Berkshire News Briefs - 10/15/15

Buffett Builds Rail Superhighway to Grab Truck Freight (Bloomberg)

After this year, BNSF Railway Co. will be more than 99 percent finished with a second, parallel line to its 2,200-mile (3,500-kilometer) Los Angeles-to-Chicago route. Doubling up will create a rail superhighway speeding deliveries of toys, electronics, autos and other goods, because trains won’t have to yield to each other on sidings as they do on single tracks.

The goal: help the unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. grab cargo now going by road. [...]

The Los Angeles-to-Chicago route links the busiest U.S. container port to the biggest mid-continent rail hub, giving BNSF a leg up in the race to find alternatives to those dwindling coal cars. [...]

Warren Buffett: We don't do due diligence — we just look into your eyes (Business Insider)

Buffett told Loomis he met with Precision Castparts CEO Mark Donegan for about 10 or 15 minutes and asked whether he would listen to a takeover offer from Berkshire. After taking this to his board, Donegan agreed to listen to an offer.

And so Buffett made an offer, they talked about it, and then they had a deal. At this point, Buffett said, he and Donegan had talked for about 25 minutes in total.

How does a deal like this come together so quickly? "We basically do no due diligence," Buffett said. "Our due diligence is basically looking into their eyes." [...]

Lubrizol acquires Particle Sciences (Today's Medical Developments)

The Lubrizol Corporation announces that it has acquired Particle Sciences, a leading contract drug development and manufacturing organization with a comprehensive suite of services for the formulation, analysis and production of complex drug delivery solutions. Headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Particle Sciences is a global leader in complex formulations including drug eluting device product development as well as sterile and particulate drug products. This acquisition further expands Lubrizol LifeSciences' pharmaceutical development capabilities, providing full service drug delivery solutions to the market across a variety of dosage forms.

Goldman Sachs is planning to ditch a Warren Buffett-owned news wire for earnings releases (Business Insider)

When Goldman Sachs announces its third-quarter earnings on October 15, it is planning to do so with a release on its own website and a tweet linking to the release.

It does not plan to release its results on Business Wire as it did in the second quarter, however, according to people familiar with the matter. [...]

Buffett's Portfolio Takes Another Hit as Wal-Mart Shares Plunge (Bloomberg)

Billionaire Warren Buffett’s stock portfolio suffered another setback as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plunged after predicting profit would decline in its next fiscal year.

Wal-Mart fell $6.70, or 10 percent, to $60.03 at 4:15 p.m. in New York. That translates to a one-day paper loss of more than $450 million for Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which had about 67.7 million shares as of June 30. [...]

Warren Buffett expected to win over regulators on reinsurers (Financial Times)

Regulators will drop proposals to hit the world’s biggest reinsurance companies with tougher safety rules, thanks in large part to the influence of veteran investor Warren Buffett, the head of one top reinsurer has predicted. [...]

Mr Kieholz said Mr Buffett’s status in US financial and political circles seemed to have helped global reinsurers fend off inclusion in the systemically important insurers list. [...]

Mr Buffett’s office denied suggestions he had directly lobbied contacts in Washington. But he has been outspoken in speeches and interviews, arguing that it would be illogical to apply a systemic label to Berkshire Hathaway, but not to the likes of Apple, ExxonMobil or Walmart.

MasterCard Send Streamlines Berkshire Hathaway Travel Pay (Pymts)

A new partnership was announced yesterday (Oct. 14) between Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection and MasterCard that’s aimed at taking the hassle out of paying travel insurance claims.

Because those payments are traditionally made online, through EFT transaction or paper checks, there’s typically a lag of a few days — or even a few weeks. By using MasterCard Send, Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection can streamline that process by facilitating the payments for those claims nearly instantly. This solution then sends funds directly to a personal account through a debit card. [...]

Warren Buffett (still) doesn't want to be an activist investor (Fortune)

Chatting with Carol Loomis, Fortune’s retired senior editor-at-large, Buffett said that activism is a profitable and "salable form," which happens to be attracting big money right now. But it’s spurred a wave of activism that may have gone about as far as it can go. "They stretch for targets, and you’re seeing that now," he said.

A famous buy-and-hold investor, Buffett compared activism—where investors push companies to make major changes to increase shareholder returns—to an old saying: "If you want to guarantee yourself a life of misery, marry someone with the expectations of changing them."

Warren Buffett dumped on hedge funds for a promise that lasts long enough to get them rich (Business Insider)

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, dumped on hedge funds during Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit.

He said that as hedge fund assets grow in size, the fund managers don't really need to worry as much about performance. [...]