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It's on page 13 of the most recent 10K for Special Diversified - approximately 11 million http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/911649/000118811213001093/t76199_10k.htm

It's a fine thesis to use deep in the money LEAP calls to add some leverage to a safe equity position. Just a heads up to others that might consider this as a swap for Berkshire shares they already own in an IRA - I attempted to swap BRK.B shares for calls in a "margin-type" interactive brokers IRA a couple years ago. The margin-type IRA at IB allows to you immediately use the proceeds of a sale, rather than waiting the 3 days for settlement like a regular IRA. The way this works without violating the IRA rules is that the second trade settles after the first trade, so no temporary loan is ever present. Stock options settle the next business day, so you have to wait 2 days to do the swap - risking a price change in the underlying. I remember sweating it out for two days hoping the price didn't rise. If it falls, you benefit of course...

I think it's mainly a non-issue because it will be near impossible for any entity to get a controlling position in BRK in the future. The A-shares are the way to do it, but they have very low volume that will only shrink as they can only be converted in one direction. As BRK's market cap continues to grow, an entity seeking control would need $70 billion plus worth of illiquid A-shares to take control the "cheap way". The board owns 33,000 A-shares outside of Buffett (+undisclosed Munger children). BRK may also repurchase A-shares in blocks further reducing outstanding shares and potential volumes. Another part-stock deal like BNI would further increase the number of B-shares, etc etc… Berkshire will be a Trillion dollar market cap company at some point in the not too distant future. Difficult to take over, even with a potent share class. And with a strong board led by lead director Bill Gates who will still control one hell of a lot of votes... You don't see Icahn getting a seat on the Apple board. Hell, Sardar can't even get on the CBRL board with 20%.

At least for the B-shares, ycharts' numbers appear to be incorrect. Backing out the implied book value from their number shows them using a book value of $219.385 billion for BRK, when the actual Q3 book value is $208.382 Billion Not sure what their error is, maybe share count like most finance websites. -- I checked their A-share number and it's much closer to reality (off by $1B). The fact that the two were different is a tip off, although the B shares closed at a 1% discount to the A shares on Monday. Last reported book value per share is $84.509 on the B-shares, for a buyback number of $101.41 on the B's and a P/B of 1.29x

I think the end of year buyback threshold will end up somewhere between 106-107 on the B shares. Buffett will buy back the stock every day it is below 1.2x book, but not a single share above that. You can't really fault him - he was active buying the stock in the open market towards the end of December 2012 on the few days it traded below 1.2x book (in addition to the large reported block trade that prompted the change from 1.1x to 1.2x). It hasn't traded below 1.2x a reported book value a single time since then. The jury is still out on whether he will use a more real-time book value, but I wouldn't be surprised if he only uses the last-reported publicly available book value per share to instruct the broker.

If it was a triple net lease the tax billing address could have been in Hoffman Estates and the Owner elsewhere, like Fort Dodge for instance. this might be them: http://sos.iowa.gov/search/business/(S(2as2buey3xfqjouzxhx11zm4))/summary.aspx?c=jkiNixQz_1oyzk97yeULyPJNWeF5ep3twnfcA5SRJ1w1

I do this type of client portfolio all the time. Individual corporate bonds can be a real help - The SHLD bond maturing in 2018 that Berkowitz owns is secured by inventory and yields around 9.8% right now. We own a bunch of Radiation Therapy bonds maturing in 2017 that were purchased with yields of 17-19%, currently yielding around 12%. I would probably buy ATAX on this morning's drop for a client like that. We've owned EMES in these types of accounts, still yields 8.7% but used to be a much better value. Lots of KMR ~7.4% yield at current price. KMI like you said is also a good initial yield and dividend grower. BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Lukoil for the high yielding oil portion. TWO harbors below book value for a small portion, maybe a small amount of PSEC. The key is to be very diversified and add opportunistically to the most attractive income securities as they become available. I would put JPM in an income account at todays price as well. In Canada, small positions in the energy income plays and Glacier media, just not too much in any one name. For emerging markets there are many dividend weighted WisdomTree ETFs - DEM is a high yielder with the underlying index yielding something like 5%. There are also some high quality pref. shares worth looking at. DSL pays monthly and might be worth a look on a drop - keep an eye on the NAV discount and try to add on extremes.

I assume you are talking about a macbook pro not a mac pro desktop, right? If its a newer Macbook pro I recommend using parallels to run Windows and the windows version of Microsoft Office. You should install windows using the Boot Camp method and then set parallels to use the Boot Camp partition so that you can start your computer up as a windows only machine or access the same install of windows through a virtualization window from Mac OS. Best of all worlds. You can have 100% Windows, Mac with Windows in a box, or 100% Mac anytime you wish.

Good interview - thanks for posting!

This index of Indian small caps does not appear overvalued at less than book value and around 10x earnings according to their end of year fact sheet. This market has already had a decline.. The ETF is by VanEck and is ticker SCIF http://www.vaneck.com/funds/scif.aspx http://www.vaneck.com/library/market-vectors-etfs/scif-fact-sheet-pdf

according to 'the warren buffett way' on google books - In the late 1960s Blue Chip stamps had a float of more than $60 million in unredeemed stamps. Berkshire began buying Blue Chip stock in the late 60s. Buffett also owned Blue Chip shares personally and inside a bunch of other entities (Charlie owned it as well). They ultimately bought the rest of Blue Chip in 1983. Blue Chip purchased See's in 1972. edit: 'Damn Right' also has a good passage on Blue Chip - float went up to $100 million according to this: http://tinyurl.com/mbtxfkb

KMR is pretty tax efficient.

I've been looking at Tower as well today, since I received a note from Insurance Insider about the large discount today. I guess with so many material adverse changes already under Tower's belt, there are some that don't believe there won't be at least one more material 'oops'… Big spread if it goes through at $3 cash by 'summer' though… (8-k on merger) http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1289592/000119312514003005/d653094d8k.htm http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1289592/000119312514003005/0001193125-14-003005-index.htm

Remember that the $77 Billion in float is not all from super-cat policies, and the fairly small portion that is is not concentrated in any one region. Most of the float is long-term in nature, such as workers comp, asbestos, life, etc… It is very stable year to year. It is not possible for the float to come due all at once. It is a very diversified, long-lived and uniquely attractive pool of float.

The float wouldn't be wiped out by a large super cat. BRK's policies can be very large, but all of them are capped. BRK holds tens of billions of dollars in cash and much more in liquid securities to pay any large claims event easily. But because of the way BRK is set up, BRK would have a near break-even year if hit by a super-cat that would wipe out a big portion of the catastrophe insurance industry. This becomes safer every year, as it is virtually impossible to grow the insurance business inside BRK as fast as the rest of BRK - making Insurance a smaller and smaller part of BRK over time.

I second the above suggestion by valueInv - the application that checks system resource usage is "Activity Monitor" - you will likely find that Flash is the culprit. Running the newest version of Safari (in Mavericks) and not other browser brands will help performance on a mac with lots of tabs open. For some reason, Adobe Flash has never worked well on Macs, hence Apple's all out war on Flash. I don't use the Mac version of MS Office, so I have no idea if that is part of the problem.

I use the 13" macbook air and it is a great computer. You can get 500gb of flash storage on the current models, which are very good with the i7. They still haven't upgraded the macbook air display to 'retina' quality, no that would be the only thing to wait for. I use a laptop a lot - whether I'm traveling or not. I have never liked using my laptop as my desktop and I always use a dedicated desktop, currently a Mac Pro. I use two large monitors with the left own always being full screen windows XP (through full screen parallels) and the right one regular mac osx. I use the mac side for everything but Microsoft Office, Quickbooks and eSignal. I've used this type of setup since the first intel macs came out and I could never go back to anything different. 27" of windows on the left, 27" of OSX on the right. Full access to all your files on both sides since its the same computer... I also have a full size iPad that is loaded with SEC filings and ARs as PDFs in an app called goodreader. That keeps you from getting bored on planes or in the bathroom, etc... Everything can easily be backed up to drives attached to the wireless router and a few thumb drives for particularly important files.

WEB = Warren E. Buffett

I have a friend that owns businesses like these and he had this to say, for what it's worth - "Interesting - and sounds like he's exiting the affiliate space like just about everyone else. Google's killed traditional online marketing with their updates and nobody has the stomach to keep relying on them for traffic..especially since they're becoming the affiliate themselves. That being said, I'd totally buy it for $100k. He hasn't done shit for his SEO since 2010, and that's a big deal. You could also easily outsource the telephone calls so you're running 12 hours a day at least, not 4 hours a day on MST - I bet there's a significant amount of sales drop off because of that, not to mention waiting for emails and voice mails to come in. Just pay $1500 and get live chat 24/7 at least. Lots of easy changes to make that would up the traffic and conversions."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101193820

The above post is kind of offensive. It shouldn't make a difference that she is female. Same advice applies to anyone in that situation. Increase your income by either developing a side business or switching to a higher paying career, or, preferably - both. Pay off the debt at quickly as you are able. Stop worrying about a debt repayment that is based on income and will eventually be charged off if your income doesn't increase. Just earn more income. If you can't do it as a lawyer in the middle of nowhere, do it somewhere else or do something else. If you make earning a higher income a priority you will earn a higher income. $25k is poverty. People with no degrees can make much more than that right out of high school.

Congratulations ragnarisapirate! - appointed to the board of directors of Sitestar - SYTE --> http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1096934/000072174813000727/site8kappt.htm

Regarding the large surplus at Berkshire - it is largely because many subsidiaries are owned inside the insurance companies - especially within National Indemnity. 100% of the stock of BNSF, for example, valued at BRK's cost of $34 Billion - is owned by National Indemnity and counts towards the statutory surplus. Also, National Indemnity owns 100% of the shares of GEICO. Then in addition there are the securities, of course. GEICO, in turn, owns 100% of the shares of Clayton, McLane, TTI, as well the marketable securities. I'll attach an NAIC filing if you really want to geek out. But unfortunately, the mystery stock Buffett has been accumulating and receiving confidential status on through the SEC is hidden like always inside the "Harney Investment Trust" - Buffett's go-to vehicle for keeping stock trading hidden from regulatory filings. (Harney Street is in Omaha) 2633682.pdf

There are 31 investors

I know a group of old guys who did a similar thing with the creation of a man-made lake in Virginia - Smith Mountain Lake. Back in the early 60's, right before a couple of Dams were going to be constructed, they studied the plans and bought a large amount of property at the proper elevations. They employed surveyors to make sure they would end up with lake front blocks. They sold off lots over the years for large profits as well as gaining several "free" lake-front family compounds. They didn't have a very large delay though. The Quarry idea seems like holding costs could really hurt the attractiveness - especially if it remains an industrial area!