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Acquisition at Marmon (another from the Pritzker family) https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/marmon-acquires-majority-interest-in-colson-medical-companies-2019-11-01?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

thanks Dynamic. Yes, earnings release is this Saturday morning. I'll be in the country for the weekend at an old 1820's plantation with no printer. Hoping to sneak a laptop in... Curious to see if he's still selling down Wells, adding to JPM or any other new surprises. That apple position sure perked up. 255 million shares is no joke - sooner or later you're talkin' real money

Could be from the date of the WFC 10-Q being filed, which would be even later since WFC hasn't actually filed the 10-Q with the SEC yet. The big banks tend to have quite a delay between their 'earnings release' and the filing of the actual 10-Q. Berkshire themselves always puts them out simultaneously, which like so many of their practices probably has at its root a pet peeve of Mr. Buffett. Another pet peeve of Mr. Buffett is how deep into a filing you have to go to find actual financial statements like a balance sheet. Sometimes its hundreds of pages in. Berkshire always puts them up front. Balance sheet on page 2...

Man wabuffo, remember those days?! The old chucks angles board was so active during that time. Old timers debating going on margin, how low will she go, etc.. Here are a couple of my posts from that week. Charlie filed his SEC filing on the transfer to his kids a couple days after I was doing it for friends and clients. We were talking about Warren doing it for his sisters with his Mother's shares the same way.. Seems like forever ago. Just celebrated my 10 year wedding anniversary. Master at work! It is like watching Roger Federer play tennis.

sorry to post this in your thread, but it relates to what we were just talking about - https://www.americanbanker.com/articles/warren-buffett-seeks-fed-leeway-to-boost-stake-in-bank-of-america-past-10 Also - an update for your BAC position size now that Applied Underwriters is sold https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/70858/000120919119053219/xslF345X03/doc4.xml

Looks like Berkshire went over 10% on Wells as of this morning's updated WFC share count. I'm seeing period end (9/30/19) Wells share count at 4.2691 Billion shares and Berkshire with 432.383 million shares. So a few days after Wells files their 10Q we will see if Berkshire was granted or is in the process of being granted permission to let the stake drift above 10% due to repurchase activity. Seemed to be allowed for BAC so I would expect the same for Wells.

Yes, Berkshire would have to file with the SEC if they sold any BAC shares. They haven't. I don't think they will be selling any WFC shares going forward either. I believe what is happening is that they are in discussions with the Fed and will ultimately not be limited to the 10% level going forward as long as they are careful not to exert what looks like other types of influence over a bank. No discussions with the board, arms length commercial relationships, etc.. They have to be seen as totally passive shareholders

In the absence of any real material Berkshire related news in ages, we can at least read about this interesting real estate development in Omaha that Applied Underwriters is leading - https://www.omaha.com/money/applied-underwriters-celebrates-work-on-heartwood-preserve-development-touts-natural/article_d4ef8492-37c8-595f-aa64-151f3d20673a.html Here's hoping for "Berkshire Hathaway acquires ExxonMobil" or similar headline sometime soon..

Its a great family business, not sure why the family would want to sell anytime soon but you never know. I think they are at least to 580 locations now. My wife's family lives in Virginia or I wouldn't even be aware of them. (pilot flying J is over 750 locations now - time marches on)

Duracell looks set to do a small deal for Everready assets (India market only) - https://www.cnbctv18.com/market/eveready-shares-hit-5-lower-circuit-after-reports-of-duracells-plans-to-buy-company-assets-4316751.htm

Warren is not the type to borrow in advance of a hoped-for acquisition in a particular country. If he wants to borrow to fund a portion of any future deal in any country, there is plenty of time between signing and closing a deal to do so. He has commented on several occasions that he evaluates acquisitions on an un-levered basis, since any debt he would employ to juice the potential returns on a prospective deal is really just using the general leverage available to Berkshire and not logical to mentally assign to a particular acquisition. Despite this, he did chose to borrow a portion of the BNSF cash consideration. When looking for an explanation for the Euro, UK and Japanese debt offerings I really do think you only need to look at the interest rates on those bonds and what he perceives as a low risk of large adverse currency losses over the life of the notes. Unless he wants to generally inch up Berkshire's general leverage (which he very well may wish to do - or just keep it more or less constant over time with retained earnings factored in), he may elect to have some of the USD notes mature without being rolled over. None of it is really material to Berkshire at these numbers and I have long said that a big part of his motivation to dabble in these offerings is his desire to raise Berkshire's profile in the business communities in these countries he would be thrilled to be offered more wholly owned businesses in. That and his life-long fascination with negative cost leverage (or capital with a reasonable expectation of near-zero cost). Did he have to offer the SQUARZ? No, it was Warren messing around. Did he have to sell billions in premium of index puts and deal with the mark to market fluctuations? No, it was Warren dabbling and proving a point (that he looks to have proven with a combined ratio of near zero on the billions in premiums). Apple, Proctor & Gamble and others borrowed in Yen recently and nobody speculates that they are imminently announcing a deal for a Japanese acquisition. Investment Bankers are out there actively pitching this idea and the cost of borrowing is the primary attraction. BRK just put out 5 year paper at 17 basis points before the tax deduction. 10 year paper at 44 basis points. Interesting times

Yes - ¥108,500,000,000 0.170% Senior Notes due 2024 ¥61,000,000,000 0.270% Senior Notes due 2026 ¥146,500,000,000 0.440% Senior Notes due 2029 ¥19,000,000,000 0.787% Senior Notes due 2034 ¥59,000,000,000 0.965% Senior Notes due 2039 ¥36,000,000,000 1.108% Senior Notes due 2049 Am I reading that right; they'll pay less than 1% on average annually for those notes?

Berkshire Yen notes offering (~$4 Billion USD) https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312519239290/d779071dfwp.htm https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Berkshire-taps-Japan-s-hunger-for-yields-with-4bn-bond-debut

Applied Underwriters sale information - https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/53946178

Happy 89th Birthday to Warren

That was great - right on cue. I would cover now

Thanks Dynamic. Good job with the formatting!

Berkshire looks about to borrow in Japanese Yen - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312519223905/d783972d424b5.htm https://www.nasdaq.com/article/berkshire-hathaway-hires-banks-for-secregistered-yen-bonds-20190819-00018 https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Buffett-s-Berkshire-to-issue-first-ever-yen-bonds A team! And a new "conflict of interest" disclosure:

Both age and fame of course. If you really want to hear him talk quick the CNBC video archive of his annual meetings from the early years shows a very different Buffett than today's canned responses. He didn't have to worry about every single thing he muttered being plastered on the news and moving markets back then. Remember when there was confusion over whether he had said the US dollar would be "worth less" or "worthless?" https://buffett.cnbc.com/annual-meetings/

Various media is reporting snippets from Ackman's shareholder letter - outlining his views on the Berkshire purchase: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-ackman-eyes-more-gains-000843746.html I suppose a letter will be posted to PSH's website sometime soon, but I don't think Q2 is up yet. ** Nevermind, here is the Q2 report: https://assets.pershingsquareholdings.com/2019/08/15175158/PSH-2019-Interim-Financial-Statements.pdf

We once had a 'subject to renovations' commercial loan appraisal come back too low. These appraisals are total guesses based on what they think the property will be worth after it is completely renovated. The banker had no issue just ordering a new one to get the higher number. Maybe that's not the norm. I'm sure we paid the $400-500 again though. We closed a different refinance yesterday - a 30 year conforming loan (check 30 year rates in the US if you haven't lately - they are really attractive) - where the appraisal came in at what I would estimate is 25% over the market value of the property. It actually caused the lender to require we purchase additional insurance on the property so it didn't really do us any favors. We all want the lowest value possible for tax purposes and a fair to high value for banking purposes... My wife has succeeded in getting our properties assessed at the lowest in the neighborhood for tax purposes. I think the assessor just doesn't want her showing up in the office again at this point...

wsj has an article highlighting Berkshire's $100 Billion investment in Banking / financial services. Whats the earnings yield on that $100 Billion? https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffett-is-a-huge-backer-of-u-s-banks-11565775006?mod=hp_lead_pos6 ** in other Berkshire related news, the OXY-APC merger closed on August 8th, so $10 Billion has left Berkshire and commenced earning 8%.

Well they are not in negotiations to buyout GE at the moment, or Larry probably would refrain from buying his own stock - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/40545/000123120519000160/xslF345X03/edgar.xml

Treasury stock, at cost (5,242) They are treasury shares at the moment. No big difference as mentioned above

Well he has continued to add Bank of NY Mellon shares for several years. Isn't that similar? Either way, he's not going to own a too-big-to-fail bank outright. He bought a lot of bank stocks, but hasn’t touched the trust banks. I don’t think he has got much love for them.