Warren Buffett Tries To Buy A Smart Basketball (Vocativ)
Spalding, exclusive provider of basketballs for the NBA, is owned by Russell Brands (and not Fruit-of-the-Loom as this article says; I double-checked). Other companies have until July 18th to bid on the bankrupt company's assets before the bankruptcy court finalizes the sale.
Russell Brands LLC, a subsidiary of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Co., has offered $1.5 million for the bankrupt start-up company that makes the 94Fifty Smart Sensor Basketball, according to the Wall Street Journal. The parent company, InfoMotion Sports Technologies Inc., reportedly filed for Chapter 11 protection on March 1.
The 94Fifty ball, which sells for $199.99 and was named a top-25 invention of 2014 by Time magazine, uses embedded sensors in a basketball to log such data as shooting arc, backspin, release speed, and dribble speed. [...]
Berkshire units ordered to halt California workers' comp policy sales (Reuters)
California's insurance commissioner has ordered two Berkshire Hathaway Inc insurance units to stop selling some workers' compensation policies that he considers illegal.
Commissioner Dave Jones on Wednesday issued a "cease and desist order" preventing Berkshire's Applied Underwriters Inc and California Insurance Co units from selling or renewing the policies in question in California.
Jones had on June 20 found that the units evaded a state law meant to protect small businesses from unexpected workers' compensation costs, through the sale of a nontraditional policy whose terms and rates had not been reviewed by state officials. [...]
Claiming Unfair Treatment, Buffett’s McLane Sues To Enter Texas (Shanken News Daily)
McLane Co., the mammoth food and drinks distributor owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has filed a federal lawsuit in Austin claiming that the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) is unfairly barring it from distributing beverage alcohol in the Lone Star State.
McLane’s lawsuit, filed in conjunction with the Texas Association of Business, takes aim at the TABC’s so-called “one share” rule—under which the agency aims to protect the three-tier system by prohibiting alcohol producers, distributors and retailers from holding as little as one overlapping ownership share in another tier of the business. Because McLane parent Berkshire Hathaway owns a 2% stake in Walmart—which retails beverage alcohol in Texas—the TABC has refused to grant it a distribution license in the state. [...]
Why Warren Buffett is one of the very few making money off Alberta’s mostly unprofitable electric system (Financial Post)
Two years ago, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bought more than half of all the electric transmission lines crisscrossing Albertan farmland in a $3.2 billion acquisition of Calgary-based AltaLink LP from troubled SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., making Berkshire Hathaway the electricity transmission provider to 85 per cent of Albertans.
Electricity analysts in the province say that purchase, like many of Buffett’s deals, now looks brilliant. Electricity prices in the province have collapsed — from $49 per megawatt hour in 2014 to around $16 so far this year — but transmission prices have risen, and will continue to rise for at least the next five years. [...]
Two BNSF Freight Trains Collide in Texas on Busy Rail Route (Bloomberg)
Two BNSF Railway Co. freight trains collided in Texas, leaving at least one worker injured. Rescue efforts were under way for three other employees involved in the accident. [...]
The collision occurred at 8:25 a.m. local time near Panhandle, Texas, BNSF said in a statement Tuesday. [...] The trains were carrying intermodal cargo, which are usually consumer goods. The accident occurred on the main line known as the Southern Transcon linking Los Angeles with Chicago. [...]
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