Sunday, December 14, 2014

Berkshire News Briefs - 12/14/14

Berkshire Hathaway buys Charter Brokerage (Fortune)
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Friday said it was buying oil industry logistics provider Charter Brokerage from private equity firm Arsenal Capital Partners. [...] Charter is a U.S. petroleum and chemical drawback services provider. A drawback is the refund of import duties and taxes on a product when a form of that same product is exported. Charter Brokerage connects importers and exporters in the petroleum and petrochemical industries to arrange such refunds. Earlier this year, a source familiar with Arsenal’s potential sale of Charter valued the company at up to $500 million.

Warren Buffett Looks Ahead to Berkshire’s Next 50 Years (WSJ MoneyBeat)

Warren Buffett says that lately he’s been pondering the future of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. more than usual. Like in years past, he has been busy composing his annual letter to shareholders reviewing Berkshire’s performance in 2014. However, because 2015 will mark the golden anniversary of Berkshire Hathaway under “current management,” Mr. Buffett has also been laying out, on paper, his vision for Berkshire for the next 50 years. [...] Berkshire shareholders and those who follow the conglomerate’s activities will get a bonus next year: Mr. Munger is also writing down his vision for Berkshire for the next 50 years. Shareholders love Mr. Munger’s sometimes bruising wit and deadpan delivery, often in response to questions posed at Berkshire’s annual meeting.

Berkshire Hathaway Director Susan Decker Offers Rare Peek Into How The Berkshire Board Functions (Silicon Valley Business Journal)

Berkshire Hathaway's unusual operating style extends deep into the boardroom, according to Susan Decker, the former Yahoo! CFO who became a director in 2007. [...] "The board is not involved in the valuation decision for acquisitions. Warren will often discuss large deals with the board in advance, but usually at the conceptual level, rather than asking for approval of valuation and structuring," Decker said. "It's the opposite with other boards I'm on, in which approval is required by the board for the funds used for large acquisitions and for structuring considerations of the deal."

NetJets infiltrated private website, pilots say (Columbus Dispatch)

The NetJets pilots union is accusing company officials of impersonating a member of the union on Twitter and infiltrating a password-protected message board. [...] The union has a website for its members. Parts are public, but much of the site is private and password-protected. The lawsuit alleges that in September a NetJets official had several printouts of pages of “ confidential communications” from the message board. This created a “chilling effect on the ability of union members to communicate with one another and their union leadership and interferes with the union’s ability to fairly represent (the pilots),” the lawsuit states, adding that such surveillance is a violation of the Railway Labor and Stored Communication acts. [...] The lawsuit also charges that tweets from someone with the Twitter handle TwinkieTheKid tried to interfere with union elections, threatened to blacklist union pilots from other employment and posted photos of union members “conducting lawful picketing, thereby documenting the identities of union members who engaged in protected activities under the Railway Labor Act.”

Pilots picket NetJets at Art Basel (NY Post)

Pilots for private jet firm NetJets are picketing outside Art Basel Thursday against their own company, which is owned by Warren Buffet‘s Berkshire Hathaway, for a plan that would reduce their paycheck by 5 percent over five years, and have them work more hours. [...] Explaining, that the reason CEO Jordan Hansell “is telling us we have to take pay cuts is because Berkshire Hathaway is demanding a greater return, they want more profits to be sent up to Berkshire … our owners are some of the wealthiest people on the planet, really.”

Berkshire Hathaway insurance unit to enter Singapore (Omaha World Herald)

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, a 2013 startup at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has expanded to Singapore, where it plans to sell business coverage. The Boston-based unit of Omaha’s Berkshire said in a statement Monday it had received a license to sell insurance in Singapore, a city-state in Southeast Asia with a population of 5.5 million that is the world’s second-largest port and fourth-largest financial center. BHSI, started at Berkshire Hathaway with the defection last year of many top executives at New York-based American International Group, plans to sell coverage in Singapore for commercial property, business liabilities, energy and construction projects, and marine and financial risks.

Understanding The True Value of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (Fool)

So what is the actual intrinsic value of Berkshire Hathaway and the litany of businesses it owns? Well, that's an easier question to ask than to answer. [...] Buffett is right in saying neither he nor Charlie -- nor anyone else for that matter -- can definitively calculate the true intrinsic value of Berkshire. But we can be certain it is worth a whole lot more than the $8.2 billion (or just 2.2% of its total value) the market currently suggests it is.

Berkshire Hathaway Owns 4.18% of Restaurant Brands International and Controls 14.37% of its Voting Shares (Valuewalk)

Upon the closing of the Burger King acquisition of Tim Horton’s on December 12, 2014, Berkshire purchased, for a total of $3 billion, a 9% perpetual voting preferred stock and exercised a warrant to purchase 8,438,225 common shares at the exercise price of $0.01 per share [...] However, Berkshire’s press release indicates that it now owns 4.18% of the outstanding common shares of QSR. [...] The 4.18% stake translates into approximately 20.2 million shares which, at BKW’s closing price on December 12 of $35.50 per share, are currently valued at about $715 million.

Buffett's wealth balloons as Berkshire hits high (CNBC)

Warren Buffett is now the world's second-richest person as Berkshire Hathaway's stock rallied to an all-time high. Forbes said its real-time ranking of the world's billionaires now estimates Buffett's wealth at $74.4 billion, about $1.5 billion more than Carlos Slim's $72.9 billion. Slim is now in third place.

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