gfp

Berkshire going about their regular business - with a Yen note offering, size unknown - probably small, routine refinancing https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312520084148/d861445d424b5.htm

Robin Raina over at Ebix has been buying shares and issuing press releases noting they are not aware of anything specific going wrong with their company (other than market related COVID fears). I traded it a bit today, apparently selling out way too early - as it is currently up 66% on the day. Just remarkable volatility lately. I bought at 9.15 and 9.19 this morning. Sold out before this, but currently sitting at 14.50. Bonkers

Yeah he really only addressed the issue with buying Delta and Delta seems like his favorite. Nothing to stop him from buying Southwest if he wanted it and they agreed. He would then likely sell all the other positions similar to how the train deal went down.

I believe it to be true. It was a Berkshire Hathaway Energy deal. "The investment giant was going to provide C$4 billion ($3 billion) for GNL Quebec’s proposed liquefied natural gas plant 290 miles northeast of Montreal, according to Michel Potvin, a city councilor who heads the promotion agency in Saguenay, where the project is based." Bloomberg journalists are usually pretty good at confirming a story with at least one source with direct knowledge of their subject - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-05/buffett-drops-3-billion-lng-investment-in-quebec-reports-say The "why" is probably guessing. And of course BHE could come back to the table at any point.

Warren is probably aware of how many Annual Reports the company prints each year. There would be much higher numbers of "look through" shareholders through funds but I would imagine Berkshire and the transfer agent have a good handle on the number of direct individual holders, including the large number held in street name. The BNSF deal and associated 50-1 share split probably added a huge number of individual holders.

1 Billion Euro 0% notes - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312520062545/d876702dfwp.htm $500 million 1.85% notes - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312520062590/d876771dfwp.htm

Delta has a presentation out today fwiw - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/27904/000119312520061029/d887033dfwp.htm

An unusual denial by Berkshire - they must really not want people thinking they are blessing this investment - https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/mar0420.pdf In other news, the annual meeting will go ahead as scheduled - possibly with curtailed events. Lets keep the old folks away from the germs though please... And - Berkshire is about to sell bonds in Dollars and Euros again. Preliminary prospectus-es (prospecti?) filed. Could just be refinance of maturing debt but will be interesting to watch size.

I also prefer Rum and have been a loyal Fleur De Cana (nica) drinker for many years. I usually drink the 7, 12 or 18 year bottles. As you probably know, 23 year old rum is not actually 23 years old, but blended from rums of different ages. Its like the adjusted EBIDTA of the spirits industry. Zacapa Centenario is 6-23 years old, but even that is probably a fishy statistic.

I thought it was interesting when he was talking about apple - a $75-80 Billion position for Berkshire - that he characterized it as their 3rd biggest commitment after Insurance and the Railroad. Which indicates roughly how he values those two businesses within Berkshire.

Working properly again for me

Yes - several on twitter as well. Zero Balance for all!

When shares vest as part of a compensation plan it is common for the company to keep some of the shares to help satisfy the employee's tax liability because it looks a lot better than that insider employee being forced to sell stock in the open market to satisfy the income tax on their share based compensation. Did that make sense?

Wells is the transfer agent for Berkshire's common stock. Wells also handles a lot of the cash management type stuff for billions of dollars worth of cash and cash equivalents. Wells is an underwriter (part of a group) on most Berkshire and Berkshire subsidiary bond offerings. https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2001ar/commonstock.html

This finally happened - https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffett-finally-sits-down-for-4-6-million-charity-meal-11581014466?mod=hp_featst_pos2

Just curious - when you say covered put are you short those stocks or are you just planning to keep the cash available through expiry?

I don't blame warren for preferring $576 million of long term financing at 9%. Lee was already running the papers

Not particularly important - but Pilot Flying J is adopting a new corporate identity and continues to grow beyond truck stops: https://www.cspdailynews.com/company-news/pilot-flying-j-changing-its-name

very entertaining - thanks! (warren didn't say much and this wasn't really his top subject matter - but he was newly a billionaire and already the wealthiest person in that room)

Interesting. Is this an apartment / condominium type situation? Or a home with windows already closed? Do you know your neighbor? Sometimes a chat can work wonders

This is probably bad advice, but could help Berkshire if any of these families actually takes it https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-14/rich-families-urged-to-sell-their-businesses-before-party-ends?srnd=premium

returning to the topic of sub-trillion-dollar acquisition speculation - Berkshire and/or Berkshire with 3G would be realistic buyers of Thyssenkrupp's Elevator business [ 8 Billion Euros in revenue, 50,000 employees, speculated $20B USD market cap ]. But, of course, the usual consortiums of private equity folks will likely be willing to bid higher. https://www.ft.com/content/490b7c12-1846-11ea-9ee4-11f260415385

I've been saying he could pull off a deal for ExxonMobil by the time the deal would close. I think that's a realistic 'stretch' goal. Boeing is possible but unlikely at current valuation (but I would be happy to be proven wrong next month..)

The poor compliance guy I spoke to yesterday (David) sounded like he had been being screamed at by customers all day. He kept expecting me to blow up on him or something. I felt bad for the guy.. He couldn't even tell me where the cut-off of ownership was - all he would say is "something like 3/4 to 1% of shares outstanding." The main issue I'm dealing with I'm at 3% of shares outstanding and that's not close where I can sell a few over two weeks time and have them leave me alone. We'll see how this policy evolves after they've had to do this dance every two weeks in perpetuity for a while. Its not like I'm magically going to transform into an affiliated person next month.

Just a heads up for folks on the forum that use Interactive Brokers for some of their business - they have a new policy where they will lock you out from trading any security you own more than 1% of the outstanding shares of. When you tell them you are not an affiliate of the issuer, a compliance analyst at IB will perform due diligence to verify you are not an affiliated person. Then they will unlock your accounts to trade that security for a period of 2 weeks. Then you have to do it all over again. Every two weeks - unless you transfer the shares out to another broker. Some companies are quite small and 1% of the shares is nothing. These also tend to be the least liquid securities to trade. The kind of securities you need to be unlocked for trading at all times in order to take advantage of momentary liquidity and price changes