Berkshire News Briefs - 6/18/16

Anonymous bidder pays $3.46 million for Warren Buffett lunch (Reuters)

Buffett has only revealed that the winning bidder was a woman this year.

An anonymous bidder agreed at auction to pay $3,456,789 to eat lunch with Warren Buffett, tying the record for the right to dine with one of the world's most admired investors.

Money will go to Glide, a San Francisco charity that provides food, health care and other services to people who are homeless, poor or struggling with substance abuse.

Warren Buffett’s Dicey Power Play (Bloomberg)

When Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought Nevada’s main utility, NV Energy, three years ago, it inherited a lucrative customer base: the neon-lit, air-conditioned casino-hotels on the Las Vegas Strip. Now they’re in the midst of a costly split. Lured by the prospect of cheaper, cleaner energy elsewhere, two of the Strip’s biggest power users, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts, told regulators in May they’re willing to pay millions in fees to ditch NV Energy’s services. [...]

Berkshire Energy Units Barred From Selling Power at Market Rates (Bloomberg)

Units of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., including PacifiCorp and NV Energy, were barred from selling power at market rates and must instead set prices based on the cost of running their plants.

More than a dozen Berkshire Hathaway power suppliers serving consumers in the West failed to prove they couldn’t exercise market power, according to an order from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission late Thursday. The companies must revise rates from Jan. 9, 2015, to April 9 and provide refunds within 30 days of the order, according to the filing. [...]

Quicken founder and Warren Buffett have ties beyond Yahoo deal (Reuters)

The connection between Quicken Loans Inc founder Dan Gilbert and billionaire magnate Warren Buffett became evident last month with news that Buffett was backing Gilbert's surprise bid for Yahoo Inc.

But the two men have another business connection that hasn't been reported: an exclusive mortgage-purchasing agreement between Quicken and a subsidiary of Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc. [...]

Warren Buffett: I’m looking to invest more in women (Independent)

Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, told the audience at the first ever United State of Women summit in Washington DC that he currently invests in six companies with female CEOs and is "looking for more”.

He also has three women on the board of Berkshire Hathaway and wants to up that number too.

Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway buys North Park Toyota (My San Antonio)

Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Automotive Inc. has purchased a controlling stake in North Park Toyota — the company’s first dealership in the San Antonio area.

Jeffrey Rachor, president and CEO of Berkshire’s automotive group, signed a 20-year lease for the dealership’s 23.7-acre property on April 4, with an option to buy.

Berkshire Hathaway Group’s Specialty Insurance Operation Opens German Office, Makes Executive Appointments in Northern Europe (Business Wire)

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company (BHSI) in coordination with its affiliate Berkshire Hathaway International Insurance Limited (BHIIL), today announced that it has established its office in Düsseldorf, Germany, and filled key executive roles in Northern Europe. [...]

Vestas scores massive order for Warren Buffett-backed wind farm (Denver Business Journal)

Vestas Wind Systems, with four manufacturing plants in Colorado, has reached a conditional agreement to supply up to 1,000 wind turbines to a massive wind farm in Iowa.

It's the largest order ever for a U.S. wind farm and believed to be one of the largest orders in the world, according to industry experts.

The buyer is MidAmerican Energy Co., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy [...] With the investment in Wind XI, MidAmerica expects wind farms will provide 85 percent of the energy it delivers to its Iowa customers.

Berkshire News Briefs - 6/9/16

Warren Buffett's NV Energy Is Losing Customers on the Vegas Strip to Renewable Energy (Fool)

MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts have said that paying $102.6 million to leave the utility and find their own energy is better for their businesses than staying with NV Energy. Las Vegas Sands stopped short of committing $23.9 million to leave NV Energy this year but is leaving its options open. As these resorts collectively make up 7% of the demand in NV Energy's territory, this is a big deal for the utility.

Buffett awaits $8 billion of ‘bad news’ with Kraft Heinz payment (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Warren Buffett is about to get back the $8 billion — plus a little extra — that his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. invested in Kraft Heinz Co. [...]

The 2013 deal allowed the foodmaker to pay a premium to redeem the preferred shares after three years, a period that expires next week. Mr. Buffett has said Berkshire will get about $8.3 billion, replenishing its coffers after the purchase of manufacturer Precision Castparts Corp. in January, one of his biggest buyouts ever.

Berkshire's Underappreciated Growing Dividend Income Stream (Seeking Alpha)

Today though if you look at Berkshire's 6 largest positions, you see something very different. Gone are the concentrated bets that are likely to double several times in the next decade. Instead, you find a very conservative looking portfolio (although still concentrated) that offers a significant amount of yield. [...]

Berkshire will receive over $2.7 billion in dividends from these [six] positions [KHC, WFC, KO, IBM, AXP, PSX] in 2016. That is basically the size of the entire Berkshire portfolio back when Buffett was buying Coca-Cola in the late 1990s.

Why Warren Buffett Dumped AT&T (Fool)

Warren Buffett never bought AT&T shares for Berkshire, nor did the company's other stock pickers. Instead, the AT&T stake was acquired through an acquisition.

In 2011, Berkshire began to accumulate a position in DirecTV, which it added to several times afterwards. [...] AT&T's acquisition paid shareholders $95 per share.

However, only $28.50 of that amount was in cash, with the remainder payable in AT&T stock, which is where Berkshire's AT&T stake originated. After the sale was complete, Berkshire received 59.32 million shares of AT&T during the third quarter of 2015, but they didn't stay in the portfolio for long. Berkshire unloaded 12.7 million of them during the fourth quarter, and sold the rest during the first quarter of 2016.

Buffett’s Richline Acquires Wearables Maker Viawear (Diamonds.net)

Richline Group, a jewelry subsidiary owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, continued its recent string of acquisitions with the purchase of Viawear, a provider of wearable technology for jewelry brands.

Viawear has developed bracelets that filter mobile notifications so wearers receive important alerts without having to check if they missed something. [...]

Lubrizol Names New President and CEO (Chemical Engineering Online)

The Lubrizol Corp. has announced that Eric R. Schnur, currently executive vice president and chief operating officer, has been named president, effective immediately, and will become chairman and chief executive officer on January 2, 2017. James L. Hambrick, the current chairman, president and chief executive officer, having fulfilled his commitment to remain in those roles for five years following Berkshire Hathaway’s acquisition of Lubrizol in 2011, has decided to complete his 38-year Lubrizol career. [...]

A two part interview with PacifiCorp execuitve Stefan Bird (PacifiCorp being the Berkshire Hathaway Energy company serving the Pacific Northwest):

Part 1:
PacifiCorp Green: Adapting to Changing Western Power Markets (Energy Times)

"Renewables are definitely a big part of our story. PacifiCorp is the second largest owner of utility- owned wind assets in the country, number two to our sister utility, MidAmerican Energy [...]

We’ve got about 2000 megawatts of renewables out of our total portfolio of 11,000 megawatts. We have a very large hydroelectric fleet and that contributes to our emission-free supply. There are a number of changes that have been pretty exciting in the last year or so as we collaborate more effectively with our neighbors. The Western grid is all physically interconnected, but we frankly don’t use it as efficiently and effectively as we could." [...]

Part 2:
Utility Excitement: Value for Customers (Energy Times)

"Being part by a large private corporation with very strong financial capabilities gives us some unique advantages, from a cost of capital standpoint and our ability to utilize federal tax credits. That allows us to pass those benefits through to our customers in a unique way. We can focus on the long-term, we’re not worried about quarterly results and we really want to make decisions that make sense for our customers to give them a sustainable value proposition for the long haul."

Auction for Warren Buffett charity lunch starts slow (Yahoo)

The annual charity auction for a private lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett is underway.

The top bid to dine with the chairman of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc was $200,100 at 12 p.m. EDT on Monday, but will likely surge by the time the auction on eBay ends on Friday night.

Winning bids have reached seven figures every year since 2008, with the record $3,456,789 offer submitted anonymously in 2012. Last year's winner paid $2,345,678.

Auction proceeds go to Glide, a charity in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that provides food, health care and other services to people who are homeless, poor or struggling with substance abuse. Buffett has raised about $20.2 million in 16 auctions for Glide.