Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly 13F statement was filed with the SEC last week, detailing the company's investment holdings. Visit Dataroma for a quick summary table of changes from last quarter.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Increases Bet on Apple (WSJ / MoneyBeat)
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sharply increased its bet on Apple Inc. during the second quarter, bringing its stake in the iPhone maker to roughly $1.5 billion. [...]
Berkshire reduced its holdings in discount retailer Wal-Mart Stores by 27% and cut its stake in farm machinery maker Deere & Co. by 5.7%. The firm cut its stake in Suncor Energy, Canada’s largest crude oil producer by 26%.
Berkshire continued to build its stake in refiner Phillips 66, increasing its stake by 4.3% but left its stake in pipeline giant Kinder Morgan unchanged. [...]
Brooks Running is leading the charge against a controversial Olympics rule
Who’s behind the [@rule40 Twitter] account? The Berkshire Hathaway-owned sneaker company Brooks Running, based in Seattle, which sponsors 12 athletes competing at this year’s Olympics. Brooks CEO Jim Weber says Rule 40 must change.
In addition to the @rule40 Twitter handle, Brooks owns the rule40.com domain name, and is using both to wage a PR war against the USOC.
Under Rule 40 guidelines, non-official sponsors cannot refer to the Olympics in any marketing, advertising, or social media during a blackout period that begins nine days before the opening ceremony and ends three days after the closing ceremony. [...]
Berkshire Hathaway: The Lamest $1.2 Billion Haul (Fool)
Berkshire Hathaway earned about $1.2 billion in pre-tax income from the investment portfolios of its many insurance companies in the second quarter -- this represents a combination of interest and dividend income on investment assets of nearly $185 billion.
In dollars and cents, a billion dollars is something marvelous. Relative to Berkshire Hathway's massive investment portfolio, however, it's mere pocket change, and symbolic of a problem that plagues financial companies across the spectrum: Interest rates are simply too low to really move the needle. [...]
Warren Buffett Just Unloaded $195 Million Worth of These 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' (Fortune)
Warren Buffett, the famed CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, paid $195 million in June in order to terminate Berkshire’s final contract in which Buffett insurance and investing conglomerate sold protection against losses on bonds, according to a regulatory filing by the company Friday. That contract was initiated in 2008, and tied to municipal debt, with maturities ranging from 2019 to 2054.
The terminated contract gave Berkshire pre-tax earnings of $103 million in the second quarter and $89 million in the first six months of 2016. [...]
The Playbook Interview: Warren Buffett (Politico)
“There’s two things that make it [the economy] better: innovation and productivity, which are interlocked in certain ways. When you think of it, all of the products that you and I are using to make our lives better weren’t even around 30 years ago. It’s pretty extraordinary. And if you go back 100 years, every time I get in the dental chair, I think to myself, if this was 100 years ago, they’d be pouring whiskey down me and holding my arms. Now, I sit there and daydream about other stuff. So anything that improves experiences – what people want to do with the 24 hours in the day that they have. And secondly, what really counts is gains in productivity. If you go back 100 years … the farms around where I live here were producing 30 bushels of corn per acre. Now they’re producing 160 bushels of corn per acre. Well, that’s dramatic, and of course they take less people to do it as well, so, just up and down the line, you look at how many man-hours it takes to produce an auto now compared to 50 years ago. So, productivity – that’s the way the human race improves.” [...]
Berkshire Hathaway group firm Mouser to invest ₹90 crore in India over three years (Hindu Business Line)
Mouser Electronics, a subsidiary of TTI Inc and part of Warren Buffett’s Bershire Hathaway, is expected to invest ₹90 crore to ramp up its India presence.
Speaking to BusinessLine during the company’s opening of a new customer service and back office support centre on MG Road here, Mark Burr-Lonnon, Mouser’s Senior Vice-President of APAC and EMEA, said: “The India sales trend looks good as customer traction is up 45 per cent. A major part of that demand comes from Bengaluru, followed by Hyderabad, Delhi and Pune. Online sales from Indian customers which was 57 per cent in 2015 has grown to 62 per cent in January-July 2016. Therefore, we have decided to ramp up our India team, to increase the levels of local support we offer to customers here.” [...]
Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection Teams Up With TripInsuranceZone (Digital Journal)
Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (BHTP) is now teaming up with TripInsuranceZone to bring BHTP’s suite of travel insurance products to the online travel insurance comparison website TripInsuranceZone.com. [...]
Using TripInsuranceZone’s unique comparison engine, travelers can research, quote, compare and purchase travel insurance from most major travel insurance providers in the United States. [...]
How Risky Is Berkshire Hathaway Inc.? (Fool)
No stock is without risk, and Berkshire certainly isn't an exception. Here are just a couple of the reasons Berkshire's share price could go down. The stock market could drop significantly. [...] Interest rates could stay low. [...]
Either of these things could cause Berkshire's stock to plunge in the short term, and there are plenty of other economic and company-specific issues that could hurt Berkshire. It has happened before: Berkshire lost nearly half of its share price in 1974 and more recently took a 32% haircut in 2008. So, if you buy Berkshire, do it for the long term. Thanks to the incredible diversity of Berkshire's revenue stream, any weakness should be temporary. [...]
Richard Holland, who helped launch Buffett-Munger partnership, dies at 95 (Washington Post)
Richard Holland, the Nebraska advertising executive who helped link up one of the great partnerships in business history — between Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett and his deputy, Charles Munger — died Aug. 9 at his home in Omaha. He was 95. [...]
As one of Buffett’s earliest investors, Mr. Holland reaped gains that made him and his wife, Mary, among Omaha’s wealthiest people and most generous philanthropists. Although their net worth wasn’t public, their private charitable foundation reported assets of $158.8 million in 2014. [...]
Wanted: Help handing out Warren Buffett’s fortune (Boston Globe)
Each year, Buffett, the billionaire investor, receives thousands of letters from people asking whether he would pay their mortgages, medical bills, credit card debt, and more. Through a unique sibling partnership, Buffett forwards the letters to his older sister, Doris, who decides which ones to fund. Over the past decade, at least 22,000 letters have crossed their collective desks, and they have given away more than $12 million.
And now, in what might be Boston’s most unusual volunteer opportunity, Doris Buffett — who moved to the city last fall — is looking for people in Greater Boston to help her read a backlog of those letters, as well as new batches that continually arrive. [...]
