could the man who has been swapping places with Bill Gates and Carlos Slim Helu at the top of the world's rich list for the past few years really have averted the crisis?

It makes a great story - but as Michael Corkery of the Wall Street Journal wrote last night: "If the Oracle from Omaha really thought he could profit from insuring Lehman's assets, he would have followed up with Diamond. Likewise, if Diamond thought he had a realistic chance of closing a deal with Buffett, don't you think he would have likely lobbed a follow up call?"

Here's the truth according to Corkery: "Buffett may not know how to use a cell phone, but he's pretty savvy about avoiding terrible investments. That was one call he has to be glad he never answered." ·