Berkshire News Briefs - 7/7/18

Warren Buffett is big winner after US bank stress tests

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is poised to net about $1.7bn in dividends after Wells Fargo and other banks in which he is a shareholder sailed through the Federal Reserve’s annual stress tests. [...]

Berkshire is one of the biggest single investors in the financial sector globally. It is the number one shareholder in lenders including Wells, Bank of America and American Express, and has sizeable stakes in several others. [...]

Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan Health Venture Takes Aim at Middlemen

The health venture established by Amazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will take aim at intermediaries in the health-care system as a part of a broad effort to reduce wasteful spending, the venture’s newly named chief executive officer said.

The still-unnamed business will initially seek to develop ways to improve care for the more than 1 million individuals who get health insurance from the three firms. Over time, the venture will make those innovations available freely to other companies, meaning that if it’s successful, its effects could be felt more broadly among the more than 150 million people in the U.S. who get their health insurance through work. [...]

Warren Buffett hands reins of World-Herald, other Berkshire Hathaway newspapers to Iowa firm Lee Enterprises

As the newspaper industry navigates a decline in print circulation and advertising revenue, hometown owner Warren Buffett is assigning the fate of his own BH Media Group to an out-of-town company.

Lee Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa, will manage The World-Herald and the 29 other Berkshire Hathaway-owned daily newspapers, the companies announced Tuesday in a five-year agreement that could bring Lee $50 million over five years.

Berkshire Hathaway's Acquisitive Clayton Lands Arbor Homes

After an 18-month courtship, Maryville, Tenn-based Clayton Properties Group closed on the acquisition of Indianapolis' No. 1-ranked home building firm, Arbor Homes, adding to its 8-state map a 24-year old private builder whose signature stock in trade is a rarity these days: the profitable below-$200,000 site-built home.

The 7th regional site-build jewel in the Clayton crown adds to its suddenly hefty portfolio of regional firms--on pace to deliver as many as 4,500 homes in 2018--gives the Berkshire Hathaway unit fresh headway and a platform to launch further inroads in its goal to provide people priced out of many housing markets with an attainable path to homeownership. [...]

BNSF estimates 230,000 gallons of oil spilled in NW Iowa

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds visited Saturday to authorities assigned to clean up 230,000 gallons of oil that spilled Friday morning into the Little Rock River near Doon in northwest Iowa.

The spill was caused by a derailed BNSF train. [...]

The company reported later Saturday that about 100,000 gallons of the 230,000 gallons of spilled oil had been contained, and that oil would be removed from the immediate area with oil-water separators. [...]

How Warren Buffett and Bill Gates ended up walking into an Old Market store

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates didn’t just wander into an Old Market nostalgia store the day after the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in May, with “Little Brown Jug” playing in the background.

No, some of Gates’ staffers had been to Omaha in the past and were fascinated by Larry Richling’s Fairmont Antiques & Mercantile store/Hollywood Candy, 1209 Jackson St., and its combination of candy store, memorabilia collections, soda fountain and more.

The Gates group decided that it would be just the place for an episode of Gates’ video blog, showing the two friends having a good ‘ol time in Omaha. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 7/15/17

With Bank of America's dividend hike, Warren Buffett gets his chance at a $11 billion windfall

[...] Berkshire has warrants to buy 700 million common shares of Bank of America at $7.14 each, or about $5 billion. And Bank of America just did what Berkshire was waiting for: after passing the second of two annual stress tests by the Federal Reserve, it got the go-ahead to hike its annual dividend to 48 cents a share, or 12 cents a quarter, a 60 percent increase.

That is enough for Berkshire to consider exercising those warrants rather than waiting until just before their expiration in 2021. At Bank of America's current share price, the stake would hand Berkshire a tidy $11.7 billion profit, at least on paper. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway makes deal to win PUC approval of Oncor acquisition

Berkshire Hathaway has tentatively agreed with regulators and customer advocates to wall off Dallas-based utility Oncor from risks and debts of its parent company, a step that could help the conglomerate win approval for the $9 billion deal to acquire the largest utility in Texas and Oncor's bankrupt parent.

The move is aimed at protecting ratepayers from incurring costs not related to the distribution of electricity and ensuring that Oncor has the resources to maintain its transmission lines and the reliability of the system. Such concerns led the state Public Utility Commission to reject two earlier bids to buy Oncor and its parent, Energy Future Holdings, out of bankruptcy.

Late Thursday, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a subsidiary of billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, said it would pay $9 billion to acquire Energy Future Holdings and Oncor, which provides electricity to 10 million Texans. Oncor owns and operates the grid for most of North Texas. Energy Future Holdings has been in bankruptcy for three years as it has worked to restructure its $40 billion debt.

Berkshire said it values Oncor at $11.25 billion. Another group may bid for Oncor, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing unnamed sources. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway's Clayton Buys Oakwood Homes

Clayton Properties Group buys Oakwood Homes in a deal that closed Monday, July 3.

Oakwood is Clayton's 4th acquisition of a site-build home building operator, and the largest by far, of the deals, as well as the first one outside the Southeast region. [...]

Oakwood owns 3,000 to 4,000 lots, but has control of 18,000, which allows for continued accelerated growth with the capital access the Clayton deal will provide.

In Oakwood, and with Pat Hamill and his team continuing to run and grow the company, Clayton sees a strong cultural fit as well as a company that can help it on its strategic mission to expand its buyer universe with a price-range sweet spot between its $150,000 top price for its manufactured homes, and prevailing entry-level single-family price points, which tend to exceed $225,000. [...]

Clayton Buys Birmingham's Harris Doyle Homes

Clayton Properties Group will announce today the purchase of home building operator, Birmingham, Ala.-based Harris Doyle Homes.

The Clayton acquisition is the fifth site-build company added to the nation's largest manufactured home builder, whose market share is 50% of the category, which accounts for seven in 10 homes priced below $150,000.

Clayton's Harris Doyle announcement follows last week's closing of a deal to purchase Oakwood Homes, the Colorado-Utah home builder known as one of the most technologically progressed large enterprises. [...]

Sprint executives have engaged Warren Buffett about investment

Sprint Corp. Chairman Masayoshi Son has engaged Warren Buffett and cable mogul John Malone in discussions about participating in a deal with the wireless company, people familiar with the situation say.

The Japanese billionaire met separately with the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. boss and Mr. Malone, whose Liberty Broadband Corp. is one of Charter Communications Inc.'s biggest investors, this week at an annual gathering of CEOs in Sun Valley, Idaho, the people said.

The contours of the deal the parties are discussing are unclear. The talks are at an early stage and may not result in an agreement, the people said, but one possibility would see Berkshire put more than $10 billion into a transaction. [...]

Warren Buffett casts big shadow in banking world

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is now the largest single shareholder of Bank of America — but that’s not the only piece of Wall Street he owns.

Buffett, 86, is also the biggest shareholder of Wells Fargo, with a little under 10 percent of the San Francisco bank, and US Bancorp, a Minneapolis bank that’s among the largest in the country.

In addition to those holdings, he’s also the seventh biggest owner of Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon — and the eighth largest shareholder of M&T Bank, a Buffalo bank with $16.5 billion in assets. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 4/22/17

Berkshire Cuts Wells Fargo Stake to Get Below Fed's Limit

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is cutting its stake in Wells Fargo & Co. to less than 10 percent after the Federal Reserve told the billionaire’s company that remaining above that threshold would limit its ability to do business with the bank.

Berkshire sold 7.13 million shares of Wells Fargo this week and plans to divest an additional 1.87 million in the near future, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said Wednesday in a statement. Buffett’s company oversaw about 500 million shares as of Dec. 31, valued at more than $27 billion at the time, according to Berkshire’s annual report. [...]

Buffett likely voted shares to back Wells Fargo board

Wells Fargo & Co's largest investor, Warren Buffett, has likely already voted his shares to support the bank's recommendations at its contentious annual shareholder meeting next week, a representative told Reuters on Wednesday, which include reinstating most of the board's directors. [...]

Now the board, whose members include new CEO Tim Sloan, is facing opposition in the shareholder vote next week after proxy advisers recommended rejecting many of them.

Buffett's assistant, Debbie Bosanek, told Reuters that Buffett supports management and the board, and that he has likely voted shares held by him and Berkshire to reflect that view. [...]

As Tesla bills stall, Lege weighs loophole for Buffett

The latest effort by Tesla Inc. to sell the electric cars that it makes directly to Texas consumers appears to have stalled in the Legislature, even as a bid by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to win an exception to the strict regulations preventing automobile manufacturers from also owning dealerships is racing forward.

Senate Bill 2279 — filed Tuesday by state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills — would allow manufacturers to own dealerships “so long as the vehicles they sell or service are not the same type of motor vehicle that they manufacturer or distribute.” It has been scheduled for a Thursday Senate committee hearing.

Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, which has 85 dealerships in 10 states and is based in Irving, needs the exception to avoid violating existing Texas law because its parent company owns recreational-vehicle maker Forest River Inc., as well as a large stake in Chinese electric-car maker BYD Co. [...]

Apple and the Airlines in Buffett and Munger's Own Words

Munger on Apple and airlines during the 2017 Daily Journal Corp. meeting: [...]

"Now it may work out to be a good idea for the same reason that our railroad business turned out to be a good idea, but there’s some chance that it might not. He’s changed, and I think he’s changed when he buys his airlines, and he’s changed when he buys Apple. Think of the hooting we’ve done over the years about high tech – we just don’t understand it. It’s not in our circle of competency. The worst business in the world is airlines. What do we appear in the press with? Apple and a bunch of airlines. I don’t think we’ve gone crazy; I think the answer is we’re adapting reasonably to a business that has gotten very much more difficult. I don’t think we have a cinch in either of those positions. I think we have the odds a little bit in our favor. And if that’s the best advantage we can get, we’ll just have to live on the advantage we can get. I used to say you have to marry the best person that will have you. And I’m afraid that’s a rule of life and you have to get by in life with the best advantage you can get. And things have gotten so difficult in the investment world that we have to be satisfied with the type of advantage that we didn’t used to get. On the other hand, the thing that caused it to be so difficult was we got so enormously rich. That’s not a bad trade off." [...]

When Warren Met Jorge Paulo: Buffett and Lemann Recall Their First Deal

The billionaire investors Warren Buffett and Jorge Paulo Lemann have teamed up to engineer some of the biggest and boldest mergers and acquisitions in recent years, but they have rarely appeared in public together.

On Saturday night, however, the two appeared on a stage in Cambridge, Mass., to be interviewed by the dean of the Harvard Business School, Nitin Nohria. [...]

Mr. Lemann and Mr. Buffett got to know each other when both were on the board of Gillette. Around that time, Mr. Lemann was selling Banco de Investimentos Garantia, an investment bank of which he was a founder in Brazil. [...]

But it was not until 2013 that they first did a deal together. Then, Mr. Lemann’s 3G Capital and Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway teamed up to acquire H.J. Heinz for $23 billion. Two years later, 3G Capital, again together with Mr. Buffett, merged Heinz with Kraft Foods. [...]

kathy ireland® Worldwide Partners with Berkshire Hathaway's Larson-Juhl and The Buffalo Works to Launch Art and Wall Décor Line in 2017

kathy ireland® Worldwide (kiWW®) has inked an agreement to design a wide-ranging collection of branded art and wall décor for the home with Larson-Juhl and The Buffalo Works. The Buffalo Works will work with kiWW® to curate, develop and market the art program, partnering with Larson-Juhl as the exclusive supplier for the branded program. [...]

[Kathy Ireland, kiWW's Chair, CEO and Chief Designer:] "Larson-Juhl is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway business family. We began our kathy ireland® Home collection with a Berkshire Hathaway flooring company. Our first retail client was Irv Blumkin and Nebraska Furniture Mart, still clients and dear friends, all these years later. To join Larson-Juhl and The Buffalo Works means we are collaborating with some of the Berkshire Hathaway best! We will celebrate together at the Annual Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders Meeting where our new artwork will be on display," she adds. [...]

Established more than a century ago, Larson-Juhl is the global leader in custom picture frame design, manufacturing and distribution. The company also provides high quality conservation products to museums, galleries, and libraries and serves the framing market with a full range of solutions, from art printing and volume framing to wall decor. A Berkshire Hathaway company headquartered in Norcross, GA, Larson-Juhl operates 54 facilities in 17 countries around the world. [...]

Why Warren Buffett Loves Dividends, but Doesn't Pay Any

Despite Buffett's love of dividends, Berkshire Hathaway has never paid one to its shareholders, nor does Buffett plan to start implementing a dividend anytime soon. This may seem like a big contradiction -- as Buffett himself said in his 2012 letter to Berkshire shareholders, "It puzzles them [some of Berkshire's shareholders] that we relish the dividends we receive from most of the stocks Berkshire owns, but pay out nothing ourselves." However, Buffett's reasoning makes perfect sense. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 12/2/16

Berkshire Hathaway filed their quarterly 13F last month, detailing their investment portfolio make-up as of September 30. You can see all the buys and sells highlighted in this chart of BRK's current holdings.

The big news was that Buffett has bought stock in all four major airlines. American, Delta, and United-Continental are listed in the SEC filing; Buffett also told CNBC that he has bought a stake in Southwest in October (after the Sept. 30 SEC cut-off for the 13F).

Berkshire Hathaway also sold 100% of its stake in Suncor Energy (SU) and Media General (MEG). Other big moves (+/- more than 10%) are reductions in Liberty Media (LMCA -48%, LMCK -36%), Kinder Morgan (KMI -25%), and Walmart (WMT -68%), and an addition to Liberty SiriusXM (LBXMK +11%).

Buffett's Berkshire takes stakes in four major airlines

Berkshire Hathaway's just released SEC filings show that the company has taken a stake in three of the four major airline companies — American Airlines, United Continental Holdings and Delta Air Lines.

But CNBC can report exclusively that Berkshire also has taken a stake in the fourth major carrier, Southwest Airlines.

The move into airlines is a shocking reversal for Warren Buffett, who has shunned the industry for decades following a volatile investment he made in US Airways back in 1989.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Is Cashing Out of Walmart

Warren Buffett has almost completely checked out of Walmart. After trimming some of his stake in the retailer earlier this year, Buffett slashed his remaining Walmart stock by nearly 70% as the discount store announced its controversial deal to buy e-commerce startup Jet.com. Buffett’s stake in Walmart is now worth less than $1 billion, down from nearly $3 billion in the middle of this year, according to new securities filings. [...]

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Bets Big on Airlines at the Strangest Time

For two decades, Warren Buffett has been decrying airlines as terrible investments. Indeed, Buffett famously observed that a far-sighted capitalist should have shot down Orville Wright's plane at Kitty Hawk to save future investors the billions of dollars they would go on to lose in the airline business.

Yet in a stunning reversal, Berkshire Hathaway bought shares of the three largest U.S. airlines last quarter: American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Continental. (Buffett revealed on Monday that Berkshire Hathaway went on to purchase shares of Southwest Airlines in October.)

This is strange timing for Berkshire Hathaway to reverse its stance on airline stocks, especially American, Delta, and United. Profit margins appear to have peaked at all three companies. [...]

Nevada votes to end NV Energy monopoly

Receiving almost three quarters of the votes, Nevada voters have passed a ballot measure that aims to break up NV Energy’s monopoly and liberalise the electricity market to more competition.

Known as the Energy Choice Initiative or Question 3 on a ballot approved on Tuesday, the news is a victory for solar as this is a significant move to deregulation of the state’s public utility. [...]

The measure was initiated in part by large companies, including casinos, wishing to break free from the state utility and find their own providers. [...]

That Big Berkshire Hathaway Railroad Deal

It's been seven years since Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. announced its biggest deal to date -- the $35 billion-plus purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. The Oracle of Omaha had the foresight to place his "all-in wager on the economic future of the United States" just as the nation emerged from a recession, and has reaped the benefits. [...]

BNSF's net income has more than doubled since 2009, which has in turn driven Berkshire Hathaway's earnings higher. Berkshire has already earned more than $22 billion in dividends from BNSF. In other words, it has already recouped basically all the cash used to finance the deal, which is a rare feat in itself. [...]

Buffett throws weight behind new Wells chief

Warren Buffett has thrown his weight behind scandal-hit Wells Fargo, saying it is “a great bank that made a terrible mistake” whose new chief executive Tim Sloan is “exactly right” for the top job.

Breaking his months-long silence on the debacle, the head of Berkshire Hathaway, the bank’s biggest shareholder, confirmed he has not sold any shares after the scandal erupted over sales practices. [...]

Duracell closing Cleveland, Tenn., packing plant by 2018

Battery maker Duracell plans to take some juice out of its Cleveland, Tenn., workforce, closing its packing plant by 2018 and cutting about 140 jobs. The move by Duracell, maker of the well-known "coppertop" battery, will not impact its manufacturing operation in Cleveland, where nearly 150 people are employed making C and D batteries, the company said. [...]

The announcement is the second major consolidation by Duracell since it was purchased by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway early this year. This summer, Duracell revealed it plans to close a battery-making plant in South Carolina that employs 430 people. The shutdown of the Lancaster, S.C., factory that makes AA batteries will begin in March and should be complete by the middle of 2019, Duracell said. [...]

Warren Buffett’s Meeting with University of Maryland MBA/MS Students – November 18, 2016

Berkshire has only 25 people at headquarters, but 360,000 employees. The managers of Berkshire’s 70 businesses choose their own people. The qualities they look for are intelligence, energy, and integrity. But the most important quality in a manager is having a passion for the business. It is not IQ but passion for their businesses that make Berkshire’s 70 managers stand out. When WB was 23 years old, he was rejected by Ben Graham for a job. Years later he received a letter saying the “next time you come to NY stop by my office”. WB went the next day. He never asked about pay. You should take a job that you would take if you didn’t need a job. [...]

Jokes in Warren Buffett’s Shareholder Letters

We all know Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) is the greatest investor ever. He built his wealth buying stocks that sold below their intrinsic value. He is also an avid writer. He is very good at communicating his thoughts through conversational and humorous language and frequently tells jokes. These are some of the jokes he has told in his shareholder letters. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway 3rd Quarter Earnings

Berkshire Hathaway reported 3rd Quarter Earnings after the market closed on Friday, Nov. 4. [Press Release]

The headlines seemed to be either glass half full or glass half empty, depending on whether you believe Buffett's assertion that operating income is the best yardstick to measure the company's growth by.

Berkshire Hathaway profits falls 24 percent; company keeps Wells Fargo stake (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on Friday said third-quarter profit dropped 24 percent from a year earlier, when it recorded a large one-time gain, but acquisitions helped boost operating profit at the conglomerate run by billionaire Warren Buffett.

The company also reported a $22.1 billion stake in Wells Fargo & Co. as of Sept. 30, suggesting it kept its 10 percent ownership position even as the bank became embroiled in a scandal over its creation of unauthorized customer accounts. [...]

Quarterly net income for Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire fell to $7.2 billion, or $4,379 per Class A share, from $9.43 billion, or $5,737 per share, a year earlier.

Operating profit, which excludes investment and derivative gains and losses, rose 7 percent to $4.85 billion, or $2,951 per share, from $4.55 billion, or $2,769 per share. [...]

Berkshire Operating Profit Climbs 6.6% on Manufacturing Gain (Bloomberg)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said third-quarter operating profit rose 6.6 percent on contributions from newly acquired manufacturing businesses.

Operating earnings, which exclude some investment results, climbed to $4.85 billion, or $2,951 a share, from $4.55 billion, or $2,769, a year earlier [...]

Several of Berkshire’s large businesses struggled in the third quarter, however. The insurance group reported that underwriting profit slipped 34 percent to $272 million as results worsened at the company’s namesake reinsurance business and auto insurer Geico. Income from Berkshire’s railroad, BNSF, fell about 12 percent to $1.02 billion on reduced demand for coal and petroleum products. [...]

Book value, a measure of assets minus liabilities, rose to $163,783 per share at the end of September from $160,009 three months earlier. The cash pile rose to a record $84.8 billion

Berkshire Hathaway reports 3rd quarter operating earnings of $4.85 billion, up 6.6 percent (Omaha World-Herald)

[...] Although net income is the standard measure of corporate performance, Buffett has said Berkshire’s operating earnings are a better gauge because net income is affected by swings in the paper value of its insurance-like derivatives and by investment gains and losses taken during the reporting period.

Operating earnings reflect the earnings by the companies that Berkshire owns, such as BNSF Railway, Berkshire Hathaway Energy and its insurance operations. Net income is the overall profit by the company, including investments and derivatives. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 9/21/16

Warren Buffett: I won't comment on the Wells Fargo scandal until November (Business Insider)

Warren Buffett is waiting until after the election to weigh in on Wells Fargo.

Buffett told Fox Business' Liz Claman that he will not comment on the bank's scandal until November. Buffett is the largest shareholder of Wells Fargo and recently petitioned the Federal Reserve to increase his ownership stake above 10%. [...]

Wells Fargo recently settled with regulators for $185 million after it came to light that employees had opened around 2 million accounts without the knowledge of customers. About 5,300 of the bank's employees were fired as a result of the scandal. [...]

Buffett Now Phillips 66's Top Owner (Investopedia)

Shares of Phillips 66 rose after the news this week that billionaire Warren Buffett had increased Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s holdings of the energy company by 1,019,974 shares, making Berkshire the largest holder. Berkshire now owns about 15.4% of the stock outstanding, or a total of 80,671,982 shares. [...]

Nevada Approves SolarCity’s Deal With Berkshire’s NV Energy

Nevada regulators have approved a deal between Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s NV Energy utility and SolarCity Corp. that will roll back rate hikes for existing rooftop solar customers. The Nevada Public Utilities Commission voted 3-0 on Friday in favor of a settlement that will shield more than 32,000 rooftop solar customers in the state from increased fees that took effect in January. Earlier this week, NV Energy and SolarCity had asked the commission to approve an agreement that would grandfather those who signed up to use home solar prior to January under more favorable rates for 20 years. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway Will Do Just Fine After Buffett (Fortune)

Investment research firm Morningstar released a note on Sept. 2 that eased a widespread fear that without the now 86-year-old Oracle of Omaha and his partner, 92-year-old Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway would collapse.

“The key to Berkshire’s success over the years has been Buffett’s ability to not only find fruitful ways to put the firm’s excess capital to work but in paying close attention to culture and fit when acquiring companies,” wrote Greggory Warren, senior equity analyst at Morningstar. “Berkshire’s culture of management autonomy and entrepreneurship has to a large degree become institutionalized.” [...]

Berkshire Hathaway firm CTB to buy 80% stake in Cabinplant (Packaging Business Review)

Berkshire Hathaway company CTB has agreed to purchase 80% stake in Danish company Cabinplant for an undisclosed sum. Based in Haarby, Cabinplant provides processing and weighing / packing solutions for the food industry. [...] The company, which has around 300 employees, carries out operations in about 30 countries. CTB said that the Cabinplant’s poultry processing equipment complements its Meyn poultry processing subsidiary.

Pasta Equipment Maker Dominioni Joins Marmon (BusinessWire)

Marmon Food, Beverage & Water Technologies Company, part of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., today announced the acquisition of the assets of Dominioni Punto & Pasta S.r.l., a leading Italian supplier of commercial pasta equipment, by Marmon Pasta Solutions S.r.l. Terms were not disclosed.

Founded in 1968 by Pietro Dominioni, the family-run business designs and produces professional pasta equipment for the restaurant, hospitality, and catering markets, as well as high-volume pasta manufacturers. The business will continue to operate under the Dominioni brand name and its operations will remain based in Lurate Caccivio (Como). Fabrizio Dominioni, son of the founder, will continue to manage the business. [...]

J.P. Morgan Names Berkshire Hathaway Investment Manager Combs to Board (NASDAQ)

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. on Tuesday said it named Berkshire Hathaway Inc. investment manager Todd Combs to its board, bringing into the fold an heir-apparent of billionaire investor Warren Buffett's enterprise.

Mr. Combs, 45 years old, is a former hedge-fund manager who began working at Berkshire in 2011. He and a counterpart, Ted Weschler, manage portfolios of about $9 billion each, but they will take over all stock-picking duties when Mr. Buffett is no longer running the firm.

Mr. Combs has served as a director at Precision Castparts since late January, according to a regulatory filing. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway and underwriting unit sued for running ‘reverse Ponzi scheme’ (MarketWatch)

A New York City-based courier service has sued Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and one of its companies, saying they’ve been running a “fradulent scheme” by misusing premiums that were supposed to be used for funding its workers’ compensation coverage.

Breakaway Courier Systems in a lawsuit filed Friday said Berkshire and its Applied Underwriters company have engaged in what was “essentially a reverse Ponzi scheme.” [...]

Berkshire Agrees to Stop Selling EquityComp Policies in California (Insurance Journal)

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones on Tuesday approved an order agreed to by California Insurance Co. and Applied Underwriters Captive Risk Assurance Company Inc. under which they will stop selling workers’ compensation policies that the two Berkshire Hathaway companies used without filing key addendums to the policies. [...]

Jones’ action stemmed from his decision that a complex insurance scheme in a case involving a company called Shasta Linen. [...] Jones found that the insurance companies issued the policies and rates without his approval. He also ruled that the companies designed the program with the intent of avoiding the review of insurance regulators.

World’s Smartest Investor Outperforms With Boring Utilities (Oil Price)

[...] But several years ago, Buffet began steering Berkshire into investments unusual for a financial concern. He purchased a number of regulated electric utilities and a railroad, the Burlington Northern. These investments have much in common. They provide essential services in slow growing markets. They generate steady albeit modest returns. They require ongoing, large capital investments to maintain current levels of service and, as long as investment takes place, they generate substantial income tax deferrals that can also be invested profitably. Since these businesses are growing, at least in term of their assets--and some level of profitability is virtually assured--the owner or investor can still reinvest their capital at a reasonable return. They don’t have to worry about the vagaries of public markets equity or fixed income. They can invest in themselves so to speak. [...]

A psychologist reveals the persuasive tactic Warren Buffett uses to make his shareholders trust him (Business Insider)

[...] This unabashed recounting of Berkshire Hathaway's setbacks isn't unique to the 2012 letter; in fact, Buffett frequently opens his letters this way.

According to psychologist Robert Cialdini, this strategy is brilliant. Cialdini is a professor emeritus of psychology and marketing at Arizona State University, the CEO and president of Influence at Work, and the author of the new book "Pre-Suasion," in which he highlights the invisible interpersonal forces behind our behavior.

In the book, he highlights Buffett's letter-writing strategy as a prime example of a "pre-suasive" tactic, or a way to influence people to behave a certain way in the moments before they make their decision. In this case, the decision might be whether to start or continue investing in Berkshire Hathaway. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 8/5/16

Berkshire Said to Draw Fed Scrutiny Over Wells Fargo Investment (Bloomberg)

Berkshire has asked the Fed for approval to maintain and even increase its 10 percent stake in Wells Fargo, saying in a June application that it may seek to “purchase additional shares.” If the Fed denies the request, Berkshire might have to dial back the holding of about $24 billion that Buffett described in a recent shareholder meeting as “our largest marketable security."

Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire probably wouldn’t have to sell anything if it can persuade regulators that its stake in AmEx doesn’t mean it exerts any control over the credit-card company. Berkshire has successfully made the argument in the past to banking agencies. [...]

Warren Buffett’s Short-Term Hit and Run Transactions (Insider Monkey)

The examples in the article are Express Scripts (ESRX), Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Intel (INTC), CVS Health (CVS), and Exxon Mobil (XOM).

Warren Buffett is known for his highly successful value investing approach. [...] However, over the past few years, his fund, Berkshire Hathaway, has disclosed some short or medium-term stakes, positions it did not maintain for more than a year.

In many occasions, these stocks were picked by one of Buffett’s hedge fund managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, and not by himself. [...] As readers will notice, it seems like Combs and Weschler’s strategy is all about profit taking, acquiring stocks at low prices and selling when they surge, instead of keeping them for long periods of time. [...]

Warren Buffett Made a Big Bet On an 'In-Your-Face' CEO (Bloomberg)

[Precision Castparts CEO Mark] Donegan, 60, a former Villanova University football player who devoted most of his career to Precision, shares many qualities with other Berkshire managers: He’s a low-profile CEO with a great track record, relentless about staying ahead of the competition. During the 13 years he led Precision as a publicly traded company, its stock climbed 20-fold, annual revenue quadrupled to $10 billion and he bought dozens of businesses, consolidating a position as a key supplier to Boeing Co., Airbus Group SE and General Electric Co. It helped him attain a cult status among investors. [...]

Behind the numbers, though, something more brutal is going on. For years, Donegan has traveled the globe, sometimes bullying staff during quarterly reviews at Precision plants. Bloomberg News spoke with 15 current and former employees—some at the most senior levels of the organization—as well as half a dozen people with knowledge of how the company is run. Those who know the CEO best describe a manager who’s highly effective but at times strains basic decency. [...]

Book Review: Inside The Investments Of Warren Buffett (Investing-dot-com)

I have no idea how many books have been written about Warren Buffett, but sometimes I have the feeling that he is giving George Washington a run for his money. The latest addition to the literature is Yefei Lu’s "Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett: Twenty Cases" (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2016).

Lu examines 20 investments Buffett made over the course of his career that, in Lu’s opinion, “had the largest material impact on his trajectory.” He puts himself in the shoes of imaginary investment analysts “studying the businesses at the same time … Buffett did.” Why would an ordinary analyst either recommend or, as would often have been the case, argue against investing in a company to which Buffett eventually opted to commit funds? [...]

The DQ® System Announces Plans to Develop 24 Locations in Five Caribbean Countries in the Next Five Years (Business Wire)

If you read these News Brief posts the whole way to the bottom every time, you know that I have a thing for these recurring, formulaic Dairy Queen press releases. They mean almost nothing to Berkshire Hathaway's bottom line in the grand scheme of things, but I love to see DQ expanding to all the corners of the globe anyway.

Plans call for the development of DQ Grill & Chill® locations in Trinidad and Tobago, DQ Grill & Chill and DQ Treat locations in Jamaica, and DQ Treat locations in St. Lucia, Grenada and St. Maarten. Currently, there are eight DQ Treat locations in Trinidad, the first of which opened in 2012. [...]

Royal Treats Ltd. signed the multi-unit, multi-country agreement with American Dairy Queen Corporation (ADQ) to develop the new locations. They currently operate eight DQ Treat locations throughout Trinidad and Tobago [...] With their new agreement, they will introduce DQ Grill & Chill locations to fans in Trinidad and Jamaica.

Berkshire News Briefs - 7/14/16

Berkshire applies to boost Wells Fargo stake above 10 percent (Business Insider)

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc has applied to increase its ownership stake in Wells Fargo & Co above 10 percent, the Federal Reserve said on its website on Friday.

Boosting the stake above 10 percent could mean increased federal scrutiny over the investment. [...]

CEOs relish 'unique' benefits of being a Buffett-owned business, despite some downsides (Omaha World Herald)

Donegan, during a visit to Omaha this spring for the annual meeting of Berkshire shareholders, estimated that since he became a Berkshire CEO, he can devote 15 percent more of his days to actually running Precision Castparts.

That’s a substantial gain in perhaps the most valuable of economic commodities — time — and an example of how business life inside Berkshire is different from business life outside. [...]

Billionaire Warren Buffett doing energy pilot program in Hawaii (Pacific Business News)

Warren Buffett’s energy company has started doing a pilot program for a residential property manager in Hawaii, a spokeswoman for one of his companies confirmed to Pacific Business News this week.

Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy Services LLC, a Berkshire Hathaway Energy company which was recently registered as a new business in Hawaii, is doing an energy management pilot that uses a technology platform to help clients manage the performance of the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and electric water heater systems at their property sites.[...]

Buffett may be interested in buying Hawaiian Electric Co. if Florida-based NextEra Energy Inc.’s proposed $4.3 billion deal to purchase the Honolulu utility falls through. A decision by Hawaii regulators on the NextEra-HECO sale is expected to come soon.

Precision Castparts neighbors sue, demand company to stop polluting (Oregon Live)

Four Southeast Portland residents who say their homes have been smothered with heavy metals and other pollution by a nearby Precision Castparts manufacturing plant are asking a judge to order the parts maker to stop polluting.

In a suit filed last week, the residents also are asking a Multnomah County Circuit judge to force Precision Castparts to clean up millions of pounds of nickel, chromium, arsenic and other toxic pollutants that they say have settled upon their neighborhoods and increased their chances of cancer and other health problems -- and even put children at risk of lower IQs. [...]

Gen Re Seeks to Add Brokerage Business Through Hookup with TransRe (Insurance Journal)

General Re, the unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. that appointed a new chief executive officer in May, struck a deal with a rival reinsurer to help revive sales.

Alleghany Corp.’s TransRe will share revenue and risks on property/casualty reinsurance business that it underwrites through brokers and intermediaries for the next five years, the companies said Tuesday in a statement. The partnership gives TransRe, with the backing of Gen Re, the ability to take on twice as much risk for clients, the Alleghany unit said in a separate document listing facts about the deal.

Gen Re CEO Kara Raiguel is seeking new sources of premium revenue after being named to take over for Franklin “Tad” Montross. [...]

Buffett's Brooks branches out to attract gym generation (Channel NewsAsia)

Brooks, the running brand owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, believes that the U.S. marathon boom has peaked and it is looking to broaden its appeal to a younger gym generation.

Founded in 1914, the Seattle-based firm was close to bankruptcy when Jim Weber took over as chief executive in 2001. Weber decided to concentrate solely on running, a strategy Buffett bought into when he acquired the brand in 2006.

Brooks is now the market leader in the U.S. specialty running shoe market with a 29 percent share. It had total sales in 2014 of US$548 million, still only a fraction of overall leader Nike's sales of US$32 billion in the year to May 31. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway Said to Be Among Leading Oncor Bidders (Bloomberg)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. submitted a bid for Energy Future Holdings Corp.’s Oncor Electric Delivery Co., people familiar with the talks said, joining NextEra Energy Inc. as a top contender to buy Texas’ biggest transmission operator.

Energy Future is mulling offers that value Oncor at about $18 billion, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The process is fluid and the leading bidders have switched places several times, the people said. [...]

25 Years of Learning and Laughter (Gates Notes)

I don’t remember the exact day I first met most of my friends, but with Warren Buffett I do. It was 25 years ago today: July 5, 1991.

I think the date stands out in my mind so clearly because it marked the beginning of a new and unexpected friendship for Melinda and me—one that has changed our lives for the better in every imaginable way.

Warren has helped us do two things that are impossible to overdo in one lifetime: learn more and laugh more. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 3/31/16

Buffett's Wells Fargo Stake Hits Level Requiring Fed Review (Bloomberg)

Warren Buffett’s holding in Wells Fargo & Co. reached 10 percent, a level that triggers a Federal Reserve review and could prevent him from buying more shares until he receives regulatory approval.

The billionaire investor’s stake reached that threshold because Wells Fargo has been buying back stock, according to a regulatory filing Monday. The document said the holding is about 506 million shares, the same as on Dec. 31 when it accounted for 9.9 percent. [...]

BNSF furloughs have hit 4,600 employees nationwide (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

In another sign of the fallout of low energy prices, BNSF Railway says it has furloughed about about 4,600 of its employees nationwide over the past several months.

The furloughs amount to about 10 percent of the Fort Worth-based company’s workforce, matching the layoffs made by the railroad in 2007 and 2008, according to statements made by Matthew Rose, executive chairman of BNSF at an energy conference in Billings, Montana. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway Is 35% Undervalued (Fool)

If I sum up $107 per B-share in investments and $82 per B-share for the operating businesses, that gives me a grand total of $189 per B-share. That's 35% more than the current trading price of $140 per B-share.

Increasing Costs And Premiums At Berkshire Hathaway’s Geico (Valuewalk)

All told, both the severity and frequency of claims have been on the rise at Geico, said David Kass, a business professor at the University of Maryland and a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder.

“This resulted from lower prices for gasoline and an improving economy, which led to more miles being driven by policyholders,” Kass said. “These increases in costs to auto insurers reduces their profitability in the short run until appropriate premium increases can be implemented.” [...]

McLane Co. executive advises students on success in business (Richmond Dispatch)

“If you can accept being inconvenienced, then the rewards will be there, because it is noticed,” said W. Grady Rosier, president and chief executive officer of Temple, Texas-based distributor McLane Co., which he noted supplies groceries and other products to retailers and restaurants in every ZIP code in the nation. [...]

McLane grew from a one-man retail shop opened by Robert McLane in 1894 in Cameron, Texas, to become a $48 billion-a-year supply-chain behemoth, mostly by hitching its own trucking business to the rise of convenience stores such as 7-Eleven starting in the 1950s, then the explosion of big-box chain stores such as Walmart starting in the 1970s.

Rosier, 67, grew up in Florida and was the first in his family to attend college. He joined McLane in 1984 and became CEO in 1995, five years after it had been acquired by Walmart.

In 2000, the company was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the holding company managed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett. [...]

International Dairy Queen, Inc. Opens First DQ Grill & Chill® Restaurant in Jordan (BusinessWire)

The Dairy Queen® system, part of Berkshire Hathaway, has opened a new DQ Grill & Chill® restaurant at Abdoun Circle in Amman, Jordan. The opening of this location in Jordan represents the latest country outside of the United States with a DQ brand presence.

SKM Franchise Co. Ltd. has entered into a long-term franchise agreement with American Dairy Queen, Corp. (ADQ) and plans to develop a minimum of 10 locations, including five DQ Grill & Chill® restaurants throughout Jordan over the next five years. [...]

Berkshire News Briefs - 10/29/15

NetJets reaches deal with pilots, ending Berkshire Hathaway distraction (Columbus Business Journal)

NetJets Inc. has agreed in principle to a contract covering its 2,800 union pilots, ending more than two years of contentious negotiations that saw a management shakeup and required billionaire Warren Buffett to defend parent Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s attitude toward organized labor. [...]

The union said the proposed agreement meets goals of “protecting, repairing and improving” the previous contract. It comes days after NetJets reached a tentative contract with 278 flight attendants.

Warren Buffett’s Millionaires Club (WSJ)

In 50 years at the helm of Berkshire, Mr. Buffett has transformed a struggling textile mill into a massive holding company with $200 billion in revenue and created a legion of unlikely millionaires—and even a few billionaires. [...]

Early Berkshire stockholders have used shares to finance children’s educations, buy homes and put up collateral for loans. Hundreds of millions of dollars of stock already have gone to shareholders’ alma maters, cultural institutions and medical research.

Warren Buffett's really bad week (Fortune)

Warren Buffett likely had a worse week in the market than you did.

[...] Walmart’s stock fell 10%, [...] so that was a $360 million hit to the conglomerate’s investment portfolio. That same day, Wells Fargo [...] shares dropped a modest $0.36. But to Buffett’s Berkshire [...] that small drop meant another $170 million shaved off the Oracle of Omaha’s portfolio. Then came IBM, [...] IBM’s shares fell 6%, or $8.58. The resulted in a $680 million hit to Buffett’s Berkshire [...]

Three stocks, one week, $1.2 billion down the drain.

Trust and Consequences: A Survey of Berkshire Hathaway Operating Managers (Stanford)

For much of its history, Berkshire Hathaway has been regarded primarily as the investment vehicle of Warren Buffett rather than a bona fide corporation. However, as Berkshire Hathaway has expanded beyond its core insurance operations, more attention is being paid to the structure by which these entities are managed. Notable features of the company’s system are its decentralization, the autonomy afforded to its managers, its long-term investment horizon, and its emphasis on ethical behavior.

We explore this system in greater detail, based on the results of a survey of the chief executive officers of the company’s operating subsidiaries.

Precision Castparts Q2 Earnings & Revenues Lag, Down Y/Y (Nasdaq)

Precision Castparts Corp. reported second-quarter fiscal 2016 earnings from continuing operations of $2.49 per share [...] Also, the bottom line declined 23.1% on a year-over-year basis.

The decline in bottom line was mainly led by poor top-line performance during the quarter. Moreover, higher interest expense as well as selling & administrative costs dragged earnings. This apart, pricing pressure in the oil & gas market, persistent "fastener destocking" and operational issues in the Airframe Products segment added to the year-over-year fall in earnings. [...]

On Aug 10, 2015, Precision Castparts disclosed the signing of a merger deal with Berkshire Hathaway Inc. for about $37.2 billion. The deal is expected to conclude in the first quarter of calendar year 2016 [...]

BYD's Third-Quarter Profits Surge (Nasdaq)

BYD Co.said it is expecting a strong 2015 performance after the Chinese company on Thursday reported a surge in third-quarter net profit, lifted by higher electric-car sales and government subsidies.

The battery and car maker, which is 9.1%-owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said its net profit for the July-Sept period totaled 1.49 billion yuan (US$234.5 million), sharply higher from CNY28.2 million a year earlier. Its operating revenue during the period was up 23.5% to CNY16.9 billion. [...]

BYD expects its full-year net profit to rise by around 435% to 481% from a year ago, on anticipation of strong sales of its plug-in hybrid cars in the fourth quarter [...]

Buffett's Berkshire takes on Charles Taylor insurance books (Telegraph)

Charles Taylor has offloaded its last tranche of property and casualty insurance policies to a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, three years after increasing competition prompted it to call time on its general insurance run-off business. [...]

Tenecom, a subsidiary of Mr Buffett’s business empire, will liquidate the businesses before paying Charles Taylor a dividend.

Insurance consolidation firms such as Tenecom buy up legacy businesses from other firms in the hope of generating more money than it takes to pay for claims made on the policies before they expire.

7 Secrets From Warren Buffett’s Employees (Fool)

"I would describe it as very strange and almost bizarre the way he manages, because he doesn't manage," Matthew Rose, executive chairman of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway said in a D Magazine article. "He takes companies that he likes, he spends a lot of time in terms of developing the goals of how management will be compensated and how the scorecard will look, and then he allows management to run the company."

Berkshire News Briefs - 5/25/15

Warren Buffett Is Sending Mixed Messages on Green Energy (Bloomberg)

Warren Buffett highlights how his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. utilities make massive investments in renewable energy. Meanwhile, in Nevada, the company is fighting a plan that would encourage more residents to use green power.

Berkshire’s NV Energy, the state’s dominant utility, opposes the proposal to increase a cap on the amount of energy that can be generated with solar panels by residents who sell power back to the grid in a practice known as net metering.

Power investor Warren Buffett backs Israeli power saver tech (Times of Israel)

Bandwidth isn’t the only thing the burgeoning cell network is consuming more of. Already electricity costs account for a large chunk – as much as a third – of operating costs, and that amount will likely get larger as networks get bigger and more devices come on line. [...]

To solve that problem, eVolution Networks has developed a big-data solution that examines the relationship between phones, usage rates, locations, energy costs, and other factors, to activate and deactivate base stations as needed.

And although it sounds like a technical, even prosaic solution, top investor Warren Buffett likes the idea – enough to invest in the company. eVolution announced this week that Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary IES Holding and GE Ventures have invested $22.5 million.

(See also: eVolution's press release)

Geronimo Energy Sells Portfolio Of Wind And Solar Projects To BHE Renewables (North American Wind Power)

Geronimo Energy has sold a portfolio of wind and solar energy projects to BHE Renewables, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

The sale includes the Grande Prairie Wind Farm, located in Holt County, Neb.; the Walnut Ridge Wind Farm in Bureau County, Ill.; and a portfolio of Minnesota solar project developments. The Grand Prairie and Walnut Ridge acquisitions were previously announced by BHE Renewables.

Berkshire Hathaway Cuts Stakes in Charter Communications, Viacom (WSJ Moneybeat)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reduced its stake in several media-company holdings–including Charter Communications Inc., Viacom Inc. and Liberty Global PLC–in the first quarter. [...] Berkshire increased its stake in 21st Century Fox by 1.48 million shares. [...] Berkshire sold 3.28 million shares in National Oilwell Varco, in its latest move away from energy companies that have been hurt by the collapse in oil prices. [...] Additionally, in the most recent quarter, Berkshire reduced its stake in Bank of New York Mellon Corp., selling off 1.3 million shares.

As always, Dataroma has an excellent chart of Berkshire Hathaway's holdings, highlighting the most recent changes.

Berkshire CEOs pull back the curtain on Buffett and business (Fort Worth Business Press)

On Monday, May 18, an executive panel featuring the CEOs of four Fort Worth-based Berkshire Hathaway companies – Dennis Knautz of Acme Brick, Carl Ice of BNSF, Randy Watson of Justin Brands and Paul Andrews of TTI – sat with moderator Matt Rose, executive chairman of BNSF, and discussed working with Buffett. The event, titled Breakfast with the Berkshires, was presented by Leadership Fort Worth at the Fort Worth Club. [...]

Aside from BNSF, Acme, Justin and TTI, Berkshire Hathaway continues to have a big interest in North Texas. In October, Berkshire Hathaway acquired Dallas-based Van Tuyl Group, which has several Fort Worth area dealers and is the largest privately owned U.S. auto dealership group. Several other Berkshire Hathaway companies either have large operations here or are subsidiaries of other Berkshire companies. NetJets operates Dallas Jet Charter, and Mouser Electronics in Mansfield is a subsidiary of TTI. Speaking just prior to the panel discussion, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price said Berkshire brands contribute thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to the region.

Berkshire Hathaway's Sustainable Competitive Advantage (Fool)

Another edge that Berkshire enjoys is its diversification. Its operations and investments span many industries, such as insurance, railroads, energy, home building, jewelry, furniture, paint, private jets, candy, recreational vehicles, ice cream, chemicals, newspapers, underwear, tools, food-service equipment, and car dealerships, among others. When one sector is in a slump, others may not be, and can provide offsetting effects. That's especially true because some of his businesses are in defensive and not very cyclical industries: When the economy is stalled or slumping, people will still use energy and buy insurance and underwear.

Time to Take Profit in Berkshire Hathaway Stock? (Fool)

Warren Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B), has been rewarding shareholders handsomely for many decades. (Indeed, the company just celebrated its 50th anniversary, with 40,000-plus shareholders gathering in Omaha for the company's annual meeting.) Over the past 30 years, its stock has grown by an annual average of 17.3%, and over the past decade, it has returned a market-trouncing 10.2%.

After all that growth, is it time to take profit in Berkshire Hathaway stock? Should you consider selling?

Warren Buffett can’t seem to get enough of Wells Fargo (San Francisco Business Times)

Warren Buffett appears to have embraced the adage that you can never get enough of a good thing.

At least that might explain why he recently plowed more money into some of his largest holdings, including some $350 million into Wells Fargo, which he has described as his favorite bank. He was picking up shares of the San Francisco-based bank even as the stock traded at all-time highs this year. Perhaps Buffett sees Wells fitting into his strategy of buying wonderful companies at a “fair price.”

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Launches Crime Protection with Innovative Impersonation Endorsement in Canada (Marketwatch)

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance (BHSI) today announced that it is introducing the Crime Protection Policy and the Executive Impersonation Coverage endorsement for large public and private companies in Canada.

"Designed by BHSI executives with more than three decades in the fidelity and crime insurance market, our Crime Protection Policy makes it easy for brokers and customers in Canada to secure broad coverage and address the rising risk of fraud losses," said Michael Densham, Vice President, Executive and Professional Lines, Canada, BHSI.

Berkshire Hathaway 2015 Annual Meeting Notes

Best of 2015 Berkshire Shareholder Meeting (YouTube / WSJ Video)

Highlights of the 2015 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. The devoted came out in full force to celebrate Warren Buffett’s 50th year running the company, meet other investors and shop.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Meeting Notes (New York Times)

The New York Times' extensive notes on the event, in a live-blog format.

Much of the questioning this year was standard, with a primary topic being how Berkshire would fare once Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger departed. Those inquiries ranged from how Berkshire would maintain its culture to what sort of qualities the company’s next chief executive and next chief investment officer (or officers) would need.

Sharp questions about various news topics arose, from Clayton Homes to 3G Capital.

Mr. Buffett also addressed smaller-scale topics like the reinsurance business, one of Berkshire’s powerhouse divisions that has become a trendy investment but that the billionaire says he believes will decline in coming years.

Recap: The 2015 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting (WSJ Moneybeat)

The Wall Street Journal's notes and live blog of the meeting.

Mr. Buffett played host to roughly 40,000 people at the company’s annual meeting Saturday, an event that swells the population of Mr. Buffett’s hometown by nearly 10% each year. Over the hours and hours of question-and-answer that are the hallmark of the meeting, Mr. Buffett and his vice chairman, Charlie Munger, fielded questions about investing and markets, Berkshire’s relationship with 3G Capital and its investments in International Business Machines Corp. and Coca-Cola Co.

MoneyBeat live-blogged the all-day event from Mr. Buffett’s first sip of cherry Coke to his last bite of See’s candy.

5 Critical Takeaways From Berkshire Hathaway's 50th Anniversary Meeting (Fool)

In its 50th year, Berkshire is still a success story that defies traditional classification, both for the scale of shareholder wealth accrual and its seemingly impossible string of consecutive wins. From its relatively humble roots as an investment partnership -- itself an incredibly difficult business -- to its radical several-decade transformation into an investment, insurance, and industrial conglomerate, Berkshire has continuously defied classification. Where many businesses hardly withstand the test of a decade or two, Berkshire has dominated across a decades-long horizon. [...]

Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Shopping Frenzy (WOWT Video)

A sea of shareholders eagerly waited outside Omaha's CenturyLink Center today for a chance to spend some of their Berkshire Hathaway profits during the first day of an exclusive shopping experience.

Once inside, they took advantage of special shareholder deals on everything from running shoes to candy, all trucked in and sold by Warren Buffet's famous roster of profitable businesses.

Wells Fargo’s Stagecoach Rolls Into Omaha for Berkshire Meeting (WSJ Moneybeat)

Wells Fargo & Co. rarely misses a chance to wheel out one of its iconic stagecoaches. Little surprise, then, that the bank will be rolling two into Omaha, Neb., this weekend for one of the biggest finance events of the year.

Before the doors to the CenturyLink auditorium open at 7 a.m. on May 2 for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, shareholders of Warren Buffett’s company waiting in line will get to see two longhorn steers and the Wells Fargo stagecoach marching down Omaha’s 10th street to mark 50 years of Berkshire under Mr. Buffett.

NetJets pilots union takes case to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders (Financial News)

More than 400 pilots and family members took the fight to preserve their livelihoods and security to the 2015 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders Meeting by staging an informational picket on Saturday. [...]

The pilots, whose professional interests are represented by the NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP), were joined by NetJets flight attendants and Flight Options pilots represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

City removes sign apparently criticizing Berkshire (Omaha World Herald)

City officials are uncertain who installed a sign reading “BRK profits from pollution” on the pedestrian overpass between Elmwood Park and Memorial Park in Omaha on Wednesday. [...]

A city crew removed the sign because it was not authorized, said Mike Gaughen, who handles such permits for the public works department.

He said the city doesn’t allow advertising or messages about controversial issues on public property such as the overpass, “certainly not criticizing a major corporation like that.”

Berkshire News Briefs - 8/12/14

3 Berkshire companies among national group's 'hot 100' retailers (Omaha World-Herald)

Yet three Berkshire Hathaway Inc. companies made the list of “hot 100” U.S. retailers, measured by increases in sales from 2012 to 2013, according to the National Retail Federation. And they didn’t add any stores or acquire competitors. The three:

• Helzberg’s Diamond Shops of North Kansas City, Missouri, No. 20 with a 15.7 percent increase in sales to $766 million at its 234 stores.
• Jordan’s Furniture, a five-store group from Taunton, Massachusetts, No. 24 with a 15.4 percent increase to $499 million.
• Nebraska Furniture Mart of Omaha, also with a 15.4 percent sales increase to $1.039 billion at its three stores.

Good 2Q for BNSF (Railway Age)

BNSF Railway, wholly owned by Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., has reported second-quarter net income of $916 million, up 4% from $884 million in the comparable quarter of 2013. [...] The Class I railroad noted coal volume rose 6% during the second quarter, while consumer product volume advanced 4% "primarily due to higher international intermodal traffic."

Buffett’s BNSF Losing Freight to Rival as Service Slows (Bloomberg)

BNSF Railway Co., the only U.S. railroad ordered by the regulator to provide weekly service updates, is losing market share to Union Pacific Corp., its main competitor, as train speeds slow and on-time deliveries drop. The shift in market share had shown up in carload statistics, Union Pacific Chief Executive Officer Jack Koraleski said today. During the second quarter, the Union Pacific’s loads rose 8.2 percent while those of BNSF, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., gained 4.9 percent. [...] Railroad service operations across the U.S. have suffered after harsh winter weather earlier this year coupled with a surge in cargo to create a freight knot that’s still being untangled. BNSF, based in Fort Worth, Texas, was affected most among U.S. rails because its network bore the brunt of a bumper grain crop and the exponential growth of crude oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota.

Related:
Cold Train cites BNSF congestion, suspends service (Railway Age)
Big harvest adds to railroad woes (Farm & Ranch Guide)

Lubrizol Corp. buys medical extruder Vesta Inc. (Plastics News)

Lubrizol Corp. has ventured into the medical device market by acquiring Vesta Inc., a maker of catheters and tubing based on silicone and thermoplastics. [...] The 42-year-old firm has a long history of medical design engineering experience with clinical device applications in cardiology, urology, wound care and bariatrics, officials said. Vesta was acquired by RoundTable in 2007 and grew by acquiring thermoplastic medical tubing maker ExtruMed LLC in 2009 and silicone products maker SiMatrix in 2011. It has about 450 employees.

Buffett Stocks: Investing Essentials (Fool)

Generally speaking, there are about 50 companies held in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio ranging from one position worth less than half a million at the time of writing, to the Wells Fargo holding which is worth a staggering $25.4 billion. Buffett has what he affectionately calls his "Big Four" -- which as you would suspect include Wells Fargo, American Express, Coca-Cola, and recently purchased IBM. At last count, they had a value of nearly $70 billion, which represented roughly 60% of the portfolio. And in total, the 15 biggest positions represented nearly 90% of what Berkshire Hathaway held. All of this is to say, the stocks Buffett really clings to are relatively small in number.

Warren Buffett's Secret Key to Building an Money-Making Empire (Fool)

At Berkshire it's not as simple as, "Well, who should become the chief executive?" You've got to think about that role, the role of the investment officer, the role of the Chairman of the Board of Directors, the role of the controlling shareholder; so it's a much more complicated question. It's not just a personality. It's institution and culture. [...] I did a shareholder survey -- that The Motley Fool helped me do, actually -- and elicited suggestions from shareholders about who they would like to see in an executive role with Berkshire after Warren, and I got a dozen names that were identified scores of times. That's testimony to the deep bench, so that's relatively easy. There's at least a dozen people who could step in and become Chief Executive Officer.

Berkshire News Briefs - 2/7/14

Buffett Railroad’s $5 Billion Investment Plan Tops Union Pacific (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. plans $5 billion in capital investment at BNSF Railway Co. this year, positioning the carrier to extend a lead in spending over its biggest rival. The budget marks an increase of about 25 percent from the target set a year earlier, Fort Worth, Texas-based BNSF said yesterday in a statement. BNSF’s program includes $2.3 billion for its rail network and $1.6 billion for equipment, including locomotives and railcars.

You've Got It All Wrong. Here's the Real Story Behind Warren Buffett's Favorite Stock (Fool)

The seemingly obvious story around Berkshire Hathaway's outsized ownership stake in Wells Fargo is that Warren Buffett opportunistically sank a huge amount of Berkshire's capital into Wells as prices for bank stocks plunged. Like I said, it seems obvious. It fits well with the view on how Buffett invests. It's also wrong.

Big Corps. Don't All Play at Money-in-Politics (Open Secrets)

Pick a large American company, and it's a pretty safe bet that you've just named a firm that's well-represented in Washington. Virtually every industry leader has a political action committee and a few of the best lobbyists money can buy. [...] Technically, the largest firm without a PAC in its own name is Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. This may sound surprising, given that Buffett, who hails from Nebraska, is hardly an unfamiliar face in Washington. However, several of Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiaries have PACs of their own, which in combination are large enough that Berkshire Hathaway is actually one of the 20 biggest sources of PAC funds to Republican candidates this cycle.

NetJets Maintains Flight Path in the Face of Fractional Turbulence (AIN online)

A busy year for upheaval in the fractional ownership and closed-fleet private aviation sectors reached a crescendo in December when Flight Options parent company Directional Aviation Capital completed its $185 million acquisition of Bombardier’s Flexjet program. Last year also saw the collapse of Avantair, the return of Marquis Jet card founder Kenny Dichter with his new Wheels Up membership program and a move by VistaJet to enter the U.S. market. None of these events, or yet another year of fluctuating market conditions, appears to have ruffled the feathers of fractional ownership pioneer NetJets. In an interview with AIN, NetJets chairman and CEO Jordan Hansell characterized the changes as a cleansing wave of consolidation that ultimately validates his company’s business model and its plans for a $17.6 billion fleet renewal program over the next 10 years.

NetJets sees Super Bowl flights as chance to gain customers (Columbus Dispatch)

The biggest football game annually is also prime time for NetJets, which offers fractional ownership of business jets. The company has bounced back from some difficult times during the recession. Not only is its Super Bowl business brisk, but the game is providing the company a key marketing opportunity to sell the NetJets experience. “One of the benefits of the Super Bowl they get is a growth in their business,” said Scott Liston, executive vice president of the consulting firm Argus International Inc. and a former NetJets employee. “When NetJets owners fly their friends into the game with them, that experience has resulted in numerous leads,” he said.

Buffett widens lead in $1 million hedge fund bet (Fortune)

Results are in for the sixth year of the competition sometimes called the $1 million bet, and Warren Buffett -- once a piteous straggler in this 10-year wager on stock market performance -- has opened up a sizable lead over his opponent, New York asset manager Protégé Partners. Buffett's horse in the bet is a low-cost S&P index fund, and Protégé's is the averaged returns to investors (after all fees) of five hedge funds of funds that the firm carefully picked for the contest.

Berkshire Hathaway Mill Demolition (South Coast Business Bulletin)

It's just a paragraph at the bottom of a round-up of local construction news, but they do have a picture of an excavator tearing down the original Berkshire Hathaway textile mill in New Bedford, MA.

Berkshire Hathaway Mill: Demolition on the New Bedford textile mill once run by a billionaire Warren Buffet began in January after a five-year attempt to sell the building failed. The mill had been on the market for $500,000 but the building needed another $1 million in repairs, owner Roland Letendre told the Standard-Times. Letendre said he has people who are interested in the land but that he had no plans to develop the property himself. Buffet gained control of the textile mill in 1965, closing it in 1985 and selling it to Letendre for $215,000.

Berkshire News Briefs - 7/28/13

HomeServices Lending Announces Plans to Become Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of HomeServices of America (HomeServices Blog)

HomeServices Lending LLC, a joint venture with Wells Fargo, today announced plans to transition to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. The transition work has been underway for some time, and is expected to conclude in 2014.

Berkshire Allowed to Count BNSF Purchase Costs in Rail Rates (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (A:US) can count the $8.1 billion premium it paid to acquire Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in the formula used to calculate prices for some shippers, a decision that may make it harder for some rail customers to challenge their rates. The U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which regulates some rail rates, today ruled that Berkshire may count the premium from its 2009 purchase of BNSF by spreading those costs over seven years. Shippers moving products, including coal, asked the regulator to prohibit the company from counting the premium in its cost base, saying Berkshire was unfairly trying to make them reimburse its expenses in the $26.5 billion BNSF acquisition.

Why Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway pulled out of India (Economic Times)

India has long been viewed as a value investor's dream: rapid growth, 1.2 billion people pining for a taste of globalisation, and underdeveloped industries ripe for turnarounds. So it surprised few when the genre's guru, Warren Buffett, placed a bet on the world's ninth-biggest economy. What did come as a surprise was last week's decision by the billionaire's Berkshire Hathaway to give up on India's insurance market after just two years. [...] Buffett isn't alone. Walmart, ArcelorMittal and Posco are pulling back on investments that they had announced with great fanfare. What's scaring foreigners away? A rampant political dysfunction that has stopped India's progress cold.

Buffett Reinsures Irish State Health Claims as Population Ages (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will reinsure about 700 million euros ($923 million) in claims for Ireland’s state health insurer, which is seeking to stem losses and its burden on taxpayers as the population ages. Vhi Healthcare and Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire signed a deal for one year, which Vhi will seek to extend, Brighid Smyth, a spokeswoman for the Dublin-based insurer, said by phone. She declined to give terms of the agreement, which will cover half of Vhi’s 1.4 billion-euro claim book. The agreement may save Irish taxpayers as much as 90 million euros, Smyth said, as Vhi will require a smaller boost to its reserves given Berkshire’s assumption of some of the insurer’s risks.

Around the Water Cooler With Dairy Queen’s CEO (US News & World Report)

[John] Gainor, 56, started at International Dairy Queen, Inc. as the chief supply chain officer and became the CEO five years ago. He now oversees more than 6,300 restaurants worldwide, with more than 4,500 in the United States. Since Dairy Queen is a wholly owned subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the company isn't directly in charge of the several hundred thousand employees. But that doesn't mean Gainor misses an opportunity to converse with the Blizzard techs pumping soft serve behind the counter.

Buffett’s PacifiCorp Agrees to 160-Megawatt Wind Deal With Apex (Bloomberg)

PacifiCorp, a utility unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), agreed to buy power from a wind farm that Apex Clean Energy Inc. plans to build in Utah. PacifiCorp will buy the output from closely held Apex’s $230 million Long Ridge wind farm, which will consist of two 80-megawatt projects and is expected to produce enough electricity for about 43,000 average U.S. homes [...]

Berkshire Hathaway derided for ‘foolish’ Aon deal (Financial Times)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has been branded “foolish” by a leading insurance executive for blindly following underwriting decisions taken by Lloyd’s of London rivals. An unusual deal that Berkshire has struck with the insurance broker Aon is likely to “end in tears”, warned Richard Brindle, founder and chief executive of FTSE 250-listed specialist insurer Lancashire. Lloyd’s officials have already complained that the arrangement – under which Aon has begun to automatically allocate a chunk of all business it places at the historic market to Berkshire – threatens to undermine underwriting expertise.

Warren Buffett joins ceremony at Carmel Geico service center (Indianapolis Star)

Two American business icons made an appearance Monday at the ribbon-cutting for GEICO’s customer service center in Carmel. One was a big green gecko. The other was billionaire Warren Buffett. GEICO announced March 18 that it would open a service center at 101 W. 103rd St. and bring 1,200 new jobs to the city. [...] Berkshire Hathaway owns agricultural systems manufacturer CTB International Corp. in Milford, liability insurance provider Medical Protective Co. in Fort Wayne and RV manufacturer Forest River Inc. in Elkhart. Buffett also donated money toward the $26 million redevelopment of the historic Meadows neighborhood on the Northeastside in 2011. “Obviously, we like Indiana,” Buffett said to a group of reporters at the ceremony.

Dow Says ‘Rest Assured’ on Effort to Redeem Buffett Stake (Bloomberg)

Dow Chemical Co. said its prospects have improved for redeeming $4 billion in preferred stock held by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.and Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund after interest rates climbed. [...] Midland, Michigan-based Dow pays an 8.5 percent annual dividend on preferred shares it sold to help fund the 2009 purchase of Rohm & Haas Co. Redeeming those is a “top priority for us,” Weideman said. “As we’ve said all along, timing’s important on this.”

5 Reasons Why the Bears Are Wrong About Berkshire Hathaway (Fool Blog)

On May 13, Michael Price of MFP Investors gave a slide presentation at London Value Conference arguing that the fair value of Berkshire Hathaway's stock should be roughly 20% lower than it is today. So are the bears right about Berkshire? Here's five reasons why I believe the answer is an emphatic “No.”

Real Money Stock Pick: Berkshire Hathaway (Fool Video)

As I [Andrew Tonner] add a few companies this week to the defensive value investing portfolio that I manage for the Fool, the theme of this specific purchase could be "invest with the best." Of course, I'm talking about Berkshire Hathaway, which to me perfectly embodies the conservative, outstanding companies I prefer to own.

Candy date with Warren Buffett up for auction (CBS News)

Now one lucky bidder can spend the day picking the brains of the fourth richest man in the world. The magnate is putting himself on the auction block Thursday to benefit Communities in Schools of Los Angeles (CIS), a charity that focuses on keeping kids in school. [...] The winner of the auction will win an "all-you-can-eat" tour of the See's Candy factory in Los Angeles, where Buffet will demonstrate "the only acceptable way to eat a bonbon." Currently, the highest offer is at $18,000 with two bids since launching.