gfp

It will be interesting to see how the use of public infrastructure / implied government subsidy of the trucking industry shakes out vs. the owned and privately built and maintained rail infrastructure. Obviously there are road use and diesel taxes on trucking currently, but it is nowhere near the level it will likely be in the future when states and governments are even more indebted and rail lobbyists are pointing to these driverless convoys clogging up the public roadways, blocking on-ramps for a thousand feet at a time, etc... That said, I certainly feel better about owning the railroad out in the big wide open west, vs an eastern-only railroad. As mentioned, long distances help and there are some pretty long distances to travel from western ports, mines, etc... Rail will never have a place delivering your Wayfair furniture to your town, but it will likely be delivering the container of Wayfair furniture from the port of long beach to the distribution centers for a long time.

So, to my ears it sounded like Warren alluded to the likely possibility of another warrant / preferred deal being announced in the not so distant future. Maybe not a 10% one, but something above market for Berkshire. He mentioned, I believe, not a huge one. The likely source seems to be QSR, but it could be anyone I guess. He's offered similar stuff to JAB in the past, although they didn't end up getting their deal (Avon I think it was). Any guesses? I'll throw Domino's pizza out there since there have been rumors. My track record of predicting Berkshire deals is very poor...

Shoe Dog was pretty fun and a very quick read. (Phil Knight of Nike)

I don't know for sure, but it may be this one or another by this author -> https://www.amazon.com/Demystifying-Chinese-Economy-Justin-Yifu/dp/0521181747/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525877912&sr=8-1&keywords=justin+yifu+lin&dpID=411BqxkXVsL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch#customerReviews

Ha! That's a great one. You know he actually does sign all his correspondence "Mr Warren Edward Buffett Billionaire investor"

https://buffett.cnbc.com Click on annual meetings to get the videos, starting in 94

I’m enjoying the video of the meetings from the 90’s. Audience questions are from people like Bill Ackman, Christopher Davis and a bunch of Omaha locals (at least in 94). Steve Burke did us all a huge service lobbying Warren to get those videos online!

Its the difference between dividends reinvested and compounded, vs not. Annualized S&P return is something like 8% since 1942, but with dividends reinvested, compounding, it comes a lot closer to 12% https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/

So many of the shareholder questions were from Chinese nationals and children. A few questions from the Chinese folks were ok - trade relations, why not look to buy chinese businesses, etc. The worst was probably from the Chinese woman who works at a 'family office' for high net worth Chinese. "You two would be my dream clients" ??? why? "Do you have family offices and what do they do for you?" give me a break...

I put this link the another thread as well, but it is definitely a new development to have many years' footage of entire annual meetings posted on the internet. I had heard this was going to happen, but assumed yahoo was going to get the footage. Looks like Becky was the winner on this one - CNBC Berkshire archive - video footage of entire annual meetings from before the yahoo livestream started, plus CNBC interviews, etc: https://buffett.cnbc.com/annual-meetings/

One thing I always enjoy is when someone asks about their access to the 'dry powder' they currently show. This year it was about insurance regulators only allowing a certain amount of dividends out of the ins. companies per year without special request/approval. Of course, cash does have to be outside the Ins. company to buy and cancel BRK shares, but it probably isn't necessary in order to buy them. They can be distributed to the parent and cancelled later. But my point is that they don't want to spit out a number (Charlie has accidentally spit out, 'we could do a 150 billion dollar deal tomorrow if one came along' last year) - but they were clearly indicating that they will have no problem at all getting creative and closing an enormous acquisition if one were to be possible. This year he mentioned partners would line up - like FFH uses OMERS and others - even though it would be unlikely that BRK would require partners. If debt markets stay like this, obviously that can and will be used as a major lever. And, of course, one of the reasons BRK cash seldom goes down by much - even during years with large acquisitions like PCP - is that the amount of time between a deal being announced and it ultimately closing can end up bringing in another $25+ billion in cash to Berkshire. Float growth, maturing securities, free cash flow from subsidiaries. Through relatively short term (2-10 years) debt issues, Buffett would have no problem "pre-spending" some of Berkshire's future earnings power on the right deal. Compared to the current situation it would be a luxury. And capital doesn't have to be dividend-ed out of the Insurance companies to make acquisitions. There is no problem if NICO ends up owning another large operating business.

Cnbc has footage and other stuff from past annual meetings, not available previously. They call it their new 'warren buffett archive' -> https://buffett.cnbc.com/annual-meetings/

Why do you say that? Because you think the market will sell it off based on the Q? I doubt we are that lucky this time, especially after an entire weekend to think it over / have it explained by the boss. But it would be nice if it did happen. I'm not holding my breath... On another note - I found this interesting: "Our consolidated effective income tax rates for the first quarter of 2018 and 2017 were 29.7% and 27.2% respectively" Could have been related to the big AIG policy last year, or some other anomaly. Just wasn't expecting an increase in effective tax rate in the first quarter or the corporate tax cut.. edit: Also, nice to see GEICO appears to be back to underwriting profits. Price increases (less than competitors but still increases) appear to have cycled through the renewals. Revenues at GEICO were up over 15% vs Q1 2017. (while still profitable on an underwriting basis, the bulk of GEICO's Q1 underwriting results appear to be from favorable development of short-tail prior years' loss estimates) another note on tax rates: last year BNSF earned $1.345 billion pretax and $838 million after taxes in Q1. An effective rate of 37.7%. This year, BNSF earned $1.5 billion pretax and $1.145 billion after taxes, an effective rate of ~24%. I was interested to see how the growth at GenRe was developing, since it has really taken off since Ajit was put in charge. Premiums earned were up 49% at GenRe compared with Q1 2017! On a lot fewer employees.

Q1 2018 is out: press release: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/may0518.pdf 10Q: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/qtrly/1stqtr18.pdf

I believe it was something more like 2-3 times per year. We know they have been together at least once a year because of the annual meeting. And it turns out there is also one off-site directors meeting each year.

Thanks for the link to the full interview! Sounds like cash levels will be down slightly due to the equity buying, primarily the 75 million additional Apple shares, more than offsetting the PSX sale. He mentioned that IMC and TTI are up big with the world economy accelerating. Sounded like he hasn't bought any GE at this point.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/03/buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-bought-stunning-75-million-apple-shares-in-first-quarter.html you know, just your average 42.5 billion dollar investment

Results are out - https://www.fairfax.ca/news/press-releases/press-release-details/2018/First-Quarter-Financial-Results/default.aspx

Thats kind of like saying, "What! Omaha World Herald site has a pay-wall? Isn't Berkshire Hathaway making enough money?"

Added to BRK today as well. Great price around 190. Quarterly report out Saturday morning with new cash balance (should be huge) and quite possibly zero net earnings on the headline number because of the new mark-to-market equities passing through the income statement..

Seems the barrage of Berkshire related news items has begun. WSJ did a piece today on HomeServices - https://www.wsj.com/articles/coming-to-a-yard-sign-near-you-warren-buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-1525339800

Bloomberg.com has a redesign and put in a pay wall after 10 articles starting today: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-02/editor-in-chief-john-mickelthwait-on-new-bloomberg-redesign

The structure was an accident of history. No fees because he was already wealthy and truly wanted to get wealthier alongside his investors, rather than "off of them." A lot of people say that line, but Warren is the only one I've seen actually do it. I personally manage large sums for a few people for no fee - it actually costs me money - but I can't do that for everyone. So much of what they do - the $50,000 reimbursements for "postage" and personal use of secretarial services, etc - is just to set a good example. They can afford to do that. The ridiculously low salary is to set an example by using an extreme. He doesn't think Jaime Dimon should get $100k, he is using an extreme to set an example. Berkshire is an accident of history, but the track record and communications record are all in one place. It's his painting, as he says. It is valuable for his legacy to have a single long term repository of his life's work and the scorecard. To answer my own question a few posts ago: Fairfax India, Greenlight Capital Re, Third Point Re, etc, ALL have more egregious and costly fee structures than the one shareholders of Biglari Holdings are paying. The only difference is that investors put up their money with that fee schedule fully disclosed ahead of time. It was their money and they chose to pay the fees. Biglari chose to add fees (however competitive with the above examples) on other people's money, after the fact. And that is - one of the many things - that rubs people the wrong way.

How is Greenlight Re any better than Biglari Holdings' comp structure? Or fairfax india for that matter?

Is the current market cap $875m ? Is it really that cheap though? $1.05bn investments, take out $270m for deferred taxes and debt and you have net investments of $780m. Add in $500m valuation on fast food biz (12x normalized earnings), $50 first guard (12x normalized earnings) and a $0 for Maxim. Using a 2m share count (to prevent double counting as repurchased stock is included in investments), you get a total value of $1,330m. Take 20% off that for the Biglari greed discount and you have a valuation of $1,072m. Current market cap is $875m. This looks a little cheaper than it should, but is it really worth getting involved in for such a small discount?