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John Hjorth

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Posts posted by John Hjorth

  1. Here is the info on it. 1.1B purchase in the UK for vending machine related biz http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-16/imi-sells-dispenser-arm-to-berkshire-hathaway-for-1-1-billion.html

    I checked the Marmon website for information about the aquisition, and found basically the same information. [ link ]. Marmon was privately held and run out of Chicago before BRK's acquisition, so there are no BRK filings about it. So basically a European bolt on aquisition on a US BRK sub, still not fully owned by BRK. So I guess the aquisition has been agreed with the Pritzker Family Trusts.
  2. 1. Swapping the shares for cash while keeping voting rights for said shares. Presumably to free up some cash in european accounts for something else?

    I'm trying to stay tuned about what BRK and BRK subs are doing on this side of the Pond. I haven't seen anything material for long not already brought up and discussed on this board.

     

    Munich Re position seems unchanged, there are no notifications of change of BRK position on Munich Re website.

  3. I think a key in Europe is how they handle the solvency issues they have in Southern Europe (either through a devaluation via a S-Euro or restructure).

     

    If only all the problems of Europe were contained within the boundaries of the southern real!  :-[

    I think Europe has much much bigger problems than that Packer.

    +1 [with all respect for the quality of the posts from Packer on this board on other matters, the posts are by me much appreciated].

  4. I wrote him a letter suggesting he buy Parker Hannifin. I wonder if he will listen to me.

     

     

    It could well be NOV. More of a whale than an elephant though.

    Have you read the acquisition criteria section in the annual shareholder letters?

  5. Most likely that figure on daily basis is under influence of the number of robots [bots, crawlers, spiders] visiting the board, which can swing wildly. [sanjeev might however have shut the bots out]. Bots can be good or bad. We as Internet users need the good bots, because they constantly read and map the ever expanding frontier of the Internet, thereby making the internet searchable.

     

    I.e. about the GoogleBot here:

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlebot

    https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182072?hl=en

     

    Bad bots can have several questionable purposes, among them harvesting email adresses for spam purposes. On this board [a SMF board], the bots aren't visible. I don't know if Sanjeev can make them visible. On certain other types of board software the administrator can make bots visible, i.e. please take a look at the homeplace of an other board software called phpBB [ https://www.phpbb.com/community/ ], where you can actually see the names of the bots visiting that board recently.

  6. The one thing I don't understand about Buffett is why he doesn't buy things he obviously thinks are cheap when he has so much cash.  He mentioned that he thought JPM was cheap and he could probably buy more railroads.  I don't think this pick will be either of those, but we'll see what it is.

     

    Warren Buffett has stated in front of camera [it's on YouTube somewhere], that he considers WFC a better bank than JPM. He has also stated, that banks may not become a too big fraction the total BRK portfolio. The new - so far - unkown "Position X" is in the "Commercial, industrial and others" category, ref. the BRK 2013 Second Quarter Report.

  7. Two separate thoughts:

     

    1) Ross, thank you for taking this on. I really like the concept and will be very interested to see the results. There have been numerous suggestions from other board members on how to take this forward; I would only add that since this is your “baby”, feel free to do what you want.

     

    2) <Omitted, here, John>

     

    Looking forward to watching this for the months/years to come. Thanks again, Ross.

     

    -Crip

    +1! This intiative by Ross is much appreciated! The project has to start at some level/platform. Rome wasn't built in one day. Please also take into consideration, that running this project for Ross takes time away from managing own positions.

  8. WTF? Huffington Post is reporting that BRK trimmed WFC and KO?

     

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/warren-buffett-coca-cola_n_3760424.html

     

    Yet this reports an increase of %1 in WFC

     

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/15/us-berkshire-buffett-idUSBRE97E0FS20130815

     

    Yeah, there are a few wrong reports out; who checks these things!

     

    Yeah clearly whoever writes these articles can't read a 13-f.

    Or perhaps the water coolers and/or coffee machines at Huffington Post are contaminated and need a rinse, thereby making the staff intoxicated.

     

    It's straight out ridiculous, that Reuters doesn't check things out.

     

    thefatbaboon, could you elaborate a bit on your bullet #2 [-while almost all other posts on the board today are about SHLD! - only a few people are speculating about this BRK 13-F omission, based on posts!]

  9. Any guesses on what stocks they've added? Wells Fargo is a no-brainer. But is all the $4b in the commercial and industrial category really Todd and Ted? What are the most likely candidates from the portfolio. DTV? IBM? Tesco? Or perhaps my favorite, Posco. None of those stocks (bar DTV) have had a good 2013 so they all make sense to me.

    Purchases of equity securities end of June 2013 : $6.052M [Gross][excluding Heinz]

    Purchases of equity securities end of March 2013: $1.401M [Gross] =>

    Purchases of equity securities second quarter 2013: $4.641M [Gross][excluding Heinz]

     

    Cost basis of equity securities commercial, industrial and others end of June 2013: $28.272M [excluding Heinz]

    Cost basis of equity securities commercial, industrial and others end of March 2013: $24.341 =>

    Increase in cost basis of equity securities commercial, industrial and others second quarter 2013: $3.931M [excluding Heinz]

     

    The Q2 13F-HR will be out in a few days, and it will for sure be interesting reading, and might or might not reveal the answer to what the three capital allocators have been up to!

  10. Off topic:

    Ladies and Gentlemen [if there are any ladies posting in this topic within the last posts?],

     

    The discussion contained in the last posts in this topic by writser, Palantir, ERICOPOLY, Heilko & Birdman23i is in my opinion certainly worth a separate topic in the General Discussion Forum of its own! I hereby suggest one of you to pick this discussion up buy starting a separate topic in the General Discussion Forum. Personally, I'm sure it will be reading of interest to many board members!

     

    -Thanks in advance, because I hope you all pick this suggestion up!

     

    [i have also been buying books about roses lately, btw...]

     

    -And now back to topic again-again!

  11. Averaging down in OAO Gazprom ADR [OGZPY] for the last 5 weeks.

     

    Can you tell us how you know the reserves are real?

    No. From my point of view I haven't paid anything for my fraction of the value of the reserves because the discount on the OGZPY ADRs compared to BV/ADR exeeds my fraction of the BV of aquired/paid reserves [bV of Production Licenses/ADR].

  12. Innovation is the development of new values through solutions that meet new requirements, inarticulate needs, or old customer and market needs in value adding new ways.

     

    This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society.

     

    Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.

     

    Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different rather than doing the same thing better.

     

    As per this definition, there has been a lot of innovation within the last 30 years. Many good examples are already posted above.

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