Berkshire News Briefs - 7/28/15

Berkshire Hathaway joins major renewable-energy effort (Omaha World-Herald)

Berkshire Hathaway Energy on Monday joined a dozen major U.S. businesses at the White House in calling for robust action on global warming. [...]

BH Energy has invested more than $15 billion in renewable energy and is targeting another $15 billion in investments, Greg Abel, chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a press release.

“Joining these other U.S. businesses is one more way we can demonstrate our commitment to lead on climate action,” said Abel, who is seen as a possible successor to Buffett, who turns 85 next month.

MidAmerican aiming for 57 percent of energy from wind (Des Moines Register)

Bill Fehrman, CEO of MidAmerican Energy, said Monday the company could get up to 57 percent of its energy from wind with its latest renewable energy project.

And while wind's growing presence in MidAmerican's portfolio is encouraging, so is news that the Des Moines-based utility is looking to invest in solar projects in Iowa, with community solar gardens and utility-sized solar leading the possible options. [...]

He talked with the Register as the utility's parent, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, joined a dozen other national companies in launching the American Business Act on Climate Pledge at the White House.

More on the American Business Act on Climate Pledge (including BH Energy's specific pledges).

Inside PacifiCorp's IRP: How efficiency will power the Buffett utility's next decade (UtilityDive)

PacifiCorp, part of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., serves 1.8 million customers in six states through its Pacific Power and Rocky Mountain Power utilities, and is planning to meet 86% of new demand across the next decade through demand side management. [...]

That means the utility won't need to construct another major power plant until 2028, and along the way will either shutter 10 older, inefficient coal units, or convert them to natural gas.

Berkshire Hathaway’s Bright Future (Barron's)

The Heinz score rivals anything ever achieved in the private-equity industry. It also demonstrates that Buffett, who is celebrating his 50th year at the helm of Berkshire this year, is still going strong ahead of his 85th birthday in August. Berkshire is his baby, and the company is better than ever despite the lackluster performance of its big equity portfolio [...]

“I’m scratching my head about Berkshire,” says Jay Gelb, a Barclays analyst. “The earnings power is stronger than ever, the company has done a series of attractive acquisitions, and it just closed on Kraft. None of that is reflected in Berkshire’s valuation.” [...]

British Open playoff win-win for Buffett’s Netjets (Irish Times)

The three-man British Open playoff was a win-win-win for NetJets. Zach Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman, the three men in Monday’s four-hole playoff, each have sponsorship agreements with the luxury aviation unit at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

All three wore shirts with the company’s logo throughout the 18-hole final round at St. Andrews in Scotland, then the playoff, which Johnson won. Monday’s final round telecast on ESPN generated about $6.5 million in media exposure for NetJets [...]

EU clears Berkshire Hathaway's purchase of Duracell (Reuters)

The European Commission said on Thursday it had approved Berkshire Hathaway's purchase of Procter & Gamble's Duracell battery unit.

The Commission said in a statement the proposed acquisition would not raise competition concerns given the absence of horizontal overlaps and the existence of numerous competitors in the vertically related market where the parties are active. [...]

Austbrokers faces major buffeting (Sydney Morning Herald)

Austbrokers, which takes up to 25 per cent of the first year's premium as a commission, is in trouble.

Berkshire intends to use its established position and substantial resources to sell commercial insurance online with a new initiative called Berkshire Hathaway Direct, cutting out brokers once and for all. Berkshire will focus on small to mid-size businesses – Austbrokers' bread and butter.

Until now, the company was protected by the complexity of insuring a business compared with an individual or car. Berkshire's decision to focus on internet-based, direct-to-customer commercial insurance suggests technology is now at a point where policies can be priced and written entirely online.

Italian Real Estate Agent Admits Buffett Greek Island Claims False (Newsweek)

On Monday, Proto Enterprises, a company owned by Italian real estate agent Alessandro Proto and based in London, claimed that the company had purchased St Thomas island along with Buffett, one of the world's richest men, for 15 million euros. The company added there were plans to develop real estate on the island, which is not far from Athens.

However, Buffett denied the claim on Tuesday, telling the Omaha World Herald newspaper, which is owned by Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, by email that: "Until the reports started coming out, I had never heard of the guy who is making the claims about the Greek Island." [...]

On Wednesday, after the company gave conflicting accounts to the media, Newsweek received an email from the same address, claiming to be Alessandro Proto himself, admitting that the story had been fabricated and saying that the company's claims had been a "sociological experiment", orchestrated by him. Proto predicted a meeting between himself and Buffett, and an economic bounce for Greece as a result of his actions.

Learn to code like it’s the ’90s with Berkshire Hathaway’s normcore website (Quartz)

The website of Berkshire Hathaway is famously crude. You might even call it ugly. But look at the HTML code of this spartan “WEB page” and you’ll see that the best term for it is simply old school. It is a blast from the internet’s past. [...]

Maybe it’s a conscious choice. Berkshire Hathaway and chairman Warren Buffet’s down-home reputation gives shareholders confidence through nostalgia for simpler times, when investors really knew their companies and stuck with them. The website brings us back to a time when people really knew their websites, when they wrote HTML by hand, character-by-character. That is to say, this ’90s site is completely on-brand.