In a press release late Tuesday, the company said that it has amended its policy regarding share repurchases, now allowing for repurchases of Berkshire stock to be made at the discretion of Buffett and vice chairman Charlie Munger so long as both men "believe that the repurchase price is below Berkshire’s intrinsic value, conservatively determined." [...]
Additionally, the company will not repurchase stock in excess of an amount that would reduce its cash and equivalent holdings to less than $20 billion. [...]
After months of anticipation and fanfare, Dr. Atul Gawande is starting his new job Monday as the CEO of the healthcare venture from Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase.
The healthcare community at large seems to be both skeptical and hopeful about the venture and Gawande’s appointment. His goal will be to create innovations in a burdened and dangerously large healthcare industry, lowering the cost of care while improving health outcomes. [...]
Warren Buffett’s investing deputy, Todd Combs, helped the billionaire investor in his effort to exit Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s stake in USG Corp. [...]
Combs’s role in the deal highlights his emergence as a top deputy for Buffett. Combs was selected for an investment role at Berkshire in 2010 and was later joined by Ted Weschler. The pair now oversee $25 billion, according to Berkshire’s annual letter released this year. Combs has increasingly been in the public spotlight with his appointment to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s board in 2016 and his recent role helping to craft Berkshire’s health-care venture with JPMorgan and Amazon.com Inc. [...]
[...] In the five years Murugappan has been with the company, he's driven a substantial amount of change in how BNSF utilizes technology.
He was part of the team that modernized the systems BNSF uses to inspect its assets. Predicting when the assets need maintenance is vital, and BNSF is using things like big data to make the process more efficient. [...]
U.S. refiners and producers are seeking ways to counter efforts by BNSF Railway Co to limit use of retrofitted oil tank cars following an Iowa derailment last month, Reuters has learned.
The crackdown by the country’s largest railroad, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc, could take thousands of tank cars off a key rail line at a time when producers and refiners are scrambling to hire them.
With the last necessary state-level regulatory approvals it needed now in hand, PacifiCorp said it will move forward in building 1,150 MW of wind projects and a high-voltage transmission line in Wyoming.
The utility's goal is to complete the three wind projects in 2020 to realize the full benefit of production tax credits. The new projects will increase the amount of owned and contracted wind capacity on PacifiCorp's system by more than 60% [...]
Warren Buffett's annual donation of stock to five foundations is worth around $3.4 billion this year.
In a news release, Berkshire Hathaway said Buffett converted 11,867 of his Class A shares into around 17.8 million Class B shares to make the contributions.
Based on the schedule established in 2006, when Buffett pledged to give away the bulk of his fortune in the coming decades, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will be getting a large majority of the shares. [...]
Dr. Atul Gawande will lead the joint health-care venture between Amazon, J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway, the three companies announced Wednesday.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced a partnership in January to tackle rising health-care costs.
They will form a new company for the venture, which will be headquartered in Boston, a hub for biotechnology and medical research. It will be "free from profit-making incentives and constraints. [...]
Sheetrock maker USG Corp accepted a $7 billion cash offer from German construction products maker Gebr Knauf KG on Monday after three months of back-and-forth negotiations that began when longtime USG shareholder Warren Buffett teamed up with the German bidder to sell his stake.
The companies agreed to a $44 per share deal, a bump from the $42 initially offered by the private German family-owned company in late March. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc had a 31 percent stake in USG and has said previously it would offload its stake. [...]
The Berkshire Hathaway investment dates back to 2001, when Buffett helped the company out of bankruptcy with a loan that was later converted to a stake in the company’s equity so large that a wholesale acquisition of the entire company remained one of the few ways for Berkshire to exit the investment without pushing down the share price. [...]
Investor Warren Buffett and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon are encouraging public companies to stop predicting their quarterly earnings and focus on long-term goals.
The two executives said on CNBC Thursday that companies that focus on hitting their quarterly numbers may do things that hurt them in the future, such as delaying investments or changing when certain gains are recorded. [...]
[...] Intriguingly, Grainger may now have other competition via Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which last year acquired Production Tool Supply. The deal wasn't publicized, but the company has since used it to launch Berkshire eSupply, a wholesale service business that aims to provide smaller distributors with access to e-commerce platforms, fulfillment services and a greater product offering than they’d otherwise be able to support. [...]
Warren Buffett is bringing what he calls his favorite company to [the Kansas City metro area]. GEICO Insurance will open a service center in Lenexa, bringing 500 jobs.
Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer and billionaire CEO Warren Buffett joined representatives from the city of Lenexa, Johnson County and Geico on Tuesday morning to make the announcement. [...]
Lenexa city leaders said the city did not offer any financial incentives to lure GEICO but said the state did offer some incentives. [...]
Warren Buffett hosted a dinner in Omaha this week for investors who bought $80 million worth of Israel Bonds, a source of revenue for a country where Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has a major investment.
The dinner at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center was the second time Buffett has helped the Israeli group, the Development Corporation for Israel, formed in 1951 to raise money to build Israel’s economy. Since then, the bonds have raised about $41 billion.
[...] Now 64 with two grown children, Susie Buffett has a more-than-full-time day job. Her Sherwood Foundation, formerly known as the Susan A. Buffett Foundation, gave away $141 million in 2016, according to the most recent IRS filing, funding dozens of nonprofit initiatives in education, social justice, and poverty alleviation. That’s everything from a local ballet company to Big Brothers/Big Sisters to a black police-officers group to Omaha’s Bike Union—and those are just the Bs. Each of these groups is carefully evaluated before the first check is cut. “I don’t want to come off like I’m complaining,” Buffett says. “I am grateful beyond words for what we get to do. But it’s not so easy to try to do it well, and we are trying to do it well.” [...]
Omaha did a double-take when folks there spotted Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban eating lunch Monday in Buffett's hometown at the Dairy Queen near 72nd and Q streets. [...] Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, memorialized his trip to the land of Dilly Bars on his Instagram, where he shared a photo of the two men. [...]
The Omaha World-Herald got the scoop on at least one topic that came up over lunch — basketball. [...] Buffett's office would not disclose what else the two men talked about, the newspaper reported. [...]
On January 9, 2018, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Board of Directors voted to increase the number of directors comprising the entire Board of Directors from twelve to fourteen. Gregory E. Abel and Ajit Jain were then elected to serve as Directors to fill the resulting vacancies on the Board of Directors. In connection with their election to the Board of Directors, Warren E. Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway’s Chairman and CEO, appointed Mr. Abel to be Berkshire Hathaway’s Vice Chairman – Non-Insurance Business Operations and Mr. Jain to be its Vice Chairman – Insurance Operations. [...]
Warren Buffett told CNBC on Wednesday the appointment of two new vice chairs at Berkshire Hathaway is "part of a movement to succession over time," and has nothing to do with any change in his health. [...]
"They are the key figures," Buffett said. "They both have Berkshire in their blood."
"There is not a horse race at all," he added. "They both have their areas of specialty."
Buffett and his 94-year-old longtime partner, Charlie Munger, are staying in their respective positions as chairman and CEO and vice chairman. [...]
Speculation had centered on Abel and Jain as possible successors, and Buffett told CNBC that elevating them would have also made sense five years ago. He said he decided about six weeks ago to make the move, saying to himself, "why not now." [...]
It was Munger's idea for Abel, Jain, and himself to all have vice chair titles, Buffett said. [...]
In 2007, the famed billionaire investor made a $1 million bet that an S&P 500 stock index fund would outperform a basket of hedge funds over the course of a decade.
The index fund returned 7.1% compounded annually over the 10-year period, easily beating the 2.2% average return of a basket of funds picked by asset manager Protégé Partners, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Buffett promised to give the prize money to his local affiliate of Girls Inc., a non-profit organization that provides programs designed to inspire "all girls to be strong, smart and bold." [...]
Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate led by Warren Buffett, stands to gain an potential $37 billion from the GOP's tax cuts, according to new research from Barclays.
"We now estimate Berkshire Hathaway's 4Q book value could be boosted by about $37 billion resulting from the US corporate tax reform due to a decline in its deferred tax liability," analysts at the firm wrote in a report on Monday.
The authors also said the reduction in the corporate tax rate could lift the company's earnings power by as much as 12 percent "in 2018 and beyond," and it could repatriate some foreign profits and use it for investment. [...]
I have good news. First, most American children are going to live far better than their parents did. Second, large gains in the living standards of Americans will continue for many generations to come. [...]
This game of economic miracles is in its early innings. Americans will benefit from far more and better "stuff" in the future. The challenge will be to have this bounty deliver a better life to the disrupted as well as to the disrupters. And on this matter, many Americans are justifiably worried. [...]
The financing deal gives RBI the option to redeem some, or all, of Berkshire's preferred stock. It indicated it would fully redeem the stake, plus dividends that have accrued from it. The redemption rate alone is 9.9%, which means Buffett is getting an effective interest payment of $297 million on the original $3 billion in financing.
On top of that are the dividends, which are hefty at 9% per year. This adds $810 million onto his return, which doesn't factor "an additional amount, if necessary, to produce an after-tax yield as if the dividends were paid by a U.S.-based company," according to a recent Berkshire regulatory filing.
On top of that, Buffett's investment vehicle still owns that RBI stake derived from the warrant. At the most recent closing stock price, that holding would be worth over $523 million, even after we net out the exercise price. [...]
Within a few years of Weber taking over, Brooks became the best-selling brand at specialty stores. Then Fruit of the Loom Inc., which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., bought the company in 2006. Brooks flew under Berkshire’s radar for a couple of years until Todd Combs, one of Warren Buffett’s investment managers, brought it to his attention. Combs is a triathlete; Ted Weschler, another top Berkshire investment manager, is a marathoner. Buffett may not have realized it, Combs said, but this random shoe company was doubling in size every three years.
Soon after, Buffett met with Weber, who explained his all-running-only-running strategy. Buffett liked the idea of focusing on a niche market. “He thinks long-term,” Weber says of Buffett, who told him: “Whatever you do, just make the brand stronger.”
So that’s what Weber did. Buffett was so pleased by Brooks’s success that in 2012 he spun it off from Fruit of the Loom, which didn’t have footwear experience. As Berkshire holdings go, Brooks is small, accounting for a sliver of the $24 billion it made in 2016. But for Buffett, it appears to be a source of pride. [...]
Q: There are numerous references in company literature to values handed down from its founders. What are those values?
A: Fundamentally, our corporate philosophy comes down to three things. It’s about people and how important they are. I talk to employees at all of our major locations and ask them about the company, its culture and what they would never want to change. The first answer always is our focus on people. They feel the company really cares about people. This is something I felt walking through the door that first day at the pilot plant. There is a focus on safety. You cannot care deeply about people and expect them to work in an unsafe environment. We operate chemical plants. Those can be unsafe environments if you don’t invest in them and have policies and procedures. The last is business and corporate ethics.. Never do anything illegal. When you have thousands of people around the world, that doesn’t mean everyone is acting perfectly every single moment of the day. But we are vigilant about it. We do things the right way. It isn’t just a slogan. We want to move faster and drive quicker decision making, all the things companies our size talk about. But the focus always is on people, ethics and safety. [...]
A Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary has decided to remove its idle crude oil rail tankers from a New York forest preserve after the state’s governor objected to their storage there.
Chicago-based Union Tank Car said Tuesday that all 65 cars it has in the Adirondack Forest in northeast New York will be removed by mid-January. [...]
A total of 75 permanent employees of Russell Brands LLC were notified Friday that they would be laid off. [...] The reduction in force is expected to drop the number of people employed at what is now primarily a distribution center down to around 250 people. [...]
Just six years ago, Russell Brands still had 750 employees in Alexander City. Earlier this year when it was announced that the company would cease manufacturing of athletic team uniforms, company officials said it was unclear how the move would impact the estimated 500 Russell employees who were working in Alexander City at that time. [...]
Sam Taylor, who guided Oriental Trading Co. from bankruptcy into one of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s local success stories, died more than a year after being diagnosed with a lethal form of brain cancer. He was 56. [...]
Taylor came to Omaha with his family — wife Stephanie and daughters Ashton, Celine and Mallory — in May 2008 to take over the troubled company, which had been saddled with high debt through a series of buyouts and refinancings. [...]
With the turnaround underway, in 2012 Taylor successfully pitched Oriental Trading to Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett, explaining how its La Vista distribution system, catalogs, online sales system and staff could become a profitable part of Berkshire. [...]
Rick Guerin, an early partner of Buffett and Munger's, realized Blue Chip shares were quite attractive (at this time, the market cap was approximately $40 million). It is worth noting Blue Chip Stamps was already in decline by the late 1960s. From 1970 to 1980, revenues would decline by more than 85%. [...] Despite the significant drop-off in revenues mentioned above, float only declined by around 30% (cumulatively) from 1970 to 1980. Pabrai estimates the “permanent float” at Blue Chip was somewhere around $60 million.
But the float was of limited value in the wrong hands. Buffett, Guerin and Munger thought it was being mismanaged. One way to effect change was to effectively take control of the company: between 1967 and 1970, they invested $24 million in Blue Chip – good for 60% ownership [...]
Now they had roughly $60 million to work with. In 1972, they took $25 million and bought 99% of See’s Candies. In 1973, they took another $25 million and bought 80% of Wesco Financial. Finally, in 1977, they took another $35.5 million and bought the Buffalo Evening News (with roughly 70% of the purchase price funded with the retained earnings from See’s Candies). [...]
From California to the Midwest, billionaire investor Warren Buffett is steadily building an energy powerhouse.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary has gobbled up utilities and natural gas pipelines and tapped into clean energy production, including from Southern California’s abundant geothermal resources. [...]
Berkshire Hathaway appears to be doing all it can to counter a purported death spiral of economic harm that power companies face because of growing energy efficiency regulations, consumers generating their own power with rooftop solar panels and the advent of electricity storage options in homeowners’ garages. [...]
Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the firm run by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is in talks to buy a stake in Latin America’s biggest reinsurer, IRB Brasil Resseguros SA, after an initial public offering of stock, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
No deal is likely to be completed before July 27, IRB’s IPO pricing date, the people said, asking not to be named because the discussions are private. The acquisition could be made through Berkshire’s General Re unit, they said. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is advising Rio de Janeiro-based IRB, according to the people. [...]
Home Capital Group, the Toronto-based alternative mortgage lender that was on the verge of collapse earlier this year, says it has repaid a $2-billion line of credit from Berkshire Hathaway.
The company was given the financial lifeline last month by Berkshire Hathaway, which is headed by Warren Buffett, as it was trying to regain investor confidence following a run on deposits from customers.
When it provided the line of credit, Berkshire Hathaway also bought a $400 million stake in Home Capital. [...]
Berkshire Hathaway’s Clayton Homes division, known for its factory-built houses, is expanding into the site-built, $250,000-and-under housing market.
Since October 2015 Clayton has acquired homebuilders in Atlanta; Nashville, Tennessee; Kansas City; Denver; and, earlier this month, Birmingham, Alabama, and is building homes on-site at a rate of 2,500 to 3,000 a year.
Clayton isn’t choosing cities and then looking for homebuilders to buy [...] the idea is to identify builders with the right management and culture, and then check out their growth potential. The acquired builders keep their managements and names.
Walsh said Berkshire’s financial strength and Clayton’s buying power — imagine the lumber needed for 45,000 factory-built homes each year — are advantages that can give the acquired companies an edge over the competition. [...]
While Elliott Management Corp. tries to cobble together enough money to beat Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s $9 billion bid to buy one of America’s largest transmission operators, it has another problem to deal with: the state of Texas.
The New York hedge fund run by billionaire Paul Singer is trying to convince Texas stakeholders that its deal to buy their biggest power distributor, Oncor Electric Delivery Co., will be superior to Berkshire’s. [...]
Duracell has filed a notice with labor officials that it will close a South Carolina battery plant sooner than projected.
The shutdown of the Lancaster factory was announced one year ago, a few months after the company after being acquired by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. [...]
The Lancaster factory manufactures AA batteries. Duracell is consolidating North American production of those to LaGrange, Ga. [...]
In 2006, Warren Buffett famously pledged to give away most of his Berkshire Hathaway stock, saying that the bulk of those holdings would go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the rest to the four foundations controlled by his three children.
Since then, Buffett has given away 40 percent of the Berkshire Hathaway shares that he held in 2006, gifts worth about $27 billion. Buffett’s annual gifts to the five foundations, announced this week, were worth a record-breaking $3.17 billion. [...]
[...] while many people are under the impression that all of Buffett’s fortune is earmarked for the Gates Foundation, the gifts to his children’s foundations have turned out to be enormous in their own right—and are bankrolling a wide array of grantmaking both in the United States and abroad. This year, according to Forbes, Buffett sent around $2.4 billion worth of stock to the Gates Foundation. The other $800 million or so went to the family foundations—the Susan Thompson Buffett, Sherwood, Novo, and Howard Buffett foundations. [...]
Also, a story about a different Buffett's charity work:
[...] Nevertheless, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation has given or pledged $55.1 million in the city and surrounding Macon County over the past two decades to help stanch the area's hemorrhaging population. Dozens of grants, including those paying for a new lakefront amphitheater and a law enforcement training facility, aim to help make the area a better place to live.
"The bottom line is, what can you do to make a community more attractive to younger people, and how do you make it attractive so the people that are here stay here?" Buffett said. "A lot of our contributions, if you cut down to the bottom of it, that's what they do." [...]
Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett, agreed Wednesday to buy a stake in the troubled Canadian mortgage lender Home Capital Group in a $1.8 billion rescue plan.
Berkshire will pay $300.7 million for a 38.4% stake of the Toronto-based company and extend a $1.5 billion line of credit. [...]
In recent years, Home Capital has repeatedly missed its financial guidance amid weaker loan volumes and declining income. In March, the company also revealed that several executives and directors have received enforcement notices from the Ontario Securities Commission related to its disclosure practices and stock trades. [...]
Store Capital says Berkshire Hathaway invested $377 million in the company, which represents a 9.8 percent stake in the real estate investment trust.
Berkshire's investment makes the company the third largest holder in Store Capital, after Vanguard Group and Fidelity Management & Research, according to FactSet. [...]
Store Capital has investments in over 1,750 properties in 48 states, according to the company. AMC Entertainment, Applebee's and Ashley Furniture are among its 10 biggest customers, according to an investor presentation. [...]
In notices of decisions made public last week, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles recommended revoking the licenses of 30 of Berkshire Hathaway’s auto dealers in Texas and fining them a total of $30,000 because the Omaha-based parent company also owns Forest River, a recreational vehicle manufacturer.
Texas law prohibits direct or indirect ownership of vehicle dealers by vehicle manufacturers, the notices said. The law is intended to protect independent auto dealers from unfair competition by manufacturer-owned dealerships.
The department also recommended a $1,000 fine and revoking the manufacturing license of Forest River, which has a cargo trailer manufacturing facility in Waco, Texas. [...]
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. units have settled with California regulators over alleged "bait and switch" marketing tactics for workers compensation coverage.
According to a statement Thursday by the California Department of Insurance, the insurers have agreed to lower rates for certain coverages and make other changes to coverage terms.
The settlement applies to policies sold by Berkshire units California Insurance Co. and Applied Underwriters Captive Risk Assurance Co.
According to the statement, the insurers "were selling a workers compensation product with illegal side agreements that modified the obligations of the parties under the policy." [...]
Berkshire Hathaway is one of the world's most successful companies. Over the last 52 years -- during which Warren Buffett has been chairman and CEO -- it compounded its investors' wealth at a remarkable rate, turning an original $1,000 investment into nearly $20 million for its earliest investors.
The three charts below explain how Berkshire grew to become as large as it is today, and why the future is likely to yield lower returns for the company's investors going forward. [...]
In many ways, Warren Buffett-led conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway has had a rather uneventful 2017. The company hasn't announced any major acquisitions, and other than a few major moves in the stock portfolio, it hasn't really been in the headlines much.
Yet the few major moves Berkshire has made should be good for the company's future. Here's a quick recap of three moves the company has made, why they should be positive long-term catalysts, and the lessons you can learn from each. [...]
A bidder pledged $2.68 million to a San Francisco charity in exchange for a lunch date with billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
The winner of the online auction that concluded Friday on eBay Inc.’s website chose to remain anonymous. The final price fell short of last year’s $3.46 million winning pledge, which tied the previous record.
As in years past, the winner gets to bring seven friends to dine with Buffett, 86, at New York’s Smith & Wollensky steakhouse. Proceeds benefit Glide, a San Francisco charity that serves meals to the homeless, hosts support groups through its women’s center for abuse victims and provides treatment for drug addiction. [...]
The billionaire took out a fine-print ad in the New York Daily News to say he’s seeking permission from the Federal Reserve to hold as much as 25 percent of the credit-card issuer’s shares. The notice appeared alongside listings for a Brooklyn co-op, a $2,500 Honda Accord and a liquor license application, plus a quarter-page ad for a strip joint.
Of course, Buffett was just obeying the law. Federal regulations require that shareholders seeking to boost their stakes in banks above certain thresholds publish announcements in “a newspaper of general circulation” in the community where the financial institution is based. (AmEx has its headquarters in lower Manhattan.) Still, in an era when so much information flows to investors through online feeds, the back pages of a metro can feel like a place to bury rather than reveal news. [...]
Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a stake in Germany’s Lanxess AG on May 19, worth roughly $179.85 million on the date of filing, a small fraction of his $96.5 billion cash hoard. [...]
Lanxess’ chemicals are used in an array of everyday and industrial products, such as biodiesel, spare wheels, paint pigments, leather manufacturing, white sugar, red wines and tires. Through a partnership with Saudi Arabian oil company Saudi Aramco, it also produces synthetic rubber.
The company has a 6.2 billion euro market cap, with revenue exceeding $7.6 billion in 2016, though revenue had been in decline for four straight years. On April 21, Lanxess completed the acquisition of U.S. company Chemtura, which produced 1.5 billion euro in annual sales, to stabilize the company, increase profitability and expand its footprint in the growth market of North America. [...]
General Re, which is a part of business guru Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway family of companies, has been given the final approval, called R3 from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India.
In a report, ieBusiness said that this is Berkshire’s second attempt to capture the Indian market. Berkshire’s initial venture was an online distribution that closed a couple of years after it launched in 2013.
Gen Re is different in that it will "deliver underwriting and risk management expertise locally rather than cross-border. It will facilitate an optimal business model," according to the report.
Gen Re’s area of interest is primarily on the life and health sector. It plans to expand in this segment but will also be looking to grow its presence in the property/ casualty reinsurance market in India which is a huge business opportunity. [...]
For much of the time Buffett has been at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway, he has managed the company's stock portfolio all by himself. However, that has changed in recent years with the hiring of two investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who were hired in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
Both men are hedge fund veterans with impressive track records. For example, Weschler's fund delivered 1,236% in gains in just 11 years before he closed it -- roughly 9 times the gain of Buffett's stock portfolio during the same time frame. [...]
The billionaire’s holding company – Berkshire Hathaway Inc. – could be liable for civil fines in the range of $350,000 a day if an ongoing investigation by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles determines it to be in violation of Texas law prohibiting the owner of an automobile manufacturer from also owning automobile dealerships in the state.
Berkshire Hathaway owns Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, which is based in Irving and operates 35 new-car dealerships in Texas, and it also owns Forest River Inc., an Indiana-based manufacturer of recreational vehicles. Owning both businesses potentially puts Berkshire Hathaway in violation of the Texas occupations code preventing ownership of a motor vehicle manufacturer and ownership of dealerships under a single corporate umbrella, even if the vehicles aren’t of the same type. [...]
While working in New York City, 20-something-year-old Buffett adopted Benjamin Graham’s practice of spotting companies that were slightly undervalued, such as having more in the bank account than they were worth on the stock market.
Anything with a bit of value that a smart investor could grab. In cigar terms, a mostly used butt ignored by others but with a few risk-free puffs left.
Looking beyond the unsavory image of smoking a used stogie (“The stub might be ugly and soggy,” Buffett once wrote), investors can embrace the idea of cigar butts as a lesson in recognizing value that others miss. Buffett used that ability to build up his personal investments in the 1950s before returning to Omaha and forming the partnerships that led to Berkshire. [...]
‘90s trends are in. Fashion, jewelry, shoes, toys and even hairstyles popular during that decade are part of a nostalgic revival taking place in 2017.
The Dairy Queen® system has now added treats to that list. The treat category leader, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is bringing back two popular fan favorites treats with Treatzza Pizza® on May 22 and Misty Slush® on June 26.
"There is an obvious resurgence in everything '90s and both Treatzza Pizza and Misty Slush were fan favorites from that era," said Barry Westrum, Executive Vice President of Marketing for American Dairy Queen Corporation (ADQ). "Those two treats were loved by fans from day one. They asked us to bring them back and we delivered." [...]
An auction for well-heeled fans of Warren Buffett to eat lunch with the billionaire in support of a San Francisco charity that helps the homeless and impoverished got off to a fast start, with bidding quickly hitting seven figures.
The top bid was $1 million as of 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) on Monday, and had been made within two minutes of the auction's Sunday night launch.
Bids often surge near the end of the eBay auction, which concludes on Friday at 10:30 p.m. EDT (230 GMT Saturday).
Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, has raised $23.6 million in 17 years of auctions for Glide. [...]
The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting is this Saturday in Omaha. Once again this year, Yahoo Finance will live stream the meeting. It all starts Saturday, May 6, 2017 at 10am EST (9am for the people in Omaha).
[...] in the last two weeks, subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway have bought more than a quarter billion dollars in shares of Liberty Media (LSXMA, LSXMK) that track Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI).
On April 19, Berkshire disclosed that it was a 10% holder of Liberty SiriusXM : 10.7 million series A shares and 23.4 million series C shares.
Since then, Berkshire has only hauled in more shares. From April 20 through 24, its subsidiaries have bought 2,470,117 more series A shares for $98.7 million and 3,875,011 more series C shares for $155 million. [...]
Buffett, who owned about 81 million shares of IBM at the end of 2016, sold off about a third of that stake in the first and second quarters of 2017, he told CNBC.
"I don't value IBM the same way that I did 6 years ago when I started buying... I've revalued it somewhat downward," Buffett told CNBC. "When it got above $180 we actually sold a reasonable amount of stock."
Buffett said IBM hadn't performed the way he had expected -- or the way IBM's management had expected -- when he first started buying the shares six years ago. [...]
Duracell, a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, on Thursday filed a lawsuit accusing a Missouri wholesaler of illegally selling gray market versions of its copper-top alkaline batteries.
According to a complaint filed in federal court in Chicago, JRS Ventures Inc is importing and selling batteries made in China that were intended for sale only to Duracell's original equipment manufacturers, to be packaged with products such as appliances and remote controls.
Duracell, which long used the tagline "no regular battery looks like it or lasts like it," said JRS's batteries do look like its own but come in packaging that does not mention Duracell's 10-year guarantee or how to obtain customer service. [...]
[...] And yet, See’s isn’t super well-known outside of the West Coast. Its dual headquarters are in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the lion’s share of its 250 stores are in California.
Back in 2012, See’s mapped out a plan to change that. CEO Brad Kinstler, a former insurance CEO tapped by Buffett to run See’s in 2005 (and still there today), formed an ambitious expansion plan. The aim was to open new See’s stores in Florida, Georgia, Maryland, and Washington, DC.
That didn’t happen; there still aren’t See’s stores in any of those places. The expansion of See’s to the East Coast fizzled. The reason? The broader demise of brick-and-mortar retail.
“Our hope was to develop more markets to the East,” Kinstler now tells Yahoo Finance. “But the brick-and-mortar and the indoor mall environment has changed the view we have on the potential to add new trade areas. Foot traffic in these more traditional settings is an impediment to new trade area success.” [...]
See’s did open its first ever New York store in January of this year, in Manhattan’s West Village. But it is a licensee shop, not owned or operated by See’s. [...]
Clayton, a Berkshire Hathaway home building company, is constructing a $14 million training lodge at its corporate headquarters in Maryville.
The three-story, log cabin-style lodge will replace the old lodge currently on the company's campus. [...]
Clayton is working with a Dayton nonprofit called Blazing Hope Ranch to re-purpose some of its old structures. The organization aids survivors of human trafficking and will use some of the old buildings on the lodge site to house survivors. [...]
Looks like the Omaha World Herald hasn't learned how to properly turn articles like this into a 20 page slideshow to maximize ad revenue and social media sharing. Here's the first 5 on the list. #14 will make you squeal!
1. Keep it dry: Automatic sump pumps from Wayne Water Systems
2. Lift it: Truck-mounted telescoping cranes from Stahl
3. Warm it: Heating & AC ductwork from Snappy Co.
4. Brighten it: LED lighting from TTI Inc.
5. Wire it: 90-degree conduit pull elbow from Halex
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.
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. [...]
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. [...]
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, 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 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 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 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.
MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts have said that paying $102.6 million to leave the utility and find their own energy is better for their businesses than staying with NV Energy. Las Vegas Sands stopped short of committing $23.9 million to leave NV Energy this year but is leaving its options open. As these resorts collectively make up 7% of the demand in NV Energy's territory, this is a big deal for the utility.
Warren Buffett is about to get back the $8 billion — plus a little extra — that his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. invested in Kraft Heinz Co. [...]
The 2013 deal allowed the foodmaker to pay a premium to redeem the preferred shares after three years, a period that expires next week. Mr. Buffett has said Berkshire will get about $8.3 billion, replenishing its coffers after the purchase of manufacturer Precision Castparts Corp. in January, one of his biggest buyouts ever.
Today though if you look at Berkshire's 6 largest positions, you see something very different. Gone are the concentrated bets that are likely to double several times in the next decade. Instead, you find a very conservative looking portfolio (although still concentrated) that offers a significant amount of yield. [...]
Berkshire will receive over $2.7 billion in dividends from these [six] positions [KHC, WFC, KO, IBM, AXP, PSX] in 2016. That is basically the size of the entire Berkshire portfolio back when Buffett was buying Coca-Cola in the late 1990s.
Warren Buffett never bought AT&T shares for Berkshire, nor did the company's other stock pickers. Instead, the AT&T stake was acquired through an acquisition.
In 2011, Berkshire began to accumulate a position in DirecTV, which it added to several times afterwards. [...] AT&T's acquisition paid shareholders $95 per share.
However, only $28.50 of that amount was in cash, with the remainder payable in AT&T stock, which is where Berkshire's AT&T stake originated. After the sale was complete, Berkshire received 59.32 million shares of AT&T during the third quarter of 2015, but they didn't stay in the portfolio for long. Berkshire unloaded 12.7 million of them during the fourth quarter, and sold the rest during the first quarter of 2016.
Richline Group, a jewelry subsidiary owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, continued its recent string of acquisitions with the purchase of Viawear, a provider of wearable technology for jewelry brands.
Viawear has developed bracelets that filter mobile notifications so wearers receive important alerts without having to check if they missed something. [...]
The Lubrizol Corp. has announced that Eric R. Schnur, currently executive vice president and chief operating officer, has been named president, effective immediately, and will become chairman and chief executive officer on January 2, 2017. James L. Hambrick, the current chairman, president and chief executive officer, having fulfilled his commitment to remain in those roles for five years following Berkshire Hathaway’s acquisition of Lubrizol in 2011, has decided to complete his 38-year Lubrizol career. [...]
A two part interview with PacifiCorp execuitve Stefan Bird (PacifiCorp being the Berkshire Hathaway Energy company serving the Pacific Northwest):
"Renewables are definitely a big part of our story. PacifiCorp is the second largest owner of utility- owned wind assets in the country, number two to our sister utility, MidAmerican Energy [...]
We’ve got about 2000 megawatts of renewables out of our total portfolio of 11,000 megawatts. We have a very large hydroelectric fleet and that contributes to our emission-free supply. There are a number of changes that have been pretty exciting in the last year or so as we collaborate more effectively with our neighbors. The Western grid is all physically interconnected, but we frankly don’t use it as efficiently and effectively as we could." [...]
"Being part by a large private corporation with very strong financial capabilities gives us some unique advantages, from a cost of capital standpoint and our ability to utilize federal tax credits. That allows us to pass those benefits through to our customers in a unique way. We can focus on the long-term, we’re not worried about quarterly results and we really want to make decisions that make sense for our customers to give them a sustainable value proposition for the long haul."
The annual charity auction for a private lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett is underway.
The top bid to dine with the chairman of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc was $200,100 at 12 p.m. EDT on Monday, but will likely surge by the time the auction on eBay ends on Friday night.
Winning bids have reached seven figures every year since 2008, with the record $3,456,789 offer submitted anonymously in 2012. Last year's winner paid $2,345,678.
Auction proceeds go to Glide, a charity in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that provides food, health care and other services to people who are homeless, poor or struggling with substance abuse. Buffett has raised about $20.2 million in 16 auctions for Glide.
The obscure business of reinsurance has always been one of Warren Buffett’s favorite money makers, but a changing landscape has led his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to adjust its strategy. [...]
Berkshire is pivoting toward parts of the insurance industry it feels look more promising than reinsurance, putting the company in the unfamiliar role of upstart.
“What was a very lucrative business is no longer a very lucrative business going forward,” Ajit Jain, a longtime top lieutenant to Mr. Buffett and a potential candidate to succeed him as chief executive, said in an interview. Berkshire will pursue reinsurance deals when they make sense, he said. “But since the reinsurance business isn’t going to offer as many opportunities for the foreseeable future, we feel like we should go down the food chain.” [...]
The new focus is on commercial insurance through Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, and a new initiative called Berkshire Hathaway Direct, copying GEICO's strategy of using the internet to market insurance directly to small and midsized businesses.
On Thursday, Heinz’s takeover of Kraft Foods closed. The new company will begin trading on the Nasdaq under ticker ‘KHC’ on Monday, July 6.
Ahead of the deal’s closing, Kraft Heinz announced that 3G executive Bernardo Hees will become CEO of the combined company, while Heinz CFO Paulo Basilio will assume the same role with the merged company. [...]
Kraft Heinz’s board will consist of eleven directors, including Berkshire’s Warren Buffett, Greg Abel and Tracy Britt Cool, and 3G Capital executives Jorge Paulo Lemann and Marcel Telles.
This makes Kraft Heinz BRK's second largest holding, after Wells Fargo ($26B).
Warren Buffett helped take over H.J. Heinz in 2013 and facilitated its combination with Kraft Foods Group Inc. this year. His prize: a stake of about $24 billion in the new company, which began trading Monday.
Kraft Heinz closed at $72.96 at 4 p.m. in New York trading. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns about 325 million shares, or roughly a quarter of the company, after investing approximately $9.5 billion over the transactions to acquire common stock.
PLICO, Inc. (PLICO), one of the Southwest’s premier healthcare liability insurers, the Oklahoma State Medical Association (OSMA), and Berkshire Hathaway’s MedPro Group (MedPro) today announced the signing of definitive agreements for the sale of PLICO to MedPro. The boards of each have approved OSMA’s sale to MedPro of 100% ownership of PLICO in an all-cash transaction, which is subject only to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the third quarter. [...]
Based in Oklahoma City, PLICO serves approximately 2200 healthcare providers in Oklahoma; it has annualized gross written premiums of about $30 million and had statutory surplus of over $60 million at year-end 2014. PLICO’s principal operations will remain in Oklahoma City, where it was founded in 1979.
A manufacturer owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has agreed to a civil penalty and stricter oversight for not reporting safety information properly, the U.S. Department of Transportation said Thursday.
Forest River Inc., based in Elkhart, Indiana, agreed to a $5 million cash penalty and an additional $30 million in “deferred” penalties that would be levied if it violates a 25-page safety enforcement agreement with the department.
The agreement cited reporting violations involving loose wiring on 726 camper trailers that could cause fires and a lack of fresh air exhaust vents in furnaces on 200 other campers that could cause fires or carbon monoxide exposure. The campers were manufactured last year.
Warren Buffett’s Nevada utility has lined up what may be the cheapest electricity in the U.S., and it’s from a solar farm.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s NV Energy agreed to pay 3.87 cents a kilowatt-hour for power from a 100-megawatt project that First Solar Inc. is developing, according to a filing with regulators.
That’s a bargain. Last year the utility was paying 13.77 cents a kilowatt-hour for renewable energy. The rapid decline is a sign that solar energy is becoming a mainstream technology with fewer perceived risks. It’s also related to the 70 percent plunge in the price of panels since 2010, and the fact that the project will be built in Nevada, the third-sunniest state.
The Dairy Queen® system, part of Berkshire Hathaway, has officially re-launched in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the opening of a DQ Grill & Chill® restaurant. The UAE is now the 26th country outside the U.S. and Canada with a DQ® presence. [...] Bajco Gulf, LLC is scheduled to develop a minimum of 20 new locations across the territory over the next five years.
Warren Buffett has donated about $2.84bn of Berkshire Hathaway Inc stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities, as part of the billionaire’s plan to give away nearly all of his wealth.
The 10th annual donation, Buffett’s largest, comprised 20.64m Class “B” shares of Berkshire and increased Buffett’s total contributions to the charities to more than $21.5bn.
New NetJets Chief Executive Adam Johnson just might be the most effective letter writer in the country.
The 44-year-old executive has twice in six years written letters to Warren Buffett, the owner of the fractional jet-ownership company, suggesting that he can the CEO — and twice gotten the billionaire investor to act, The Post has learned.
Johnson was instrumental in not only toppling Jordan Hansell in recent weeks, but also took a lead role in pressuring Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2009 to replace NetJets founder Richard Santulli, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told The Post. [...]
Two related stories of layoffs at Shaw Industries factories in Alabama and Georgia. Overall, they say they're adding employees, but the changes in their operations are redistributing where those jobs are.
DeKalb County will lose 160 jobs when one of its largest employers begins making cuts this summer at its Valley Head plant.
Shaw Industries, a flooring company based in Dalton, Ga., announced today it is reducing its workforce in northeast Alabama, leaving approximately 195 associates in Valley Head following the reduction. [...]
Scruggs said the company has announced $342 million in investments over the last 18 months to grow its hardwood, resilient, carpet tile, extrusion, distribution and recycling operations in the the U.S.
"At full capacity, these expansions will create almost 1,000 jobs throughout the Southeast," he said. "As we continue to grow, we will continually adjust production to match market demands and and to leverage our investments in more advanced technology."
In a letter dated June 4, Shaw Industries Group, Inc. informed the City of Bainbridge of an impending mass layoff at the Shaw Plant 70 in Bainbridge.
“This mass layoff will result in approximately 267 employees being permanently laid off,” the letter addressed to Bainbridge Mayor Edward Reynolds reads. [...]
In a press release, the company said that it is “re-aligning” its production processes leading to a downsize of Bainbridge’s facility. [...]
“Shaw Industries Group, Inc. is re-aligning its production capacity to better service its customers. Over the past months, we have increased capacity at our fiber extrusion facilities in North Georgia and South Carolina to take advantage of technology investments that we have made in these facilities,” according to the release.
Traditional investor-owned electric utilities rely on a guaranteed return on equity set by electricity regulators. Utilities typically earn this return by investing in generation systems such as coal and gas power plants or solar and wind farms (assets) and selling electricity to recover their investment, plus a return. In Iowa, MidAmerican has gone beyond this model to lower retail costs by selling their excess wind power to the local regional transmission organization. This let them increase the total amount of wind power on the grid and balance overall power generation. This has been so effective that MidAmerican plans to invest another $900 million in wind energy in Iowa, bringing the company’s total wind investment to $6.7 billion. The western Energy Imbalance Market, in turn, may let other Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiaries replicate this success. [...]
Craig Taylor, head of property, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance talks about public awareness of the industry, the challenges of the future and the mountains. [...]
Q: What’s the most important thing a broker can do to develop their business?
A: Be in touch with their customers’ industry and identify and respond to the changing environments. The world is changing at a rapid pace, so responding to those changes will create opportunity around added value initiatives whilst still delivering on core competencies. If clients think you’re at the top of the game, they will recommend you to peers.
A Chinese company that develops online games bid more than $2.3 million Friday to win a private lunch with Warren Buffett.
Beijing-based Dalian Zeus Entertainment Co. bid $2,345,678 to win the online auction. The Glide Foundation uses the auction proceeds to help the poor and homeless in San Francisco.
The highly anticipated big-screen version of the HBO series "Entourage" hits the big screen this weekend, offering an insider look at the business of Hollywood. [...]
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett appears midway through the film, as he crosses paths with Ari Gold. Buffett's cameo is brief, but he does manage to toss off a few memorable one-liners before zipping off in his golf cart across the Warner Brothers studio backlot.
NetJets Inc. announced Monday the departure of CEO Jordan Hansell and named a replacement to take over immediately.
The Columbus-based private jet company, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said Adam Johnson, with the company since 1996, including most recently as president of marketing, sales and owner services, has been named NetJets chairman and CEO. Hansell had been CEO since 2011.
At NetJets, Sokol left behind both his thrifty business model and a successor, Hansell, whom Sokol had recruited from Berkshire's energy business. NetJets' pilots love Santulli and have always lamented his departure. They detest both Sokol and Hansell, and especially their low-cost strategy. After Santulli left, management-labor relations deteriorated steadily [...]
Amid mounting turmoil, in early 2015, two Santulli-era senior executives resigned from NetJets and today the company announced that they are returning to lead NetJets: Adam Johnson, a 20-year company veteran, and Bill Noe, who is also a pilot. Their stated goal is to reengage NetJets' employees in the business and return the company to greatness. In other words, they appear poised to abandon the Sokol business model in favor of Santuilli's original concept.
(Note that this was published last week, before the leadership change.)
Berkshire Hathaway-owned business-jet operation NetJets is trying to wrangle benefit cuts from its pilots union just as boom times fuel a pilot shortage that could crimp its business. [...]
With the economy on the rebound, wealthy customers have returned to buying shares in NetJets planes in exchange for flying hours. Last year it sold 3,500 NetJets Marquis cards — 1,000 more than expected, the exec said.
Nevertheless, NetJets, which almost collapsed during the downturn when CEOs cut back on private-jet travel, said it has to trim costs to meet Berkshire’s demands for greater returns.
Although analysts have a big appetite for synergy loaded deals like Berkshire and 3G’s latest M&A foray, they question whether the company’s lack of organic and natural foods, and its exposure to salty, sugary and fatty goods will prove a roadblock for growth no matter how successful 3G is in cutting costs. Other possible headwinds include dealing with refrigerated foods, technical issues from supply chain changes, and volatile global currencies, issues that have so-far weighed on Heinz sales.
Citigroup analysts, however, see an ability for Kraft to generate new sales as it takes back trademarks it’s licensed out to Mondelez over the two-to-10-years. Heinz’s existing infrastructure in Europe, Brazil and Asia, meanwhile, could help increase the penetration of Kraft brands. Were one to assume 3G’s guidance on synergies is credible, Kraft Heinz also doesn’t look overly expensive when compared against industry competitors.
But the energy industry might be changing faster than Buffett realizes, and Berkshire Hathaway's $10 billion takeover of Nevada utility NV Energy two years ago could show just how problematic the business is today. He's not being challenged by environmentalists or fossil fuel prices; instead, it's casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, NV Energy's biggest customers, that are threatening to leave the utility and find their energy elsewhere.
It takes a lot of power to run a Las Vegas casino. MGM Resorts alone accounts for about 5% of NV Energy's electricity delivered, and that's from just 12 properties. Add in Wynn Resorts, Las Vegas Sands, and data center company Switch, and NV Energy relies on just four customers for about 10% of its demand each year. All the more problematic is the fact that; all four companies want to leave the utility.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy appears to be successfully pushing legislative language through both chambers of Congress that would scrap federal requirements for utilities to buy power from small renewable and cogeneration units.
But Warren Buffett's multinational conglomerate will have an uphill battle getting that language past the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee's top Democrat, Maria Cantwell of Washington.
Cantwell has made clear she plans to work against Berkshire Hathaway Energy's (BHE) proposal, which she said amounts to an attempt by the company to bolster its position in the Western coal markets, where it owns both rail lines and generators. [...]
Richline Brands is set to introduce its highly anticipated foray into the world of wearable technology with an array of smart jewelry offerings at the JCK trade show in Las Vegas. [...]
Warren Buffett’s annual lunch auction drew a top offer of more than $1 million in the charity event’s first full day, exceeding the pace of last year’s bidding.
The annual charity event, now in its 16th year, started Sunday evening and concludes Friday. The highest offer was $1,000,100 as of 10:46 a.m. Monday in San Francisco, according to Ebay Inc.’s website. [...]
Buffett, 84, has raised $17.8 million for San Francisco’s Glide Foundation by offering admirers an avenue to get face time with him. Glide, which offers free meals, affordable housing and counseling for the poor, is led by the Rev. Cecil Williams, 85.
“Someone just gave me Warren Buffett’s email,” Cuban had replied. “I’m going to email him and see if he’ll meet with me. I really want to talk with Warren Buffett.”
So there they were, Buffett in a nice suit and Cuban in a polo shirt, waiting for a driver to do a U-turn on Farnam Street to pick them up for a trip to the Dairy Queen [...]
At one time, Berkshire made linings for men’s suits. Now, its various 100%-owned subsidiaries make cowboy boots, floor enamel and Ginsu knives; sell ear-piercing tools, diamond rings and encyclopedias; rent topiaries, candelabras and refrigerated trailers; provide insulated bags for pizza-delivery men, uniforms for police officers and shoulder pads for football players… and much, much, much more.
If Berkshire’s wholly-owned companies were independent, nine of them would be among the Fortune 500.
Warren Buffett was forced to defend his association with 3G Capital from the beginning of the ritual Q&A session at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting last Saturday, as a shareholder said that "he cannot make a moral case" for the Brazilian investment firm's aggressive cost-cutting programs at acquired companies. Given that Berkshire Hathaway's partnership with 3G Capital is more likely to expand than shrink over the next decade, Berkshire shareholders ought to understand its nature. In fact, 3G's methods are not inconsistent with Mr. Buffett's approach to business, which is, well, all business.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. is extending its operating improvement plans as the railroad seeks to recover from “significant service-related challenges” that the carrier and its customers have struggled with over the past year.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the railroad’s parent, said BNSF has seen its network operate more smoothly lately as it has boosted capacity by expanding lines, adding locomotives and bringing in new hires. “We plan to continue our capital expansion and operational improvement initiatives in 2015 in order to meet customer demand and improve and maintain service levels,” the Berkshire said in its first-quarter 10-Q filing late Friday.
BNSF Railway Co., owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will be among the first companies to operate a commercial drone over hundreds of miles in a U.S. research program to test the safety of pilot-less flights.
A camera-equipped drone will fly as far as 400 miles (640 kilometers) along tracks in rural areas to inspect rails, BNSF said. The Federal Aviation Administration also chose CNN and Precision Hawk USA Inc. to make flights beyond the visual line of sight of an operator in unpopulated areas, a practice that is currently banned.
The use of drones “increases the frequency of inspection. We have some very remote areas,” Gary Grissum, BNSF’s assistant vice president of telecommunications, said in an interview. “We’re looking to be able to detect very small defaults in the rail.”
A tiny central North Dakota town has been evacuated after the derailment of an oil train.
The incident displaced residents of Heimdal, sheriff's officials told local media. The accident involved a BNSF Railway train with 109 cars, five of which were burning. Six to seven cars derailed and the cause of the event is unknown, according to officials.
Investor Warren Buffett again defended Berkshire Hathaway's manufactured home unit Monday and praised some of his company's biggest investments.
Buffett discussed Clayton Homes' lending practices, interest rates, Berkshire's investments and other topics during an interview on CNBC Monday. Over the weekend, he answered questions in front of more than 40,000 people at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting.[...]
A subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will announce Thursday that it plans to build the Grande Prairie Wind Farm, which would be Nebraska’s largest wind-powered electric generating plant and increase the state’s wind energy capacity by nearly 50 percent.
BHE Renewables, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, purchased Grande Prairie from Geronimo Energy of Edina, Minnesota, which had acquired it from a Chicago developer in 2013. The other companies arranged leases, got permits and completed other development steps.
Construction is to start this summer on the 400-megawatt project, located about 12 miles northeast of O’Neill, and be completed in 2016, adding to the state’s existing 810-megawatt wind energy capacity.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy disclosed that it recently acquired a site for solar generation development in MISO’s central region. The “site” consists of 74 individual “locations” not to exceed 1 MW each, according to the company’s quarterly property acquisition report. [...]
The company did not disclose exactly where the site is located. The company is not ready to make an announcement on the project, spokesman David Caris said. MISO is a new locale for the company’s solar portfolio. [...]
Berkshire Hathaway’s planned solar expansion in MISO’s coal-dependent central region — which includes Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Illinois — appears designed to take advantage of increased demand for renewables as a result of federal environmental regulations.
Berkshire Hathaway utility PacifiCorp will procure renewable generation from a 7MW solar installation in Oregon by the end of 2015. [...]
PacifiCorp expects that the plant will supply power to about 1,000 residents in the town of Bly, Oregon. The company serves 1.8mn customers across Utah, Oregon, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho and parts of northern California.
The 7MW plant will be built on a former 40-acre lumber mill site, with 20,000 solar panels, and will become PacifiCorp's largest operational solar facility in Oregon.
Forest River will break ground this week on a new manufacturing facility in Michigan.
The Elkhart-based company announced plans in January to build three 100,000-square-foot facilities in White Pigeon and create 396 jobs in the next three years. [...]
Forest River is investing more than $7 million in the project and is receiving substantial incentives from state and local governments.
Nebraska Furniture Mart executives told hundreds of local dignitaries, employees and others attending a ribbon-cutting Thursday that the store is finally ready to take on the throngs of shoppers it was built for. [...]
Blumkin said the Omaha-based retailer, a unit of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, had several locations to choose from, but decided on the spot along the Sam Rayburn Tollway and Plano Parkway partly because of the cooperation from local entities. It has its own exit from the tollway, for example.
John Noel, president of Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (BHTP) and founder of Travel Guard International, MyAssist and Insure America, today is moving to an executive advisory role after being diagnosed with early stages of Lewy Body Disease.
He will be succeeded as president by Dean Sivley, who had served as president of Travel Guard–Americas and was chief e-business officer of Travel Guard’s global operations after Noel left that company in 2009, three years after selling it to AIG. Sivley most recently served as CEO of the car service GroundLink.
Dairy Queen, according to a letter written by one of its executives that was released by an advocacy group, is pulling soft drinks from its kids menu. The letter, which is dated May 11, says the company along with its franchisees had voted to make the switch. The ice cream chain said the change would take place as soon as September 1 because that’s how long it would take the company to change its restaurant menu boards. After that, only water and milk will be the only beverages on the kid’s menu at Dairy Queen restaurants.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has once again agreed to have lunch with the winner of an upcoming auction to benefit a San Francisco charity.
The 16th annual auction to benefit Glide, which provides food and services to the poor and homeless, will be held on eBay from May 31 to June 5, the charity said.
Past auctions have raised about $17.8m, including a record $3,456,789 from an anonymous bidder in 2012. Last year's winner, Andy Chua of Singapore, bid $2,166,766.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is famous for his frugality, living in the same Omaha home he purchased in 1958 for $31,500, yet his neighbors across the street have a slightly higher, and slightly tongue-in-cheek, asking price in mind for their five-bedroom house.
Homeowner Phil Huston says that though the property has been recently valued at $866,000, he and his wife are asking for 10 Class A shares of the company their famed neighbor has helmed for half a century, Berkshire Hathaway. While at first glance, this may not seem like a lot, Warren Buffett has famously never split Berkshire Hathaway’s stock, as Yahoo Homes points out. This means that each individual share of the conglomerate currently sells for $215,800 as of closing Friday, making the asking price of Huston’s home $2.158 million.
Warren Buffett is smiling about Coke again, and singing about it.
The billionaire investor made a special guest appearance at Coca-Cola’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday. Buffett was introduced with a video of him singing, ukulele in hand, “I’d like to Teach the World to Sing” from Coke’s classic hilltop commercials.
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