Berkshire News Briefs - 4/25/16

Watch the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting live stream on Yahoo on Saturday, April 30, at 10am Eastern.

Warren Buffett:: 'There’s a little bit of PT Barnum in me' (Yahoo)

Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting gets underway on April 30, and those heading to the big event can expect anything other than a boring analyst convention.

A newspaper-tossing challenge, a 5K fun run and walk, a cookout, and a steak dinner are just some of the events scheduled for Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting. “There’s a little bit of P.T. Barnum in me,” billionaire investor Warren Buffett told Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Andy Serwer. [...]

Meet Precision Castparts' Worried Neighbors (OPB)

State environmental regulators still haven’t identified where the arsenic is coming from, but they do know the source of the nickel: it’s a large metal foundry owned by Precision Castparts, Oregon’s second-largest company and, according to at least one study, one of the country’s top air polluters.

The foundry, which the company calls the PCC Structurals Large Parts Campus, also emits chromium and cadmium. [...]

MidAmerican's $3.6 billion wind investment is 'giant step' toward company's 100 percent renewable energy goal (Omaha World Herald)

Iowa will be further ahead of other states in renewable energy when MidAmerican Energy installs $3.6 billion more in tax-supported wind turbines over the next 2½ years. [...]

By 2020, he said, MidAmerican’s turbines will generate 85 percent of the electricity used by its customers, up from 58 percent when current projects are completed, and 40 percent of electricity used by all Iowans, up from 31 percent today. [...]

3 Wall Street pros reveal why it's so hard to cover Berkshire Hathaway (Yahoo)

“The key risk is — in my view — the fact that relatively few of its investors have a good understanding of what Berkshire actually does...the reporting is very sparse, and while it's probably ludicrous to question Warren Buffett's investing acumen, I think investors are much more likely to assume the best when there are questions of, say, earnings quality. To me, that widespread positive sentiment implies a greater risk that surprises (perhaps following the inevitable senior management succession) will be negative rather than positive, because the positives have already been assumed.” [...]

Warren Buffett’s Risky Final Bet (Harvard Business Review)

For many years, investors have speculated on what will happen to Berkshire when Buffett dies – but they tend to focus on who will succeed him as CEO, and what will happen to the stock price. Buffett insists the company has a solid succession plan in place; at last year’s annual shareholder meeting, he announced that after his death, his son, Howard Buffett, will become the unpaid non-Executive Chair of the Board to ensure the continuation of Berkshire’s unique culture.

Will Howard Buffett be able to fulfill the role of the values champion who defends his father’s legacy in the face of challenges to Berkshire’s strategy and values? We suspect not – not because of any shortcomings, but because he will not have the shares to back him up.

Here the experience of Hewlett-Packard (HP) offers a cautionary tale. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway's Big Profit Center Prepares for Shrinkage (Fool)

A shift in the top ranks at Berkshire Hathaway is a hint that its reinsurance businesses, historically one of its stars, is slated to shrink. The company recently announced the retirement of Tad Montross, who has led Berkshire's General Re subsidiary since 2008 after sharing the role for seven years prior. Montross's position will be filled with an unnamed executive, who will report to Ajit Jain, the head of Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance. [...]

Berkshire 101: A quick guide to Warren Buffett's $360 billion empire (Yahoo)

Berkshire Hathaway was a struggling textile company when Warren Buffett first invested in it in 1962.

Today, it's a $360 billion behemoth. In Warren Buffett’s own words, it's a “sprawling conglomerate, constantly trying to sprawl further." [...]

Here's a brief introduction to Berkshire Hathaway. [...]

How Warren Buffett’s Son Would Feed the World (The Atlantic)

Without a doubt, the most ambitious of the Buffett philanthropists is the middle child, Howard, 61, a commercial farmer who lives in Decatur, Illinois. His goal is to end world hunger. [...]

Instead of a green revolution for Africa, Buffett favors what he calls a “brown revolution,” or, to quote the distinguished agricultural ecologist Sir Gordon Conway, a “doubly green revolution”—a focus on environmentally sustainable agriculture that minimizes erosion, preserves and regenerates soil, and makes the land more resilient, while also increasing yields. In contrast to the green revolution, the brown revolution is a tortoise-like approach: Its impact is gradual. Over the past decade, patiently, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to identify and promote practical, low-cost methods of conservation farming—cover crops, no-till farming, locally bred seed varieties—that improve African soil quality and crop yields without chemical fertilizers and costly imported seeds. [...]