NetJets Inc. has agreed in principle to a contract covering its 2,800 union pilots, ending more than two years of contentious negotiations that saw a management shakeup and required billionaire Warren Buffett to defend parent Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s attitude toward organized labor. [...]
The union said the proposed agreement meets goals of “protecting, repairing and improving” the previous contract. It comes days after NetJets reached a tentative contract with 278 flight attendants.
Warren Buffett’s Millionaires Club (WSJ)
In 50 years at the helm of Berkshire, Mr. Buffett has transformed a struggling textile mill into a massive holding company with $200 billion in revenue and created a legion of unlikely millionaires—and even a few billionaires. [...]
Early Berkshire stockholders have used shares to finance children’s educations, buy homes and put up collateral for loans. Hundreds of millions of dollars of stock already have gone to shareholders’ alma maters, cultural institutions and medical research.
Warren Buffett's really bad week (Fortune)
Warren Buffett likely had a worse week in the market than you did.
[...] Walmart’s stock fell 10%, [...] so that was a $360 million hit to the conglomerate’s investment portfolio. That same day, Wells Fargo [...] shares dropped a modest $0.36. But to Buffett’s Berkshire [...] that small drop meant another $170 million shaved off the Oracle of Omaha’s portfolio. Then came IBM, [...] IBM’s shares fell 6%, or $8.58. The resulted in a $680 million hit to Buffett’s Berkshire [...]
Three stocks, one week, $1.2 billion down the drain.
Trust and Consequences: A Survey of Berkshire Hathaway Operating Managers (Stanford)
For much of its history, Berkshire Hathaway has been regarded primarily as the investment vehicle of Warren Buffett rather than a bona fide corporation. However, as Berkshire Hathaway has expanded beyond its core insurance operations, more attention is being paid to the structure by which these entities are managed. Notable features of the company’s system are its decentralization, the autonomy afforded to its managers, its long-term investment horizon, and its emphasis on ethical behavior.
We explore this system in greater detail, based on the results of a survey of the chief executive officers of the company’s operating subsidiaries.
Precision Castparts Q2 Earnings & Revenues Lag, Down Y/Y (Nasdaq)
Precision Castparts Corp. reported second-quarter fiscal 2016 earnings from continuing operations of $2.49 per share [...] Also, the bottom line declined 23.1% on a year-over-year basis.
The decline in bottom line was mainly led by poor top-line performance during the quarter. Moreover, higher interest expense as well as selling & administrative costs dragged earnings. This apart, pricing pressure in the oil & gas market, persistent "fastener destocking" and operational issues in the Airframe Products segment added to the year-over-year fall in earnings. [...]
On Aug 10, 2015, Precision Castparts disclosed the signing of a merger deal with Berkshire Hathaway Inc. for about $37.2 billion. The deal is expected to conclude in the first quarter of calendar year 2016 [...]
BYD's Third-Quarter Profits Surge (Nasdaq)
BYD Co.said it is expecting a strong 2015 performance after the Chinese company on Thursday reported a surge in third-quarter net profit, lifted by higher electric-car sales and government subsidies.
The battery and car maker, which is 9.1%-owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said its net profit for the July-Sept period totaled 1.49 billion yuan (US$234.5 million), sharply higher from CNY28.2 million a year earlier. Its operating revenue during the period was up 23.5% to CNY16.9 billion. [...]
BYD expects its full-year net profit to rise by around 435% to 481% from a year ago, on anticipation of strong sales of its plug-in hybrid cars in the fourth quarter [...]
Buffett's Berkshire takes on Charles Taylor insurance books (Telegraph)
Charles Taylor has offloaded its last tranche of property and casualty insurance policies to a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, three years after increasing competition prompted it to call time on its general insurance run-off business. [...]
Tenecom, a subsidiary of Mr Buffett’s business empire, will liquidate the businesses before paying Charles Taylor a dividend.
Insurance consolidation firms such as Tenecom buy up legacy businesses from other firms in the hope of generating more money than it takes to pay for claims made on the policies before they expire.
7 Secrets From Warren Buffett’s Employees (Fool)
"I would describe it as very strange and almost bizarre the way he manages, because he doesn't manage," Matthew Rose, executive chairman of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway said in a D Magazine article. "He takes companies that he likes, he spends a lot of time in terms of developing the goals of how management will be compensated and how the scorecard will look, and then he allows management to run the company."
