Berkshire News Briefs - 7/15/13

Does Berkshire Have the World's Biggest Market Cap? (Fool)

The Fool's Anders Bylund sorts out the confusing numbers provided by Yahoo and Google finance to figure out what the real market cap of Berkshire Hathaway is.

But what about Berkshire Hathaway, then? Run over to Google Finance and you'll find Berkshire's "A" shares listed at a $284 billion market cap, while "B" shares get a $283 billion price tag. Doesn't that add up to $567 billion, far surpassing both Exxon and Apple? Not so fast, my friend. It's time to double-check our data. Take a trip down to Yahoo! Finance instead, and you'll find Berkshire "A" listed at $284 billion, while "B" shares get a minuscule $189 million market cap. Add all of it up, and "B" shares become a mere rounding error next to their "A"-class cousins. What's going on here?

Heinz Profit Climbed 12 Before Buffett, Lemann Takeover (MoneyNews)

HJ Heinz Co., the world’s largest ketchup maker, said fiscal fourth-quarter profit climbed 12 percent ahead of the company’s takeover by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Jorge Paulo Lemann’s 3G Capital. Net income rose to $195.9 million in the three months ended April 28, Pittsburgh-based Heinz said Tuesday in a regulatory filing. That compares with $175.3 million in the same period last year, when the company recorded costs tied to factory closures and job cuts. Berkshire and 3G completed the Heinz deal in June for $28.8 billion including debt financing.

Top 10 U.S. Aircraft Insurers (Insurance Journal)

In case last week's Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco got you thinking about who insures airplanes, it turns out that Berkshire Hathaway is one of the top U.S. insurers writing aircraft policies in South Korea and the #5 insurer in the United States for aircraft (with $121.9 million in premiums written), but they were not an insurer for that particular plane crash.

Warren Buffett & Brad Pitt Working Main Street (2 Paragraphs)

Small town mayors all over the country have been busy seeking votes — not for re-election but to win Benjamin Moore’s “Main Street Matters” contest. Benjamin Moore & Co. (owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway) just announced the winners: 20 North American towns will each receive a free fresh paint job for their respective downtowns. As a major corporate sponsor of actor Brad Pitt’s charitable organization Make It Right, which builds green homes for communities in need, Benjamin Moore was able to get Pitt as the “Main Street Matters” campaign spokesperson.

Wells Fargo's Buffett Business Drives Wall Street Ascendance (The Street)

Wells Fargo is now a solidly growing Wall Street player, after the nation's largest mortgage lender saw its strongest earnings growth from investment banking and wealth management businesses. [...] Wells Fargo's rising investment banking earnings also reflect burgeoning business the bank gets from its largest shareholder; Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway. The bank's Wall Street-based earnings were likely bolstered by fees it earned in advising and financing Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital's $28 billion acquisition of ketchup maker Heinz in February. [...] Only Wells Fargo and JPMorgan were hired to advise and finance Berkshire and 3G's deal for Heinz, which stands as one of the largest acquisitions of 2013. In 2009, Wells and JPMorgan played a similarly exclusive role in underwriting financing for Berkshire's acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

Shaw Announces Sustainability Progress (PR Newswire)

Shaw Industries Group, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway company, has released its 2012 corporate sustainability report. Key highlights from the report -- titled "Looking Ahead" -- include: Reclaiming and recycling more than 600 million pounds of post-consumer carpet since 2006; Surpassing 60 percent of Shaw products being Cradle to Cradle Certified; Achieving LEED(R) certification for three additional facilities; Reducing water intensity by 33.7 percent since 2006; Providing 56,196 associate volunteer hours and more than $2 million in contributions to community causes; Breaking ground on a manufacturing facility in Nantong, China to serve the thriving Asia market -- representative of the company's efforts to produce products locally.

Warren Buffett's generosity grows with Berkshire's stock price (CNBC)

With a lot of help from a 39 percent increase in the value of Berkshire Hathaway's Class B stock over the past 12 months, Warren Buffett's donation to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this year was the largest since his annual contributions began in 2006. Buffett's gift of 17,458,431 shares is worth just over $2 billion at today's closing price of $115.01, a bit below the all-time high of $115.98 reached in mid-June.

Berkshire News Briefs - 7/7/13

Buffett’s Geico Promotes Roberts as Insurer Takes on Allstate (Bloomberg)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. promoted Bill Roberts to president and chief operating officer of the Geico unit as it competes with Progressive Corp. and Allstate Corp. for auto insurance customers. Roberts had been executive vice president of Geico since 2000 with duties including marketing, advertising and the Internet business unit, the insurer said in a statement today.

Even if Warren Buffett's successor isn't known, Geico's might be (Omaha World-Herald)

Olza M. “Tony” Nicely, once considered a potential successor to Warren Buffett as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., now has his own successor in line. [...] Nicely remains CEO and chairman, but last week Geico promoted Bill Roberts to president and chief operating officer. [...] Becoming president and COO of a company is usually the last step before the top job, and the two men's ages seem to line up, uh, nicely.

Geico shifts leadership gears, puts pedal to the metal on advertising (Washington Post)

The leadership shuffle comes as the company closes in on Allstate as the nation’s second-largest auto insurer. The industry leader is State Farm. Geico surpassed Allstate in business during the first quarter of the year, posting $4.72 billion in new auto insurance premiums, compared with its competitor’s $4.53 billion. Allstate, though, has picked up more business over four quarters, $17.65 billion in premiums to Geico’s $17.16 billion [...]

On the same day as Geico’s leadership announcement, the company reported that it had sold its 12 millionth car policy. (The firm now covers more than 18 million total vehicles.) Meanwhile, the company’s underwriting profit jumped 18 percent last year and its employee rolls have grown to 28,000 [...]

In 2012, Geico spent more than $1.1 billion on advertising, up 12.45 percent from the year before and an even greater boost than the 10.1 percent increase its posted between 2010 and 2011 [...]

It was by far the most spent by any property insurer last year — Allstate was a distant second, at $828.8 million — and the fifth-largest amount spent on advertising by any company in the United States [...]

How Berkshire Hathaway Is Quietly Taking Over the World (Fool)

On multiple occasions, Warren Buffett has bluntly admitted that Berkshire Hathaway's enormous market capitalization will make it impossible for the company to duplicate its past rates of return going forward. That's no wonder, especially when we note by the end of 2012 he had grown Berkshire's per-share book value by 586,817% over the previous 48 years. But that certainly doesn't mean Berkshire can't continue to beat the market going forward. What it does mean, however, is that investors can expect the role of small acquisitions to continue playing an ever-increasing role in expanding Berkshire's moat, even as the company continues to snap up relatively large businesses.

Berkshire's Specialty Insurance, Bigger Than You Think? (Fool Video)

Two weeks ago, Berkshire Hathaway announced its newly formed commercial property-casualty insurance group, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, is officially up and running. While that may not be a surprise given the fact Berkshire hired four of AIG's senior property-casualty executives in April, investors may not realize just how much this unit could eventually contribute to Berkshire's operations as the company takes market share from other players in the space [...]

Berkshire Hathaway Buys More DaVita Stock (The Street)

Warren Buffett's company bought more than 500,000 more shares of dialysis provider DaVita Inc.'s stock last week after prices dropped because of fears of reduced Medicare payments. The latest purchases reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday give Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 15.6 million shares of DaVita's stock. Berkshire now owns about 15 percent of DaVita, but it has agreed not to buy more than 25 percent of the Denver-based company unless, both companies agree. DaVita runs nearly 2,000 outpatient dialysis clinics.

Everything You Need to Know About Keystone XL: Why Railroads Care (Fool)

In terms of oil sand crossing the border via rail, only Canadian Pacific, Canadian National Railway, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, part of the Berkshire Hathaway holdings, have rail lines that would deliver oil sands to the Gulf [...] This companies are also the only game in town in case producers and refiners find it attractive to move oil sands to refineries on the West [...] If Keystone XL gets rejected, it more than likely creates a better opportunity for rail to compete. Lack of takeaway capacity could potentially hurt prices for Western Canadian Select, which would also help rail companies. If prices can stay within a range where that $30 premium to move via rail is still competitive against other heavy crude sources in the Gulf Coast, then rail certainly has a shot to make an impact.

Undercover Boss: Oriental Trading Company (YouTube)

Oriental Trading Company CEO Sam Taylor was featured on the CBS TV series "Undercover Boss" last year, and the episode is up on YouTube, if you have 42 minutes to kill. The episode aired over 6 months before Oriental Trading Company was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway last November (and was probably filmed many more months before that).