gfp

I just got my hair cut 10 minutes ago. My barber and his 17 year old son were both on Robinhood trying to figure out why their NOK buy orders were cancelled. News came in mid-haircut that Blockbuster Video was the next buy... Neither knew what a market order was, what business Nokia is in, etc... Bonkers out there

It is in the DJCO thread, but here it is - https://proxy.dailyjournal.com/Chairman%20Letter%20for%20FY2020.pdf

If it helps, think of the performance fee as accruing all along before it is actually paid. So the LP never really had $2million.

What nice folks... AltaLink proposes to refund $350 million to customers over three years http://www.altalink.ca/news/news-releases.cfm?releasePage=0118202117319

I think that between the share repurchases, some from the estates of long-time holders, and deals like the $1.2 Billion of A shares from the Ueltschi estate (flightSafety), and the one-way conversion to get liquidity and gift flexibility there will be very few A shares that remain over time. When an A share is repurchased or converted to Bs it is gone forever. Buffett has shown an interest in repurchasing A shares despite the illiquidity. I think long term he envisions more of a single voting class. By that point the company will be too big for voting rights to matter much to an activist. If someone wants to influence Berkshire 10 years or more from now they are going to have to win hearts and minds, not accumulate a meaningful voting block themselves. Fair enough. Are there any other large holders of the A? After WEB's shares all get converted to Bs and sold it seems like there could be a bit of a power vacuum. And I think the one-time gains from the split would be pretty attractive.

Short article and interview with the leader of Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance. Both a video and a short article if you scroll. https://www.theinsurer.com/tv/bhsi-targets-middle-market-and-sme-growth-through-programs-and-mgas/13508.article?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Insurer%20TV%20Peter%20Eastwood%20BHSI&utm_content=The%20Insurer%20TV%20Peter%20Eastwood%20BHSI+CID_b007230cb92755b6b2a217baaa4b2ad2&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=BHSI%20targets%20middle%20market%20and%20SME%20growth%20through%20programs%20and%20MGAs

I don't think Munger's heirs (the "Munger Clan" lol) will have a meaningful voting stake in Berkshire. I understand that much of Munger's shares were A shares and thus more potent but he never had enough shares to be a big voting influence, especially after many donations over the years (which continue and are likely at his death).

Adding to BRK.B Feb and March 195 Calls this morning

Selling some KNOP up here in the high 16's, 17's.

I don't think that is necessarily true. I think what you are seeing is rebalancing between funds and OTC put assignment.

Yes, Ron Olson periodically buys Berkshire shares and added ~$900k to his $55+ million in Berkshire shares. What I found odd was that he purchased the 4000 b-shares on December 18th and filed his form 4 on January 6th. That's a big no-no and surprising from the head of Munger, Tolles & Olson. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001067983/000120919121002201/0001209191-21-002201-index.htm

At last disclosure (the 10-Q), Berkshire owned 964.5 million Apple shares. Multiply by today's price and you get $126 Billion pre-tax. Unless he sold some after quarter end.

You didn't ask for the health benefits. You asked for the benefits.

What a strange reaction to my quoted answer to your question. Did I seem to be screaming and emotional to you? You asked about benefits for the under 30 set. Perhaps I missed where you were not really asking. Attending live concerts, international travel, admittance to in-person university classes, contributing to the greater good as it relates to herd immunity. And, you know, Gates and Soros whispering in your ear through the chip You can still spread and carry covid even after receiving the vaccine (per CDC). Edit: I love the responses from the holier than thou assholes on this forum. Neither asked me why. Neither answered the question from a health perspective on an individual basis. Here is a question for you two. Why should a young person take the vaccine which is in limited supply over and elderly high risk individual or frontline worker? Overly emotional individuals like yourselves are cancer to society. Scream louder.

Attending live concerts, international travel, admittance to in-person university classes, contributing to the greater good as it relates to herd immunity. And, you know, Gates and Soros whispering in your ear through the chip

Just an accident of history. MidAmerican bought Amerus HomeServices in 1998, before Berkshire's purchase of MidAmerican in 1999. The company has remained inside MidAmerican and in fact Berkshire does not own 100% of BHE.

The craziest part is these warrants for the trust preferred income securities traded from .05 to 1.50 (sorry 2.75 while I type LOL) today and they are not even warrants to purchase the common stock. They are warrants to purchase an 8% income vehicle, kind of like a rights offering. But you can't short the warrant because there are barely any out there. They were set to expire but just got extended. I have no idea how many remain outstanding but it's not much.

It's an interesting time... I follow this small company AirT, controlled by Nick Swensen, which I (unfortunately today) don't own shares in. I have kept their filings in my RSS feed since Swensen picked a fight with Biglari. I liked AirT yesterday and was encouraged by some news they filed after the close. They have been really good at taking in PPP and Main Street Fed program money as well. So today the stocktwits / robin hood crowd is suddenly aware of them because they are "low float" and "trending" or whatever. This company usually barely trades and they have had to keep halting it all day. First at 13 and change, now at 18.10, and they can't seem to get it to open again but indications are currently at 30 / share... Just nuts to see it happen in real time. Nobody cares what the news is or what the company does - just ultra low float and she's running! Pile in! One of the funnier quirks to this is the 1000% move in a warrant that entitles you to buy Preferred shares that haven't budged and can be purchased below par. But I suppose people think AIRTW might be a warrant on the common... It isn't.

Thanks for that - so much better to read it. Gotta love Charlie! “I’ve given more money to my family than I have to philanthropy. ... I don’t want any false pretenses about that.”

Thanks to you both

Trafelet! Thats the name I was trying to think of. He was part of the group that were buying control of ALICO in the open market back in the day right? It didn't go particularly well as I remember. Haven't thought much of Alico since except for driving down Alico Road in Fort Myers a couple times. Is Citrus production still being hit by Greening or whatever the scourge was?

Berkshire has settled on this exact formula for preferred investments over the years because it allows the investee to count the investment as equity. They modified the BAC pref after the fact to make it quasi-perpetual to make sure it continued to count toward capital with regulators. There is always a penalty for paying in stock, a slight (~10%) discount to VWAP leading up to dividend and/or a bump-up in rate (~50-100 bps). I would assume the idea is that this would allow Berkshire to liquidate the dividend stock at about the cash value of what would have been the cash dividend payment. This is what they did with OXY the one quarter OXY paid in stock. And since the stock dividend is based on the VWAP for some known number of days leading up to the dividend payment, Berkshire can - and sometimes does - pre-sell the stock they are set to receive so they end up with essentially a zero position on the day of the payment. With little risk since VWAP is something Berkshire can ask for each day with their brokers. Berkshire has been doing these deals for so long it has become a formula where they can just tell MT&O to write it up boilerplate. "give 'em the Goldman with the Dow Chemical twist" or whatever Exceptions would be the sole-lender stuff like Lee Enterprises or SRG. Those are structured totally differently and the Lee loan has an interesting variation of the Net Worth Sweep, where Lee has to pay down principal anytime they are left with over $20 million cash at the end of a quarter.

Why? You think it's overpriced or? Yeah, basically what Greg said. I mean, yes obviously it is overpriced for a box of cash. When it goes up today because of the S&P-IHS deal that seems a little foolish. This one got a boost once the 13-Fs showed it in Baupost and other portfolios. But those were smart moves at the IPO price. I don't think Klarman is a buyer at 27 pre-deal announcement.

Reluctantly selling most of my PSTH premarket this morning. 26.70-26.94 / share. Cue huge deal announcement in 3..2..1..