John Hjorth

Yes, net cash flows from operations is now about USD 2.5 B - per month. BRK could almost take out a CAT now - or easily a DEERE.

SnarkyPuppy, Howard Marks wrote a very good memo back in 2006 about measuring portfolio performance.

CanadianMunger, I totally concur on what longinvestor posted above. With regard to your question: , you have to read it into the context, written by Mr. Buffett above the actual bullet point in that part of the shareholder letter:

Added to MKL today. Still at about 15% cash.

Yes, this seems almost insurmountable. A short time ago I tried to get some kind of understanding of what's going on in the Italian banks. I ended up giving up trying to understand the situation. I mean: How do you value a bank based on its financials when you know that about 13 percent of the loan book is in default, and proper provisions for losses aren't made? [banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena]

100 Year Old Galapagos Giant Tortoise Diego Saves Species from Extinction ["singlehandedly"<-??] - - - o 0 o - - - Have a nice weekend to all my fellow board members!

Bought a bit more NVO today.

A bolt-on aquisition for CTB in my back yard . Edit: Article on Yahoo Finance about the aquisition .

Picasso tweeted about 18 hours ago: Next step for Picasso's son will be: "We know you can grab your own food with a fork or a spoon, because we have seen that you can do it - If you want something to eat, please grab your own food - your self - using the fork or the spoon." At some future point in time, Picasso's boy will be eager tying his own shoelaces, after having been taught doing that by his father or mother, most likely in an exited state of mind. Furthermore, most likely, a year after that, this tiny guy will jump in his shoes while on his way out, turn to his father or mother, putting one foot in front the other, turning towards the actual parent - nothing said - it means: "Please tie my shoelaces". - - - o 0 o - - - In a broader perspective, we are all here to counter the downhill mentioned by Picasso, to the extent we can. To me, it's all about personal development at that young age, as already pointed out in this topic. To me, most likely this guy won't be around in 10 years, but that does not imply, that he imploded within that time span, most likely he just moved on after winding up his fund - like Ted & Tod at BRK, pursuing new opportunities, he judged better, leaving his limited partners behind with a gain or a loss. His goal - right now - is to become a great Dad - what does that have do with maximizing his own and his limited partners return on invested capital?

Totally agree with intothebreach here. After reading the transcript, exactly this question was for me unanswered.

I was thinking the same for DVA. Seems like the script. Take a stake, watch how it does and buy whole. BNSF, PCP followed the script. To a certain extent, Duracell was also like that. " Buy shares as if you own the whole thing" . Then own the whole thing. longinvestor, To me, this looks like an educated guess. Let's see what the [near?] future brings.

I really liked the value investor test in the letter. It gave a good laugh. Thanks for posting, 50centdollars.

Bought more NVO today. [Danish share at Nasdaq OMX CPH]. It's now my third largest position, next to BRK and cash.

LR1400, Boilermaker75 and Jurgis, Enjoy your lives, according to your own personal choises.! Thanks.

Topics like this pops up from time to time on this board - in a bull market. Why do you not focus on putting your own money to work in the current market?

Kraven, 13th January 2015 on this board: I drink wine to my dinner every day. I insist on it. The wine depends on the dish [red wine, wine rosé, white wine]. My track record basically has not much to do with IRR, despite I'm measuring it. I look at the face of the Ruler / Lady of the House every day to measure my degree of success. And I talk a lot with her about investments. What matters is that I have actually made a material difference for three generations in our separate families going forward [read: inheritance taxes], and she understands that. So I get my glass(es) of wine every day.[/color]

Well, Santander didn't buy any of them, but it wasn't a bad time to be buying them. Below are the returns, not including dividends, since that post. Banco Santander Chile: +23.87% Banco Santander Brasil: +131% Banco Santander Mexico: +30.92% Despite this incredible performance from it's subsidiaries, SAN itself is down -17.53% over the same period currently sporting a market cap of $60B. This has significantly shifted the market implied values of operations in Europe (only accessible by buying a stake in the parent). If we look at it's ownership in its public subsidiaries and the Americas and their market caps, (BSBR - 88.3% OF $26B, BSMX - 75% of 12.59B, and BSAC - 67% of 10.3B, SC - 58.9% of 4B), we see that it's ownership in public subsidiaries is around $42.5B against it's current market cap of $60B. So what that is telling us is that the market implied value of the remainder of U.S. and European operations is only $17.5B - or roughly 4x it's earnings contribution (~4.5B - 1st half of 2016 annualized) while America's trades closer to 15x (~2.8B - 1st half annualized). I still think America's offers decent value with a long runway for growth, but methinks it's time to roll out of the subsidiaries and back into the parent to increase that European exposure. Prior to today, about 1/3 of my exposure to Santander was through BSBR and the other 2/3 via SAN as I anticipated higher returns from BSBR either through an EM recovery or through Santander repurchasing the entire entity. Now that it's rallied quite a bit, and the parent has languished, the repurchasing is less likely and the gains I've received are pretty favorable to roll back into an even larger position in SAN. Totally out of BSBR and back to 100% SAN. Very nice moves, TwoCitiesCapital.

Bought more BRK.B today. I have been buying this thing for about four years now, in drips, a lot during the downturn from the 150's down to 120-something in February this year, and some on the way up from there. For now, this will be enough.

It's interesting topics that you bring up here, Jurgis. I suggest you just do the respective topic splits by starting new topics.

KinAlberta, We discussed on the 6th of August in this topic.

Saturday I spent some hours trying to find out, if SAN had some exposure against Italian banks and/or Italy in general, basicly to no avail, because the needed specifications and notes in the financial statements about the off balance sheet items were not there specified by country. One thing that caught my attention during that work was that SAN has a separate section desribing reputational risk. To me, Mr. Donegan is adding reputational risk to the whole BRK system, if things mentioned in the Bloomberg article are true. If things mentioned in the Bloomberg article are true, and his is not changing behavior going forward after PCP becoming a part of BRK, and I just don't like it. A couple of questions here to my fellow board members participating in this topic: 1. What is the overall perception of the credibility of Blomberg as a source? - I was [also] surprised [but not shocked] by Bloomberg taking on hard BRK - so hard - with this article. 2. What do you think might be the reaction [group internally] by Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger, ref. Mr. Buffetts speaking in interviews and shareholder letters about "the middle of the road"? [Mr. Donegan is not just "some" BRK sub employeé, he is the CEO of a fairly big - and thereby important BRK sub.] My basis for this line of thinking is my local conditions. I live in a zero tolerance society with regard to violence and threats. One of the situations described in the article is embraced in the Danish civil criminal code, and the penalty bracket goes from a fine to 2 years in jail [threat of serious physical violence against another person - most likely doing this sort of thing in front of wittnesses for the second time will result in an so called "insta-verdict", meaning going directly from the court room to the box to get sunshine in stribes, without getting the opportunity to settle your stuff and kissing your partner/spouse/kids goodbye for so or so long time]. Third question about the situation that I'm focusing on in the Bloomberg article: 3. What does US State or Federal civil criminal code say about punishment for threat of serious physical violence? Any input from fellow board members on those three questions would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

How many posters does it take to change a light bulb in cyberspace? 1 to successfully change the light bulb and to post to the message board that the light bulb has been changed. 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently or more efficiently. 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs. 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs. 53 to flame the spell checkers. 156 to write to the board administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this message board. 41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames. 109 to post that this board is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a more appropriate location. 203 to demand that posts about changing light bulbs be stopped or deleted! "We are here to talk about widgets!" 111 to defend the posting to this board, saying that, "We all use light bulbs & therefore the posts ARE relevant to this board." 306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brands of light bulbs work best for these technique, and what brands are faulty. 102 to flame those whose suggestions/techniques differ from their own. 204 to flame the flamers claiming that "We are all entitled to our own opinions!" 112 to post that "some posters seem to be AGAINST certain brands of light bulbs, no matter how they work in different situations or in different lamps. "Sometimes, it's the lamp's fault, not the bulb, so don't always blame the bulb." 193 to post that they are "offended by posters who seem to gleefully slam others favorite brands of light bulbs." 42 to post that "It isn't nice to say mean things about certain brand names. After all, CEOs of big manufacturing companies are people too & have feelings." 99 to post urgent messages begging everyone to calm down and be peaceful & respectful. 112 to post in the discussion that the discussion is stupid. 83 to post that posters enjoying the discussion should ignore confrontational posters & those who are not interested in light bulbs can post somewhere else. 27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs. 14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and to post corrected URLs. 3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this discussion. 33 to review all posts to date, then quote them, including all headers & footers. 12 to post to the board that they are quitting because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy. 19 to complain that their posts disappeared. 4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ. 1 to propose new lite.bulb message board for those who want to continue the light bulb discussion. 47 to say that this is just what this board was meant for, leave the discussion here. 8 to post their opinions on the controversy long after most of the light bulb fuss has died down. 10 to post that the discussion is none of their business because they came too late to add anything relevant. 4 to post that they are new and would like some background info on the light bulb brouhaha. 409 to post that they don't really want to know. It's all too silly to go into, but welcome to the board! 143 votes for a lite.bulb message board. 38 votes proclaiming the advantages in using vintage light bulbs. 409 to protest that there is "NO NEED to start up the discussion AGAIN!! PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS!" 1 to challenge all those posters who claim to want to end it once and for all to "IGNORE any future posts on this topic. Then, those disgruntled troublemakers who can't just LET THIS GO, will eventually give up." 1048 post promises to drop the light bulb debate.

longinvestor, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrulcIBe3Z0 , at about the 04:12:00 mark and then some minutes going forward, about the buyback scheme at place right now. The first part of this is right, including the last part of the sentence in the article is not right [in the meaning "not said"/"misleading"/"lack of precision in written reporting by a journalist"], though Mr. Buffet states that he follows this relationship between market price of the stock and book value closely. There are a lot of shades in the statement from Mr. Buffett made on this question at the AGM that are worth noting. To me the built in qualifications in the statements af the AGM is about that what potential investment opportunities Mr. Buffett has on his desk at that particular moment when the market price is about 1.2 X BV, as an alternative investment opportunity to share buybacks, and that we will never know. Personally, after listening carefully to the above mentioned slip of the video, I - sucjectively - consider the BRK buy back scheme - at least a bit - more "firm" than "soft" without here trying to quantify it in one way or another. And I like that, going forward with this investment. longinvestor, thank you for bringing my personal attention to this BRK issue/topic.

Looking at the investments, Deere & Davita look possibilities. Davita would let Ted W bring one home. To me, this sounds like an educated guess. Let's see what the future brings. Personally, I like sitting here with the ears laid back and the arms crossed on the chest, just waiting to get surprised what will be the next move, even making money on this when I'm at sleep - in the long run.

With a market cap north of USD 200 B right now, ex. acquisition premium, that would require quite some leverage.