Berkshire News Briefs - 9/20/17

JPMorgan becomes just seventh bank to cover Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, calling it a screaming buy

Despite Berkshire being the sixth-largest company in the S&P 500 by market cap, there are just seven analysts covering the company, according to FactSet. This compares to the No. 5 most valuable company in the index, Amazon, which has 41 analyst ratings. Wall Street doesn't really bother to cover Buffett because of Berkshire's low relative trading volumes as Street research often gets paid from trading commissions. [...]

The analyst established a year-end 2018 price target of $210 for Berkshire Hathaway B shares, representing 17 percent upside from Wednesday's close. [...]

The analyst also mentioned Berkshire utility executive Greg Abel is currently the "most likely" successor to replace Warren Buffett as CEO of the company. [...]

Buffett Fails in Bid to Boost Stake in Canada's Home Capital

Warren Buffett’s bid to double his stake in Home Capital Group Inc. was rejected by shareholders of the Canadian mortgage lender in a vote Tuesday.

About 89 percent of investors voted against the offer, which would have boosted Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s stake to 38 percent from about 20 percent. Stockholders including CIBC Asset Management had objected to the deal, arguing it would dilute the stock by selling shares to Berkshire at an almost 30 percent discount. [...]

Rocky Mountain Power Invests $3.5 Billion for Wyoming Energy

A long-term view of electrical generation -- not politics or fads -- drives Rocky Mountain Power's decision to invest $3.5 billion in transmission capability, wind power and other infrastructure in Wyoming by 2020, company officials said Friday. [...]

The Salt Lake City-based Rocky Mountain Power is a part of the Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. Rocky Mountain Power has nearly 1.1 million customers in Wyoming, Utah and Idaho [...]

Rocky Mountain Power's energy-generating capacity is about 55 percent coal, 25 percent natural gas, 10 percent hydroelectric, and 10 percent wind and other sources [...]

Irma's Impact on Insurers

[...] Because of the limited presence of national primary carriers in the homeowners market in Florida, we think the biggest industry impact of large privately insured losses would probably be in reinsurance. Reinsurers have faced weak pricing in recent years due to an overabundance of capital and the rise of the catastrophe bond market. In our view, major catastrophe losses could be a catalyst for an industry shakeup and a return to more normalized pricing conditions. For disciplined and well-capitalized reinsurers such as Berkshire Hathaway, the positive impact on pricing should provide a material long-term offset to the near-term losses.

Oriental Trading’s MindWare buys Peaceable Kingdom, game maker that aims to 'inspire cooperation and cultivate kindness'

MindWare, a division of Oriental Trading Co. of La Vista, has acquired Peaceable Kingdom, a company that develops cooperative games and related products, for an undisclosed amount.

Peaceable Kingdom, based in Berkeley, California, was founded in 1983 by the family of Clement Hurd, illustrator of the “Good Night Moon” children’s book. [...]

The company makes games with the goal to “inspire cooperation and cultivate kindness,” including Bunny Bedtime, Mole Rats in Space, Friends and Neighbors, You Guessed It, Say the Word and What’s It? [...]

Warren Buffett's son Howard to become Illinois county sheriff

Howard Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is adding to his job titles that of interim sheriff of Macon County in central Illinois.

Macon County Sheriff Thomas Schneider said Friday that he is retiring early ahead of an election next fall for his replacement. He has chosen Buffett, whose charitable foundation has contributed more than $55 million in the region over the past two decades, to serve in the meantime.

Howard Buffett has been a Macon County undersheriff since September 2014 and has completed more than 3,300 hours of patrol and training. [...]

Billionaire Warren Buffett sings a duet with Stevie Wonder at star-studded Forbes 100th anniversary party

The Berkshire Hathaway CEO joined pop music legend Stevie Wonder for a duet at a star-studded gala honoring Forbes magazine at Manhattan's Chelsea Piers on Tuesday.

Wonder and Buffett sang a duet of the classic hit The Glory of Love, a single written by Billy Hill and first recorded by Benny Goodman in 1936. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 8/30/17

Happy 87th Birthday, Warren Buffett! (August 30, 1930)

The 2nd Quarter 13-F statement is out, showing what stocks Berkshire Hathaway bought and sold last quarter. Dataroma has the best format for visualizing the changes.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway builds stake in Synchrony Financial, trims GE position

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett built a new position in consumer finance company Synchrony Financial and boosted his holdings of Bank of New York Mellon by more than 50% in the second quarter of 2017, according to a regulatory filing Monday from Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett's financial moves are closely watched by Wall Street. In the April-thru-June quarter, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway also dumped the rest of its stake in General Electric (GE), selling the rest of its roughly 10.6 million share position. [...]

Buffett Nears a Milestone He Doesn't Want: $100 Billion in Cash

It’s a milestone Warren Buffett probably wishes he weren’t approaching.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the conglomerate he’s run for more than five decades, reported Friday that it held just shy of $100 billion in cash at the end of the second quarter.

While that figure highlights the staggering money-making ability of the businesses he’s collected over the years, it’s also a burden. Because Berkshire doesn’t pay a dividend and rarely buys back its own stock, Buffett is on the hook to find ways to invest those funds.

Bankrupt utility company abandons $9 billion Warren Buffett deal

Bankrupt Texas utility Energy Future Holdings will abandon a deal to sell power transmission company Oncor to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway for $9 billion and will accept a $9.45 billion bid for Oncor by Sempra Energy instead, people familiar with the matter said.

The development represents a rare blow for Buffett, who avoids bidding wars for companies and had swooped in two months ago to buy Oncor after two previous attempts by Energy Future to sell it were blocked by Texas regulators. [...]

Buffett wouldn’t negotiate for Oncor. He lost the deal — and a $270 million termination fee

Warren Buffett got oohs and aahs when people thought he’d bagged a $270 million breakup fee after his Berkshire Hathaway Energy was outbid for Oncor by Sempra Energy, which won the company with a $9.45 billion offer. [...]

But, it seems, Berkshire didn’t get far enough along in its bid for Oncor to qualify for the fee.

Even if Berkshire could have claimed the full $270 million, some of that would have been offset by the costs — think lawyers, accountants, analysts, bankers — incurred by pursuing Oncor in the first place. [...]

Buffet's Oncor Failure Is No Failure at All

Reading headlines such as, "Buffett's Latest Dealmaking Flop," and "Buffett Encounters Rare Miss," might make some Berkshire investors wonder if the Oracle of Omaha has lost his touch. Adding insult to injury, the deal fell through too quickly for Berkshire to qualify for its $270 million breakup fee, so Buffett and Berkshire will walk away with nothing. [...]

While Berkshire shareholders (and, I'm sure, Buffett himself) may be disappointed, they should take comfort in Berkshire sticking to its principle of not getting involved in a bidding war. Bending on that principle this time could cause potential acquirees to negotiate harder in the future -- and those could be even larger deals. One wonders if 2015's $32 billion acquisition of Precision Castparts -- a deal 3.5 times bigger than Oncor -- would have happened on attractive terms had Buffett not stuck to his "one offer" policy.

As longtime Berkshire shareholder Steve Walman said in a recent Bloomberg article, "the minute he starts negotiating, he becomes everyone's favorite stalking horse and ends up as 'bid 'em up Buffett.'" Since Berkshire is built on acquisitions, cultivating a reputation for bending on price is not something Buffett wants to do. As he himself once said, "The smartest side to take in a bidding war is the losing side." [...]

Warren Buffett Likes Solar, but Not the Price Tag

Warren Buffett has called global warming a “major problem” and put his company’s money where his mouth is, spending billions to develop solar and wind power. Yet he’s no hero to some renewable energy proponents. Their beef: They say the utility arm of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., his conglomerate, has been trying to undermine an almost 40-year-old law intended in part to promote the growth of cleaner energy. Berkshire, they say, is effectively stifling solar projects to protect utilities it owns, such as PacifiCorp, based in Portland, Ore. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway Energy says it’s not so simple. The company, which owns several utilities using conventional and renewable power sources, is the second-largest owner of clean-energy assets in the U.S. But along with other utilities, it argues that the law is outdated, often raises costs for its customers, and forces utilities to buy more electricity than needed.

The law is called the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or Purpa. Congress enacted it after the 1970s OPEC oil embargo to draw new players into the utility-dominated business of generating power. It required some utilities to buy power from certain power providers if doing so was less expensive than building new plants themselves. The idea was to boost the then-emerging natural gas industry—and perhaps spur renewables including solar.

The act worked—too well, from the standpoint of the utilities. As solar panel prices plunged in recent years, developers deluged utilities with projects to sell them power. Utilities complain the law is producing a surplus of power. Moreover, utilities say the contracts with developers, whose terms are generally set by state utilities regulators, often lock them in for years at high prices that don’t necessarily reflect the current market. [...]

Home Capital had two PE suitors but chose Buffett's bid to secure 'greatest acceptance' from markets

Alternative mortgage lender Home Capital Group Inc. fielded acquisition offers from two different private equity firms in June — one of which raised its bid even after the Toronto company decided to take Warren Buffett’s white-knight deal, according to a proxy circular released on Friday.

The two firms were not named in the document released ahead of a special meeting of shareholders next month, but sources familiar with the process say Home Capital’s two suitors were Onex Corp. and Brookfield Business Partners. [...]

After some consideration, Home Capital’s board rejected the sweetened offer, it said.

“The Board determined that the revised acquisition proposal was inferior to the (Berkshire) Transaction and that the Transaction was in the best interests of the Corporation and continued to provide Shareholders with the best combination of transaction certainty and the potential for enhanced Shareholder value, while meeting the need for strong sponsorship and lower cost standby debt financing,” it said. [...]

Larsen & Toubro sells unit to IMC International for Rs174 crore

(Larsen & Toubro is based in Mumbai, India. Rs174 crore is equivalent to around $27.2 million USD.)

Engineering major Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) on Wednesday said it has agreed to sell its entire stake in its unlisted unit L&T Cutting Tools Ltd to IMC International Metalworking Companies BV, owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., for Rs174 crore.

L&T Cutting Tools, incorporated in 1952, manufactures fabricated metal products. [...]

Salton Sea geothermal plant canceled by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Energy

It's been 14 years since California officials first approved the Black Rock power plant, which would have tapped a powerful geothermal reservoir along the shore of the Salton Sea and generated enough climate-friendly electricity to power about 200,000 homes. [...]

CalEnergy, which is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Energy, asked the California Energy Commission earlier this summer to terminate the license for Black Rock. The company had requested and received extensions of the construction start deadline in 2007, 2011 and 2014, but this time decided to move on rather than pay a $27,678 annual compliance fee that would have been due at the end of June. [...]

"Berkshire Hathaway is big. They've got a lot of wind, they've got solar, they've got other areas. (Geothermal is) a complicated thing to do," Kaspereit said.

Warren Buffett’s Best Advice...and Why He Doesn’t Own Gold

On what he looks for in businesses: "I want a very valuable castle, with a duke in charge of it who is very honest and hardworking and able. Then I want a moat around that castle."

On what he looks for in managers: "We look for three things: intelligence, energy, and integrity. If they don’t have the latter, then you should hope they don’t have the first two either. If someone doesn’t have integrity, then you want him to be dumb and lazy."

On why he doesn’t invest in gold: "You could take all the gold that’s ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 68 feet in each direction. For what that’s worth at current gold prices, you could buy all—not some—of the farmland in the U.S. Plus, you could buy 16 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?" [...]

Billionaire Warren Buffett serenades Gold Jacket Dinner

Warren Buffett and Paul Anka did it their way.

The billionaire investor and the crooner serenaded this year’s class of Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinees with Anka’s song, “My Way,” at the Gold Jacket Dinner Friday night.

Anka sang a few lines of the song he wrote for Frank Sinatra before pausing to bring his friend, Buffett, to the Memorial Civic Center stage. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 12/2/14

Berkshire to Buy Weatherford Units for at Least $750M (Bloomberg)

Lubrizol, the chemical-additives business at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), agreed to buy two units from Weatherford International Plc for at least $750 million after the seller was squeezed by lower oil prices. The deal includes the Integrity Industries drilling-fluids business and Engineered Chemistry, which provides additives used in fracking. The price can climb to $825 million depending on performance, Geneva-based Weatherford said today in a statement.

Duracell To be Part of Berkshire’s Marmon and Get New Chief (WSJ MoneyBeat)

Duracell will get a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. executive as its new boss once current owner Procter & Gamble Co. closes the sale to Warren Buffett’s company. The executive, Angelo Pantaleo, currently works at Berkshire subsidiary Marmon Group, helping run its water business. Instead of becoming a full-fledged company at Berkshire, Duracell will be overseen by Marmon, people familiar with the matter said.

Berkshire's BNSF To Continue Ramping Up Investment (Investors Business Daily)

Berkshire Hathaway's BNSF Railway plans to spend $6 billion in 2015 to upgrade and expand its facilities to meet rising demand for rail transportation services. It would be a 9% increase for the Fort Worth, Texas-based company from its planned $5.5 billion capital spending this year. The bulk of the 2015 expenditures will go to replacing and upgrading rails, ties and other track components, the company said. BNSF, which operates 32,500 route miles of track in the U.S. and Canada, will also spend nearly $1.5 billion on expansion projects, including $500 million in the Northern region, where it's growing fastest.

AUC approves Altalink sale (Calgary Herald)

The Alberta Utilities Commission approved the $3.2-billion sale of electricity transmission firm Altalink to U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy on Friday after it determined the transaction would create “no harm” for customer power rates or service. The AUC said it will continue to regulate AltaLink as it did before the change in ownership. [...] Over the next five years, Berkshire Hathaway Energy must re-invest 100 per cent of AltaLink’s earnings into the company or elsewhere in Alberta to support AltaLink’s three-year, $2.7-billion investment in Alberta’s energy infrastructure.

The Surprising Lessons Warren Buffett Learned from a Candy Company (Fool)

So what has made See's so successful? First, although it hasn't been a world-beater in growing its sales, it has been incredibly profitable and a cash-generating machine. From 1972-2011 it contributed a staggering $1.65 billion to the bottom line of Berkshire. Knowing it brings in roughly $85 million annually in pre-tax profits, there will soon come a day when the total contribution of See's to Berkshire will top $2 billion. And what has Berkshire done with all that cash? In 2007 Buffett answered that very question by revealing, "After paying corporate taxes on the profits, we have used the rest to buy other attractive businesses."

Berkshire Hathaway Energy: Economies of scale (WindPower)

Berkshire Hathaway Energy, part of billionaire Warren Buffet's empire, is one of America's largest developer and owner of wind energy. It has already committed about $15 billion to renewables, dwarfing most rivals' investments, and recently said it will invest $280 million more in Iowa wind farms. [...] With 719,000 customers in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota, MidAmerican owns more wind capacity than any other rate-regulated utility in the US and has been instrumental in making Iowa the state with the highest proportion of wind on its grid. [...] When Wind VIII is complete, 3.35GW or about 39% of MidAmerican Energy's total owned generation capacity will come from the company's 1,715 wind turbines.

Warren Buffett’s favourite ice-cream chain Dairy Queen comes to the UAE (The National)

Berkshire Hathaway-owned Dairy Queen is coming to the UAE. The restaurant chain [...] has signed a franchise deal with Bajco Group to open as many as 20 outlets. The agreement covers DQ Grill & Chill restaurants and DQ Treat stores. The first outlet is due to open in the first quarter of next year, although the exact location is still to be decided. “The problem is that everybody wants to be in Dubai, which means locations are very hard to guarantee,” said Malik Bajwa, president of the Bajco Group. “We will likely open in the Northern Emirates such as Ras Al Khaimah, and we are also looking at Sharjah and Al Ain. Our flagship standalone store will most likely be in Dubai [...]”

Why Is Warren Buffett Obsessed With Consumer Goods Brands? (Bidness Etc)

Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has always opted to invest in companies with simple business models, as Warren Buffett firmly believes in them. Many of these companies are famous brands of consumer goods like ketchup, batteries, vehicle insurance, or fast food restaurants. Mr. Buffett’s interest in the consumer goods brands can be attributed to the fact that such brands have recurrent and foreseeable cash flows and earnings, with low risk associated to their business models.

Very busy Buffett makes time for Ndamukong Suh (Omaha World Herald)

Warren Buffett’s friendship with athlete Ndamukong Suh started when they were introduced to each other at a Nebraska football game by Tom Osborne, former head coach and athletic director. Since then, Buffett has become a regular financial adviser for Suh, part of a group that includes former TD Ameritrade CEO Joe Moglia, now a football coach, and athlete/businessmen Magic Johnson and Roger Staubach [...]

Warren Buffett On Investment Strategy - Full Interview Fortune MPW (YouTube)

The annual Fortune MPW interview with the world’s most successful investor - Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway. [38 minutes]

Or, if you don't have time for that video, here's this one...

Warren Buffett sings Sinatra to 400 women (YouTube)

Paul Anka and Warren Buffett give Carol Loomis a musical sendoff at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit. [5 1/2 minutes]

Berkshire News Briefs - 11/15/13

The big news of the week is the quarterly release of the 13F, showing the changes to Berkshire Hathaway's stock portfolio for the quarter that ended on September 30, so let's start with that.

Berkshire Hathaway Stock Holdings (Dataroma)

I always link to this site every quarter... it gives a great rundown of all the current holdings and highlights the changes.

Warren Buffett Makes Major Moves (Fool)

The latest SEC filing from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway listing the company's stock holdings at the end of the third quarter was released today, and the Oracle of Omaha has made some significant changes to his portfolio. [...]

1. Added a $3.5 billion position in ExxonMobil
2. Sold $500 million worth of ConocoPhillips
3. Unloaded 75% of the GlaxoSmithKline

Why Did Buffett Reduce ConocoPhillips Stake And Add Exxon Mobil? (Seeking Alpha)

Berkshire Hathaway's latest disclosure revealed the company sold 10.7 million shares of ConocoPhillips shares while buying 40 million shares of Exxon Mobil. At first blush, it is hard to understand Mr. Buffett's rationale. We'll look at several different reasons why Buffett may have made the move and try to figure out what he's thinking.

Berkshire Hathaway increases DaVita stake (NASDAQ)

This is notable because it happened just last week, after the reporting period for the 13F changes above.

Berkshire Hathaway, already a beneficial owner of shares of DaVita Healthcare Partners Inc., bought 3,700,294 shares of that company's common stock between Nov. 6 and Nov. 8. At prices ranging from $53.25 to $55.98 per share, Berkshire paid a total of $204,046,688 while increasing its stake in the company by 11.8%.

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Adds Healthcare Risk Management (MarketWatch / BusinessWire)

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance today announced that it is expanding its healthcare professional liability capabilities to provide customers with highly customized risk management support. The company will now reimburse qualified healthcare professional liability insurance policyholders for the costs of pre-approved risk management services of their choice.

Warren Buffett’s 9/11 payday (NY Post)

Mayor Bloomberg has recruited fellow billionaire Warren Buffett to take over a taxpayer fund set up to pay claims stemming from the toxic Ground Zero cleanup, The Post has learned. A surprise plan under review would give $270 million in federal funds managed by the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Co. — a nonprofit entity controlled by Bloomberg appointees — to Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, which would convert the cash into a $600 million commercial-insurance policy. Buffett’s company would absorb the risk of new 9/11 litigation and health claims, though it’s unclear how much profit he stands to make on the deal. The city would receive no dividends, an official said.

Should You Buy Berkshire Hathaway Today? The Behavioral Finance View (Forbes)

Oceans of e-ink have been spilled analyzing the pros and cons of Berkshire Hathaway. Should you put a dime into this particular jukebox? I doubt whether anything new remains to be said on the fundamental or technical side. Instead, as a psychologist, I want to walk you through what Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger (or Moe, Larry and Curly) might call the phenomenolgy of buying Berkshire Hathaway.

Hunting for Warren Buffett's Next Elephant (Fool)

Warren Buffett is on the hunt again and this time he has even more cash to spend. Indeed, Berkshire Hathaway's cash pile has swelled to more than $40 billion and an elephant-sized acquisition had recently got away from him. While it's impossible to know what Buffett will acquire next for sure, we can compile a list of possible candidates based on previous acquisitions.

Prudential --> Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

This week's "Former Prudential Office Joins Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices" stories came from Bucks County, PA, Philadelphia, PA, Lehigh Valley, PA, Boulder, CO, Seattle, WA, Des Moines, IA, Chicago, IL, Houston, TX, and all major cities in Ohio (Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati all had one Prudential mega-franchise).

And now, here it is, your moment of zen...

Glenn Close & Warren Buffett Sing 'The Glory Of Love' (YouTube)

Berkshire News Briefs - 10/29/13

Ketchup changeup: McDonald's dropping Heinz after CEO change (Reuters)

McDonald's Corp on Friday said it plans to end its 40-year relationship with ketchup maker H.J. Heinz Co, since that company is now led by Bernardo Hees, the former chief executive of hamburger rival Burger King Worldwide Inc. "As a result of recent management changes at Heinz, we have decided to transition our business to other suppliers over time," McDonald's said in a statement.

Buffett's Berkshire cuts Tesco stake by $485 million (Chicago Tribune / Reuters)

I think the Tesco sale is related to Marmon's IMI purchase... Berkshire keeping UK money in the UK to avoid the tax issues of moving money to and from the US.

Billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc has slashed its stake in Britain's Tesco by 300 million pounds ($484.75 million), weeks after the world's No.3 retailer posted disappointing half-year results. [...] Berkshire, a Tesco shareholder since 2006, cut its holding to 3.98 percent from 4.98 percent on October 16, filings on the London Stock Exchange website showed. However it still remains one of its biggest investments outside the United States. Berkshire's Marmon Group had announced on the same day that it had agreed to buy two businesses from British engineering company IMI for 690 million pounds.

Buffett: Why I didn't buy the Washington Post (CNN / Fortune)

As the Graham family exits emotionally from the Washington Post newspaper, and new owner Jeff Bezos stays mum about his plans, some fresh details about who did not buy the paper have emerged. Participating in a Q&A last week at Washington's Metropolitan Club, Warren Buffett, 83, spoke of his long-term affection for the paper and said he had "briefly" considered buying it when it went on sale earlier this year. But he then decided the purchase wouldn't work.

MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company Earns No. 1 Spot in Industrial Customer Satisfaction Among U.S. Electric Utility Companies (Business Wire)

MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company ranks No. 1 in the U.S. for overall customer satisfaction among large commercial and industrial customers of electric utility holding companies, according to 2013 data released this week by TQS Research, Inc. The company’s ongoing emphasis on customer satisfaction and sharing of best practices resulted in all three of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company’s U.S. utilities – MidAmerican Energy Company, Pacific Power and Rocky Mountain Power – contributing to the top ranking. MidAmerican Energy Company, based in Des Moines, Iowa, earned a very satisfied rating of 95.4 percent from the large commercial and industrial customers included in the survey.

Jain feeds Buffett’s hunger (Insurance Insider)

This story is really "inside baseball" about the insurance industry, and very heavy on the metaphor, which you can see from the intro.

People are starting to worry about him. The changes in diet. The idiosyncratic decisions. The silence. He isn't quite the man he used to be, isn't quite himself. Everyone is talking about it: speculating about his motives, glossing his actions, promulgating theories, kvetching about its implications. Which is to say that Ajit Jain, the softly spoken, smiling carnivore par excellence of the reinsurance world has of late taken up omnivorous habits. Where Jain was previously notorious for holding aloof until he scented blood, then attacking ferociously and making off with hefty chunks of red meat in his mouth, the last two years have seen him extend his diet in surprisingly catholic ways.

Willis to Allocate Risks to Insurers Including Berkshire (Bloomberg)

Willis Group Holdings Plc, the third-largest insurance broker by market value, agreed to allocate as much as 25 percent of premiums from the London corporate specialist market to pre-selected insurers. Underwriters in the group include Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China Ltd. and Hiscox Ltd., said Colleen McCarthy, a spokeswoman for the London-based broker. [...] Aon Plc, the second-largest broker, announced a similar deal with Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire in March to shoulder risks from the Lloyd’s of London market. Berkshire agreed to provide Willis’s clients additional coverage for oil drilling following BP Plc’s 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Johns Manville expands micro glass fibre nonwoven capacity in Germany (Innovation in Textiles)

I'm mostly including this link because I don't find opportunities to talk about Johns Manville very often.

Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company and a leading manufacturer of premium-quality building, specialty and filtration products, has completed an expansion of its micro glass fibre nonwoven production for air filtration media in its plant in Wertheim, Germany. The company’s micro glass fibre nonwovens are used as top-performance media in HVAC filtration applications and also as aircraft insulation. The company also recently announced an additional investment of EUR 32 million in a state-of-the-art PET spunbond line for filtration products at its production site in Berlin.

Also, the nationwide rebranding of "Prudential Real Estate" into "Berkshire Hathaway Real Estate" continues on, with Austin and Kansas City the major markets making the switch in the past week. I gave up on posting all the press releases from all the real estate brokerages and all the small-town newspaper business section stories, but this story is still in progress.

The Buffetts on Charity, Succession, and TV (Bloomberg Video)

Berkshire Hathaway chairman/CEO Warren Buffett, board member Howard G. Buffett and Howard W. Buffett, executive director at Howard G. Buffett Foundation, talk with Betty Liu about their book “40 Chances,” their philanthropic endeavors, succession at Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett’s love of the TV show “Breaking Bad.” They speak on Bloomberg Television’s “In The Loop.”

Warren Buffett shows off his ukulele skills (Today)

"Now, here it is, your moment of zen..."

Warren Buffett — business mogul, investor, philanthropist ... ukulele player? The 83-year-old financial legend stopped by TODAY with son Howard G. Buffett and grandson Howard W. Buffett to discuss their new book "40 Chances" but also showed off his lesser known talents in the Orange Room: singing and playing the ukulele. As if the billionaire doesn't have enough going for him. He said he learned to play in college for an age-old reason. "I play off and on, but I just wanted to impress a girl I was keen on," Buffett said. "It didn't work."