John Hjorth
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Posts posted by John Hjorth
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I'm in Spring, Texas (well north of downtown Houston) and we are getting absolutely hammered. We've seen 12 inches of rain in the last 24 hours and other parts of the city have seen significantly more. Fortunately the house and the neighborhood haven't flooded (yet). We're looking at probably two more days, or even more, of heavy rain similar to what has already come down. Every river, stream, bayou, and gully is past flood stage and many will exceed their worst-case historical high.
The government is overwhelmed, lacks sufficient resources, and is asking for private citizens to rescue their neighbors if they have any boats or trucks capable of driving through high water. A hospital has already flooded, lost power, and is undergoing evacuation. We didn't even get a direct hit from the hurricane. I can't imagine what is happening to the people along the coast who were directly hit.
That reads friggin' crazy, Dave,
All the best to your family and you. All the best to all of you.
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Thanks for the update, Joel,
And here I sit tinkering with calculations of the new Danish [to come] "Stock Savings Account" - under clear blue sky, here in Denmark.
There are more important things than money, if you are hit. I hope all fellow board members are doing good. Take care, all.
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I hope that you'll open a separate topic in the investment ideas forum for MX, Picasso. The numbers for MX looks so weird to me, that it caught my interest. And yes, I'm bored.
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I have been reading about this hurricane in the news today. It reads really bad, with lots of rain to come. I hope all is well for fellow board members located in Texas.
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I bought some too, large part due to this thread. So I appreciate what everyone shares. And so far it's been fairly civil.
It's a it more complicated than that. Thank you.
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Prem being compared to Madoff...
I am sure to get some more cheap shares...and I will end my time here on that.
Good luck all.
Dazel
Thank you for your latest post in this topic, Dazel [not the one quoted here],
I sincerely hope that you will stay around active here on CoBF. Message boards evolve over time. For my part, your posts about Fairfax are very, very much appreciated.
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Thanks, globalfinancepartners,
I'll try to take a look at the WFC positions, too - in the coming days.
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Added a bit more to SCHO.CPH during the last days, while the stock has been in a downward trend short term, based on management selling.
Added to SHB B.STO [svenska Handelsbanken AB, ser. B], too.
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Naturally I don't question information from Mr. Hamburg - I hold him bery high, and admire his work for Berkshire, he is on the professional level in his very own league, in my opinion -, but if you take a look at the 13/Fs, and look specifically on the KO positions in the Berkshire group year end 2016 and try to reconcile the number of KO shares in the Berkshire 2016 Annual Report with the year end 2016 13/F, why is Berkshire then reporting in the Annual Report possesion of 400 M KO Shares, and not [400 M - 800 K] KO shares?
[800 K shares are reported as belonging to Mr. Buffett, while you have to include that position, to get to 400 M KO shares in total in the 13/F.]
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On a tentative basis, how should we look at this situation?:
Possible outcomes:
1. Sempra Energy gets all needed regulatory approvals etc., Sempra is the new owner of Oncor [as stated in the bid from Sempra, in all details]
2. Sempra Energy does get turned down by regulators etc., for whatever reason on their bid, meaning: The whole process is starting all over again, again meaning:
2a. Berkshire puts in a new, adjusted bid [to me, adjusted for the break up fee already achieved so far?]
2b. Elliott steps in again with something [?]
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Marathon aquisition.
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It's an increadible difficult area to do aqusitions Berkshire style, because of all the involved parties. Think Constellation Energy break up in 2008, too. So, this is not the first time a Berkshire deal has gone south in this industry - ... if it ends up going south.
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BHE Announcement August 21: Berkshire Hataway Energy Agreement to Acquire Oncor Terminated.
I'm not sure how to understand this.
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Edit: My immediate interpretation : Berkshire & BHE walked away, closing the door, as stated earlier it would do.
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Added a bit again today to SCHO.CPH, but not much.
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Sempra Energy Aquisition of Oncor Announcement.
Please note - as I understand things - the deal structure appears to be different than the Berkshire bid, and there is no prior consent or approval from regulators etc - at least it appears so.
Somehow, we still need to know what happened about the court ruling today.
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Extract from Aquisition criteria, Berkshire Annual Report 1995:
A line from a country song expresses our feeling about new ventures, turnarounds, or auction-like sales: "When the phone don't ring, you'll know it's me."Extract from Aquisition criteria, Berkshire Annual Report 2016:
A line from a country song expresses our feeling about new ventures, turnarounds, or auction-like sales: "When the phone don't ring, you'll know it's me." -
Berkshire has laid out their case on what this means for the future of Oncor. There's nothing like that from anyone else in the sense of what's good for Texas over the long term. They will move on, in actuality, they are telling the vultures that they're not interested in talking to them at all. Berkshire Hathaway energy is curating this rate payer friendliness across the US and that's driving some financial folks crazy. It comes down to long term versus short term investing horizon. We will hear some commentary on this from Omaha in the coming years. I actually spent hours talking to the BHE folks at their booth at the AGM. The mantra I heard was "It's all for the rate payers". The game they are playing has few rivals. Berkshire is paving the way to deploy 100's of billions. There will be more Oncors in the future.
Thank you for sharing this, longinvestor.
In the United States a company can stay under creditor protection for a very long time in certain cases. W.R. Grace, a company that made Ted Weschler very wealthy, was in bankruptcy for something like 12 years. That said - it costs a lot in professional fees and other expenses and these failed deals have breakup fees (like quarter billion dollar break fees) - and all the money spent on that type of stuff reduces the amount available for creditors. And since Oncor is completely "ring-fenced," it's not like time is on creditors side with a profitable business paying dividends up to the bankrupt parent. Oncor can go up in value over time, which might help get a higher price - but it won't send cash up to the EFH entities until it is sold.
Ultimately, Berkshire Energy is betting that their deal is the only deal that gets by regulators and Elliott is betting that they can bluff BRK into raising. Elliott is extremely unlikely to come up with a deal that wins over regulators - but we will see...
+1 ..It's a bluff to try and squeeze Berkshire to pony up a bit more. Given that this has been playing out for four years already, time is not on Elliott's side. Oncor has already come out saying that should this deal fall through, any future offers from Berkshire would likely be for less than this time.
Who knows, Buffett may relent and pony up a nickel more as an act of good faith, and can say "They wrung out the last nickel from us" and Elliott goes away happy(not).
I don't think that BRK ponies up anything more. This is not just about value it's about setting precedent. BRK would rather walk away than pay more because if they pay more they'll have a bunch of Elliott types trying to vulch on all they're future deals.
The nickel thing was for Mid-American and that was a transformative acquisition for BRK and I bet they really wanted it. Oncor is no such thing.... so not even a nickel.
After thinking about this carefully, in perspective of Berkshire's future deals and the way Berkshire in general is doing its deals, I agree with it in full, and I also consider it very important.
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So, an Oncor deal monday, or no Oncor deal at all.
Thank you all.
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There will be a court ruling on the Berkshire offer on coming monday, right? I have somehow more or less lost track of the important dates in this potential deal, tried to find it by going back in this topic.
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Added a bit to SCHO.CPH today, but not much.
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Thanks for that elaboration, Richard,
In that light, sleepydragon's post makes sense to slow me, also.
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I'm not sure I understand your post here, sleepydragon,
What kind of conflict of interest are your referring to here? If I remember correctly [i may not], Mr. Buffett gave an interview at an Allen session/gathering, where he talked about that he considered WFC a better bank than JPM, but he had bought 1 million shares in JPM personally. [Needless to say, that I have since been puzzled about that statement.] I don't have the actual link.
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Please consider this a topic split from the Google topic in the investment ideas forum, ref. request from KJP.
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The Economist: The email Larry Page should have written to James Damore.
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Thanks, globalfinancepartners & longinvestor,
- I would like to see that USD 100 B in cash and T-bills [-and counting!] reduced "just a bit" and converted to earnings! -Chess it is.
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I see some moves by Elliott described and covered in the "General news" topic by provided links, and some "counter" messages from Berkshire. Thank you to fellow board members for that.
Yes, we are in the final stages of a game of Chess here, involving billions of USD.
As I understand things, Future Energy Holdings has been in bankruptcy for about four years. Here I understand "bankruptcy" as "being under creditor protection". [i hope I have understood the phrase "bankruptcy" correctly here.]
My question here is: How long can this go on? Here, where I live [Denmark], a company cannot exist for such a long period without a solution to its debt/liquidity problems without being "declared dead", meaning going into forced liquidation, managed by a liquidator, who has power to wind up the whole Holly-go-Molly, thereby enforcing losses on creditors.
Offbeat "value" idea, boxing?
in General Discussion
Posted
writser,
-To me, you really need to do some work on your board appearance.
We don't buy it any longer, you calling your self "I'm a poor guy, basically doing nothing". You seem to me to be everywhere where there is rock'n roll and blood in the street, and always walking away with a nice gain in a very short time.
Now, that boxing bet tops it all. [How is that taxed at your place, by the way?] - Good that you had fun, too! [ : - ) ]