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Thanks for the post John. Always interesting to read Mr. Bloomstran's thoughts, even if dated. Takes me back to the beginning of 2016! A lovely time to be a buyer indeed. I think quite a few of us BRK-nerds were happily buying low-premium in-the-money LEAPs at the time. I guess some of you wild folks were even more aggressive.. It is odd that, even back in 2016, Bloomstran through the railroad wasn't paying out dividends to BRK, and relied on STB filings when BNSF has always filed individually with the SEC.

Funston probably convinced Sardar that he was going to sell the company by April 2020 and really didn't want to come up with the money to buy BH's shares at $6. I'm surprised Sardar agreed to it, but the implication is that they will get more than $6 when they sell. I had $6.50 penciled in as a high end in my notes, so personally I would have taken the $6 and moved along. But I guess if they are confident they will get more than $6 Sardar is willing to work with Funston for $200k... We'll see.. Maybe Funston will hire a second "millennial" to help him out. He's hilarious on the conference calls

Had to reply to this thread since my friend has decided to turn this into a little Mardi Gras side hustle business. The hottest "throw" of this year's Mardi Gras! He's selling all he can make... https://mardigraspenaltyflags.com

Charlie just dropped this same quote at the meeting. Fish where the fish are gentlemen Knowing Charlie, he’s probably thinking of ponds like China and would point out that ‘the Mungers’ have been fishing there for some time

Charlie liked it - https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-charlie-munger-calls-listen-and-learn-11548421209?mod=hp_lead_pos8

Here's a blog post with a look back on the BNSF acquisition almost 10 years ago. He's taken out over $30 Billion in tax free cash distributions (not including BNSF tax payments to parent). https://berkshirebuffettandbeyond.com/2019/01/15/10-years-since-bnsf/

Might be easier to get your fidelity account approved to purchase the Toronto shares directly vs. waiting for something to be 'fixed' on an unsponsored adr.

It was a brutal non-call but man, some of that Saints play calling at the end was killing me. Seems like we could have at least forced them to use their final time out while we still had the ball towards the end of regular play - instead a bunch of incomplete passes. And what the hell was Michael Thomas looking at when they the Rams got the interception on their ass on the ground. Thomas didn't seem aware of the ball at all. Sad end to the season, and a rough no flag - but c'mon Saints..!

Agree with a lot of what you are saying bizaro. Just today we got a review from another first time airBnB user. Shocking how many young people are still trying it for their first time. Regarding the AWS service, I'm curious if you experience the same thing I experience. I find that the databases for Hosts are really slow. Calendar, for example, seems to take forever to load - in the app and on a browser. Do you find that to be the case with Host Calendar?

Still curious on KYG. Is it K as in the common abbreviation for "contract"? Is this some type of contract that was entered into with misidentified or mistaken identity of the parties? do tell Thanks for posting this. What are KYJ And EC?

I don't even know if the numbers they throw around in public for "revenue" are their revenue cut from fees or the entire value of each booking (the vast majority of which is passed through to hosts). I am very much looking forward to seeing detailed financial statements.

Yeah, its always going to be tough. Warren will be the first to advise against selling if a family has a well run, profitable, large business with durable competitive advantage and attractive, predictable long term economics. Generation changes and liquidity needs (and sometimes capital raising needs) are the main reasons families sell. The Pritzkers had their spoiled children suing them in a public way - that helped. More and more, Berkshire will have to turn to public companies because of the need for very large companies to buy. It's hard to negotiate a purchase of a desirable public company at a sensible price. - side note: maybe a side benefit of all the giving pledge networking meetings.. It's tricky to donate at least half your family fortune if you don't create liquidity for the family enterprise

would assume EC references the Equity Committee but BG will know better

Its an American comedy movie called "City Slickers" John - Dazel references "Your One Thing" http://www.collierbiz.com/Articles/OneThingCitySlickers.htm

Here's one that would be a good fit for Berkshire - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.M._Huber_Corporation Anyone who has passed a construction site in the last decade and seen Green sheathing and black tape is seeing a very popular Huber product called the Zip system. It's an alternative to house wrap and it is very popular. They also make a very popular subfloor that we use called Advantech. It's particle board, but it has so much resin in it it basically comes out waterproof (at least for long enough to put a roof on something, which is also done with Huber decking in a rust color.

I used to wonder about that one too. The best I can come up with is that he doesn't love the financing side of the business, which results in $38 Billion of debt on the balance sheet. I know he owned some stock at lower prices and sold out when it broke $100 per share or something like that. Maybe he tried to buy it over the years and it wasn't available at his price. Or maybe that wild-man Howie told him there wasn't durable competitive advantage and Warren wouldn't want to be 'banker to the farmers' when the shit hit the fan. Cue John Deere / Berkshire buyout announcement tomorrow

A bunch of realtors wouldn't want to cut out investment bankers would they? Heresy Seriously though, the investment bankers probably still get paid on most of these bolt-on acquisitions

yes part II is out but probably not when that person edited Howard's wiki page. What I gathered from the historical Warren Buffett documents they published was that Warren and Susie were supportive when it was about abortion and stopped supporting the controversial figure when he moved towards being controversial. "Once supported" is another way of saying "stopped supporting." But we all know Charlie is racist so I'm sure Warren and Susie are/were as well. I mean, who's not? What a hypocrite this Buffett joker

New CEO for HomeServices, Peltier moving up to Executive Chairman - https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190116005196/en/HomeServices-America®-Expands-Executive-Leadership-Team http://www.startribune.com/homeservices-of-america-taps-new-ceo-to-lead-expansion/504437412/

I have to say I did find this part of the wikipedia entry pretty funny: "In January 2019, the Phoenix New Times ran a 27 page investigative report detailing Howard Buffet's use of his father's money to buy himself a position in the Cochise Country, Arizona Sheriffs Department in order to conduct vigilante operations against migrants in the borderlands. These operations include the stockpiling of weapons and a questionable defoliation campaign.[14] Part two of this incredible story is due out later this week!" Awfully hard to tell who added that bit to his bio I think people failed to read this. They're off on a tangent.

Thanks Heilko - that's true, they did recently offer the option to pay half upfront and half closer to your stay for reservations over $250. Curious why you don't think the float aspect of the business is very important? Seems they are holding a revolving fund of several billion dollars of other people's money at any given time - an amount that continues to grow. Sounds useful for a high growth company that doesn't need much capital to grow as it is. At least useful for founders and early investors who want to minimize dilution.

I have no idea what valuation AirBnB is looking to get at their IPO, but as it is discussed as a likely 2019 IPO, and it is the first IPO I have been interested in in quite some time, I thought I would start a thread. Perhaps others have interest in this business model. Bill Gates has mentioned before the difference between AirBnB's network / platform effect and that of an Uber or Lyft. Basically, Uber has to be the dominant network (of drivers/users) in each local market. It can be number one in the USA but struggling in Asia, etc.. But AirBnB is a truly global platform. The property owners go where the renters are, and vice versa. My favorite part of the AirBnB business model, and the likely reason it hasn't had to take gobs of venture capital financing in, is the enormous float that the company generates. When someone books an AirBnB rental, their credit card is charged in full. AirBnB then holds that money - say for an average of 2 months or more - and then pays most of it to the AirBnB host the day after the guest actually checks in to the property. The more the platform grows, the more float sits with AirBnB. It's better than the payroll processors (ADP, Paychex, etc) - which are often cited as enjoying the benefits of float (but usually only when interest rates are rising). As I mentioned elsewhere, my wife has some AirBnB rentals (she is the host, but never sees the renters - self check in/out, stand alone properties). When she launched these rentals, they were on VRBO and AirBnB simultaneously. Both companies allow you to easily sync your calendars so that a property is not double-booked. She got 98% of the rentals from the AirBnB platform. VRBO was worse on payment transparency to hosts and a few other things that would turn off hosts. So she quickly dropped them all together. We've had AirBnB guests from all over the world and have stayed in AirBnB properties all over the world. It's tough to unseat the dominant global platform on something like that. Risks include increasing local regulation - AirBnB is seen as the enemy of neighborhoods with actual neighbors, affordable housing, etc. But in my experience it is hard to put the genie back in the bottle on stuff like this. The Float and the dominant global network are what attracts me to this business. Anyone else have thoughts on it, while we wait patiently to see a price?

I am watching this stock too, but isn’t the relatively small premium to the current market cap ( rumored purchase price is $11B, current market cap is $9.8B) a concern. That’s just a 12% premium to the current price. This seems to be a difficult business to run and really not worth as much than thought. Sold out of Arconic today at 20.20, break-even for me. Deal set to be announced between 21-22 per WSJ. Would expect a decent spread to remain until closing. No loss but still a disappointing premium. Good call Spek.

I don't know for sure, but what I read there describes a hurdle rate with a high water mark and no clawback of previous incentive allocations to the gp. Which is also what you read from it

Is this "insider buying" or issuer repurchase activity?