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 - 5/27/16

Berkshire Hathaway's quartery 13-F came out last week, detailing last quarter's stock transactions. Dataroma has an easy-to-understand format for keeping up with BRK's holdings.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway takes new stake in Apple, ups stake in IBM (CNBC)

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has taken a new stake in Apple and upped its holdings in IBM, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday.

Berkshire portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who each invest about $9 billion, made the investments.

Berkshire's new stake in Apple totaled 9.8 million shares, while the company boosted its shares of IBM by 198,853 to 81.2 million shares. [...]

Berkshire also boosted its holdings in Visa by 3.6 percent to 10.2 million Class A shares, increased its stake in Phillips 66 by 22.9 percent to 75.6 million shares, and upped its stake in Bank of New York Mellon by 3.6 percent to 20.8 million shares.

Berkshire reduced its holdings in a number of big names, as well. It lowered its holdings in Wal-Mart Stores by 949,430 to 55.2 million shares, and dissolved its stake in AT&T, according to the 13F filing.

Berkshire slashed its Procter & Gamble stake by 99.4 percent to 315,400 shares, and also reduced its stake in MasterCard by 5.6 percent to 4.9 million Class A shares.

Why Berkshire Hathaway Bought Into Apple (Fool Video)

Warren Buffett is famously anti-tech, but his company, Berkshire Hathaway, has recently become a shareholder of Apple.

In this segment from the MarketFoolery podcast, Chris Hill, Jason Moser, and Taylor Muckerman explain why the billionaire investor's company bought in. Learn why Apple isn't the same investment now that it was 10 years ago and why this move is much more in line with Berkshire's investment philosophies than it first seems. To wrap-up, the team runs down a couple other moves Berkshire Hathaway announced in its most recent 13-F filing.

Warren Buffett, Quicken Loans founder in Yahoo bid (Reuters)

Berkshire Hathaway Inc Chairman Warren Buffett is backing a consortium vying for Yahoo Inc's internet assets that includes Quicken Loans Inc founder Dan Gilbert, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. [...]

The consortium is in the second round of bidding in the auction for Yahoo's assets, the people said. Buffett is helping finance the offer, one of the people added. [...]

Susan Decker, who worked at Yahoo in several senior roles between 2000 and 2009, including president and chief financial officer, is now a director on Berkshire's board.

Warren Buffett: I may help bankroll billionaire Dan Gilbert's bid to buy Yahoo (CNBC)

Berkshire Hathaway has offered to be a potential finance partner for fellow billionaire Dan Gilbert's bid to buy Yahoo, Berkshire Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett confirmed to CNBC.

"I'm an enormous admirer of Dan and what he has accomplished in Quicken Loans‎. Yahoo is not the type of thing I'd ever be an equity partner in. I don't know the business and wouldn't know how to evaluate it, but if Dan needed financing, with proper terms and protections, we would be a possible financing help," Buffett told CNBC. [...]

Berkshire’s Jain Taps ‘Secret Weapon’ Raiguel to Run Gen Re (Bloomberg)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. promoted longtime reinsurance executive Kara Raiguel to run the company’s Gen Re unit, which has struggled to expand amid increased competition.

Raiguel will take over from Franklin "Tad" Montross, according to an internal memo confirmed by Gen Re. She has been at Berkshire for 15 years and was a key deputy to Ajit Jain, who runs the company’s namesake reinsurance operation and recently took on responsibility for Gen Re as well.

Read Ajit Jain’s Memo About the New CEO at Berkshire’s Gen Re (WSJ Moneybeat)

For Berkshire investors, the two-page memo may be interesting for more than the information it provides about Ms. Raiguel. It also offers a glimpse of Mr. Jain’s writing style, and it sounds a fair bit like the folksy, jargon-free tone that Mr. Buffett favors. Mr. Jain has long been thought by outside observers of Berkshire to be one of the leading candidates to replace Mr. Buffett. [...]

Richline Group Acquires Nordt (BusinessWire)

Richline Group, Inc. has the pleasure to announce the acquisition, effective June 1, 2016, of John C. Nordt, Inc. [...] a leading manufacturer and supplier of precious metal products to the jewelry industry. Founded in 1872 in New York City, Nordt has operated in Roanoke Virginia since 1984.

Here's How Berkshire Hathaway Gets a $63 Billion Interest-Free Loan From the U.S. Government (Fool)

[...] Berkshire Hathaway has some structural advantages that are less well understood. One of them is the size of its deferred tax liabilities – a whopping $63.2 billion, based on the most recent data [...]

A deferred tax liability arises from temporary differences between a company's financial accounts and its tax accounts. [...] Because it is assumed that companies will eventually realize the investment gains achieved through the sale of their winning stocks thereby incurring capital gains tax, that future liability is reflected on the balance sheet as a deferred tax liability.

Berkshire's NetJets settles U.S. immigration bias claim (Reuters)

NetJets, the luxury plane unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, agreed to settle U.S. charges that it discriminated against immigrant workers by requiring them to provide extra documents to prove their employment eligibility.

The settlement calls for NetJets to be monitored by the U.S. Department of Justice for two years, improve training of its human resources staff, and pay a $41,480 civil penalty, the department said in a Friday statement. NetJets denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle, and cooperated in the probe.

A NetJets spokesman said the government found "inadvertent errors" in the company's processes for verifying workers' residency. "There was no intent to discriminate," he added.

Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Group Invests In Technology (Travel Market Report)

Most people don’t think of Berkshire Hathaway as a hip modern brand. Warren Buffett is a conservative, patient investor who still owns a flip phone and brags he has sent one e-mail his whole life. What many might not know is that his Berkshire holding company owns a travel-insurance business that is making a mark for itself by offering high-tech, consumer-centric products and services. [...]

BHTP continues to invest in mobile technology and will be releasing a new version of its mobile app in the coming weeks. [...]