Berkshire News Briefs - 5/30/13

Berkshire Hathaway’s MidAmerican expands Western footprint with $5.6 billion buy of NV Energy (Washington Post)

Berkshire Hathaway’s MidAmerican Energy utility said Wednesday that it will buy Nevada electric and natural gas company NV Energy Inc. for $5.6 billion as it expands its footprint in the energy sector. MidAmerican has been aggressively investing in renewable energy projects in recent years, and the companies expect that MidAmerican’s experience will help NV Energy develop renewable projects in Nevada, which has vast solar, wind and geothermal resources.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway buys The Roanoke (Va.) Times for undisclosed price (Washington Post)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is adding The Roanoke (Va.) Times to its growing group of small and medium-sized newspapers. Berkshire said Thursday it will acquire The Times from Landmark Media Enterprises on Friday. It will be Berkshire’s 30th daily newspaper. Financial terms were not disclosed. Berkshire says The Roanoke Times has daily circulation of 76,000 and Sunday circulation of 90,000.

Newest director doesn't own Berkshire Hathaway shares (Omaha World Herald)

Meryl Witmer, an investment fund manager for Eagle Capital Partners in New York City, is the newest member of Berkshire's board of directors and, so far, the only one of its 13 members who doesn't own Berkshire shares. Shareholders elected Witmer on May 4 to the board of the Omaha-based conglomerate headed by Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett. She disclosed her non-ownership status in a filing this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The other 12 directors own Berkshire shares ranging from Buffett's $59 billion and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates' $10.2 billion to the $350,000 worth of stock owned by Susan Decker, former president of Yahoo, who joined the board in 2007.

H.J. Heinz Company Announces Receipt of Chinese Regulatory Approval Required for the Acquisition of Heinz by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital (MarketWatch)

H.J. Heinz Company today announced that it has received regulatory approval from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce for the acquisition of Heinz by an investment consortium comprised of Berkshire Hathaway and an investment fund affiliated with 3G Capital. The transaction remains subject to certain customary closing conditions, including receipt of certain remaining regulatory approvals, and is now expected to close in early- to mid-June. Heinz has received antitrust clearance in the United States, Brazil, India, South Korea, Japan, Israel, Mexico, South Africa and Ukraine, and other regulatory approvals in Russia, New Zealand and Ireland. The Company is waiting for antitrust clearance in the European Union and Russia.

Will 3G Capital make massive changes at Heinz? (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Knowledge that the new owners -- a partnership between 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway -- will put every expense and every product under a microscope has the 1,200 Heinz employees in the Pittsburgh region polishing their resumes, networking with professional contacts and keeping their options open. "If this was only Berkshire Hathaway, I would say Heinz is going to be Heinz," said University of Pittsburgh business school professor Jay Sukits. "The wild card here, to me, is 3G." Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett is known for buying and holding well-run companies such as Heinz. But 3G Capital could have a shorter-term view. The New York private equity firm has earned a reputation for aggressively and quickly cutting costs at companies it acquires [...]

Buffett's Berkshire Thinks This Bankruptcy Deal Stinks (Fool)

Residential Capital is moving rapidly toward exiting bankruptcy -- and Warren Buffett is not pleased. [...] This stake in ResCap's debt makes Buffett a major player in ResCap's bankruptcy proceedings. It gives Buffett a voice in agreeing to (or refusing) settlement negotiations to resolve creditor claims against ResCap, and it could result in an equity stake in the company if it exits bankruptcy -- and that's where things get complicated. [...] Buffett and Berkshire are right to push for full transparency in these bankruptcy proceedings, so that all interested players know what they're being asked to give up -- not just what Ally is offering to give them.

What Brooks Has Learned Working With Buffett (Fool Video)

Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary Brooks Sports is drawing quite a bit of attention from Buffett devotees these days. The running shoe maker has sprinted to 34% volume growth in both 2011 and 2012, with U.S. sales growth hitting the tape at 43% by the end of last year. Our roving reporter Rex Moore caught up with Brooks CEO Jim Weber at the recent Berkshire shareholder meeting in Omaha. In this segment of a multipart series, Jim says working under the Berkshire umbrella has taught him a lot about the power of the brand.

Berkshire Hathaway unit buys another Louisville realty firm (Louisville Business First)

HomeServices of Kentucky Inc., which owns Louisville-based Semonin Realtors, has agreed to purchase Louisville real estate firm Wakefield Reutlinger Realtors. The purchase is expected to become effective June 1. HomeServices of Kentucky is a wholly owned subsidiary of HomeServices of America Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate.

Berkshire’s Weschler Holds Almost $150 Million of DaVita (Bloomberg)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the largest shareholder in DaVita (DVA) HealthCare Partners Inc., said deputy stock picker Ted Weschler has a personal holding in the dialysis provider valued at almost $150 million. Weschler has 1.19 million shares, or about 1.1 percent, of the Denver-based company, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The holding was amassed before he joined Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, according to the document. [...] Berkshire has a stake of 14 percent. The filing yesterday outlines an agreement by Weschler, 52, and Berkshire about the separation of their holdings.

Berkshire Hathaway Acquires 5% Stake In Starz (ValueWalk)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. recently submitted a 13G filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which showed that the conglomerate acquired 5.03 percent stake or 5,622,340 shares of Starz. Formerly known as Liberty Media Corp, Starz is a global media and entertainment company. Its offers premium subscription video programming services through its flagship pay TV networks, Starz and Encore to various channels video distributors such as cable operators, satellite television providers, and telecommunications companies. Starz and Encore have 21.6 and 35.1 subscribers respectively as of March 31, 2013. [...] The regulatory filing of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. revealed that its investment manager, Ted Weschler owns 285,834 shares of Starz.

Berkshire Sues NeighborCity.com in IP Dispute (Technorati)

Berkshire Hathaway has filed a lawsuit against NeighborCity.com, a real estate listing portal, despite the fact that the Warren Buffet’s company is a licensee of the latter. Berkshire is accusing the San Francisco-based company of copyright infringement when it allegedly reproduced, displayed, and distributed protected content such as photographs without any authorization from Berkshire’s listing services. The disagreement between the two companies shows how intellectual property (IP) rights can be used as a competitive tool in ecommerce and Internet-based lead generation and transactions.

Warren Buffett Lunch Auction To Kick Off June 2 (HuffPost)

Warren Buffett has already helped raise nearly $15 million over the years for a San Francisco homeless charity, and the group hopes someone will again be willing to pay more than $2 million for a private lunch with the Omaha, Neb., investor. [...] Bidding for the lunch on eBay will begin at $25,000 on the evening of June 2 and continue through June 7.

Berkshire News Briefs - 5/22/13

Berkshire filed its quarterly 13F statement with the SEC this week, which discloses which other public companies it owns shares in.

In summary:

New additions: Starz (STRZA) and Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CBI). (Starz is not really a purchase; BRK received the shares when Starz was spun off from DirecTV in January.)

Big purchases (percentage-wise): 41% increase in National Oilwell Varco (NOV) and 121% increase in Verisign (VRSN)

Also big purchases (volume-wise): Wells Fargo (WFC), Walmart (WMT), DirecTV (DTV), and DaVita (DVA)

Smaller purchases: IBM (IBM), US Bankcorp (USB), and Wabco (WBC).

Large sales: 46% of BRK's Mondelez (MDLZ) shares, a 100% sale of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and a 100% sale of General Dynamics (GD).

Smaller sales: Kraft (KRFT) and Bank of New York (BK).

With His Magic Touch, Buffett May Be Irreplaceable for Berkshire (NY Times)

The ability to make acquisitions on favorable terms is a testament to Mr. Buffett’s personality and skills as a deal maker. It also highlights an almost unsolvable problem for his company, Berkshire Hathaway, and its shareholders. When its 82-year-old chief executive is gone, who will negotiate such sweet deals? [...] The Heinz deal aptly illustrates the huge issue looming for Berkshire shareholders. Simply put, Mr. Buffett negotiated a deal almost no one else on the planet could have received.

S&P downgrades Berkshire Hathaway's credit rating (Bloomberg)

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. was downgraded by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services Thursday after the credit rating agency changed the way it evaluates insurance companies. [...] S&P said Berkshire's insurance companies, which include Geico and major reinsurance firms like General Re, are riskier than other insurers because their large equity investments that can be volatile. And the ratings agency said insurance regulators could restrict how much money Berkshire's insurers send to the holding company. The ratings agency also said management succession is a concern at Berkshire. [...] S&P said its rating reflects Berkshire's strong financial risk profile and strong balance sheet, and Berkshire still enjoys the highest rating of any insurance company.

The Fool's John Reeves (TMFBane) says that this is The Berkshire Hathaway Story Nobody Cares About (Fool Video)

Buffett Jets Chief Says U.S. Leads Private-Flight Rebound (Bloomberg)

NetJets caters to wealthy individuals and business clients who take a stake in planes in exchange for flight hours. When the U.S. financial crisis sapped luxury flying, the company cut jobs and planes before embarking on $17.6 billion of orders starting in 2010 on a bet that the market would recover over the coming decade. The number of new NetJets owners increased 55 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, Hansell said. Regarding the U.S. market, he said: “I wouldn’t say it’s a huge upswing, but it’s year over year over year, from 2009, been an improvement.”

Warren Buffet Pumps $1.9 Billion Into Iowa Wind Power (Clean Technica)

The new investment will add up to 656 new turbine’s to the wind portfolio of MidAmerican Energy, which has already pumped 1,267 turbines into Iowa since 2004 (Buffet’s affection for wind power is active in other states as well, by the way). When the new turbines are operating the company expects to produce 39 percent of its retail generation from wind power. In comparison, by the end of 2011 the company’s energy mix was dominated by coal at 47 percent, with wind coming on strong at 26 percent. Another 20 percent came from natural gas and oil, with nuclear, hydro and “other” combining for the remaining 7 percent.

1 Thing I Wish Warren Buffett Had Said (Fool)

During the multi-hour question-and-answer session during the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, there was plenty that Warren Buffett and his partner-in-crime Charlie Munger said. But what didn't Buffett say? To find out, I rounded up the group of Fools who attended the Berkshire meeting this year and asked them exactly that. So, Fools, what do you wish Warren had said?

Contest turns kids, teachers into Berkshire Hathaway shareholders (Omaha World-Herald)

“The kids were terrific,” Buffett said Monday after getting sales pitches from five individual and three team finalists in a nationwide contest related to the Secret Millionaires Club, an animated series that teaches children about finances. “They're all winners.” Buffett, who voices his cartoon character in the series, didn’t pick the winners, announced Monday at a luncheon at the Embassy Suites hotel in Omaha’s Old Market. But he backed up his praise by pledging to give 10 shares of Class B stock in Berkshire to each student and the teachers who coached them. That’s about $25,000 worth, altogether, at today’s price. The winning individual and team also received $5,000 from the contest.

Warren Buffett plays salesman-in-chief for Berkshire Hathaway while selling Dairy Queen treats (Washington Post)

Billionaire Warren Buffett isn’t just Berkshire Hathaway’s chairman and CEO. He’s also the chief salesman. Buffett visited a Dairy Queen in Ralston, Neb., Monday evening to serve up the restaurant chain’s new S’mores Blizzard flavor that will be available nationwide June 1. Then he ate ice cream for the cameras.