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Berkshire added an amended 8K today that has a nice description for the two new Executive Officers. It will be interesting to see the Form 3 filings in the near future detailing for the first time if either of them own any shares of Berkshire. Abel owns shares of BHE and both are quite wealthy but it will be interesting to see if Ajit bought the stock over the years. "On January 9, 2018, Gregory E. Abel, age 55, was elected to be an Executive Officer of Berkshire as its Vice Chairman – Non Insurance Operations. Mr. Abel joined Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company (“BHE”), a 90.2% owned subsidiary of Berkshire, in 1992 and since 2011 has been BHE’s Chairman and CEO. Mr. Abel currently serves as a Director of The Kraft Heinz Company, a manufacturer and marketer of food and beverage products, and AEGIS Insurance Services, Inc., a provider of property and liability insurance for the energy industry, and Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited, an insurer of nuclear power utilities. Additionally, on January 9, 2018, Ajit Jain, age 66, was elected to be an Executive Officer of Berkshire as its Vice Chairman – Insurance Operations. Mr. Jain joined Berkshire’s insurance group in 1986 and since 1996 has been Executive Vice President of National Indemnity Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire. Mr. Jain currently serves as a Trustee of Rockefeller University, a leading biomedical research university. Both Mr. Abel and Mr. Jain possess the attributes the Governance, Compensation and Nominating Committee of Berkshire’s Board of Directors as well as Berkshire’s Chairman and CEO, Warren E. Buffett, consider to be essential if one is to be an effective Board member. Specifically, both Mr. Abel and Mr. Jain have integrity, business savvy, an owner-oriented attitude and a deep genuine interest in Berkshire. These attributes have been evident during each of their careers as leaders of two of Berkshire’s most important business groups."

Warren wrote something for the current Time magazine issue which is edited by Bill Gates and dedicated to 'the optimists' http://time.com/5087360/warren-buffett-shares-the-secrets-to-wealth-in-america/

And thanks to dcollon, who earlier shared the Munger talk with COBF http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/berkshire-hathaway/buffett-news/msg318835/#msg318835

Should probably change the thread name to “2017 Results”

I suspect he was going for “inflation”

again, $37 billion seems high for a one-time tax reform adjustment. I have no problem with the general sales pitch that Berkshire is not overvalued, but there is no way to accurately compute the figure you list as $37 Billion without access to the books. And the corporate tax rate will be 21% with no changes in state, local or foreign tax rates. Berkshire will also get a large tax rate benefit for immediate depreciation for many capital expenditures, which will add to the after tax cash flow benefit of the new bill.

A lot of good points above but this one is especially wise. The question is usually why they would want to work with you - and the answer with real estate developers is usually either, 1 - you found the deal and have it under contract (and its a good deal they want) or 2 - they need you for financing (they are tapped out with their banks temporarily - real estate developers always seem to be constrained by their access to financing - explaining the active hard money business). My wife is a developer and had the good fortune to get started with a local real estate developer that turned her loose with his capital to run projects while he was out of town for months at a time (doesn't spend summers in New Orleans - wise..) She gained experience and an introduction to a huge and valuable network of subs, service providers, lenders, and on and on. Importantly for the work she does now, she learned the ins and outs of the State and Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit system, which has been very lucrative for her over the years as she only deals in historic structures. Done properly, tax credits can be a huge factor in a project. The other most important advice from above is the part about not being undercapitalized. You need to pad the early parts of the renovation budget like framing so you get more capital towards the beginning of the project, otherwise you are floating an awful lot between bank draws. Site prep, demolition, framing - add as much as possible to that section of the budget you submit to the banker. It is wise and extremely helpful to have another line of credit of decent size somewhere that you have available for unforeseen timing mismatches between bank draws and payments that need to be made. Not paying subs promptly won't build you a great reputation and it will be no surprise when they are too busy for your project on the next job.. Get to know the commercial bankers that are eager to lend in your area - they will compete on terms and such for your business once you get a bit bigger. Keep 'em happy!

Hey sorry, didn't see this post until just now. I follow Apple pretty closely and trade it a couple times a year it seems like. I always use pretty deep in the money call options, with low premiums over their intrinsic in-the-money-ness... I put the trade on (and still have the trade on) because I think Apple is going to have a great quarter, I've been impressed to see their supply chain ramp on the iPhone X and I think they sold a ton of phones at a very high average price. My 70 year old mother in law even has an iPhone X on her new Comcast xfinity mobile setup (an amazing deal, by the way). I also think Apple is one of the largest direct beneficiaries of the tax bill, they have a huge repurchase program, and the stock looked like it was going to break higher (and it did yesterday). Today it was downgraded and traded really well and I added February 160 calls at 16.637 average cost. [edit: added again at 15.90 resulting in new avg cost 16.394] The calls are obviously much more volatile than the equity but I am not new to options and while I wouldn't recommend others purchase call options basically ever - I do it myself from time to time. Sometimes to hedge, sometimes to take on leverage - usually with in the money calls like these. it's a speculation and it's one I've done the same way several times. We'll see, but so far it is looking good. I'm not a long term equity investor in Apple anymore, probably because I'm not super interested in 900 billion dollar market cap companies ($490 Billion market cap companies are more my speed LOL) globalfinancepartners: would you mind to say why? why apple? and why buy the options instead of the stock? Thanks!!

Seems like the return on those great recession prefs was substantially above the 9-10% dividend yield. They all included warrants - even the RBI preferred shares paid back today ($3.3 Billion cash coming to BRK today), came with penny warrants on QSR stock.

The gates foundation is required to sell shares. They have been selling them much slower than would be required, as they have received some accommodation - but they are still required to sell and Warren was aware of the rules governing “excess business holdings” or whatever it’s called. Basically you can’t concentrate a foundation in a single stock so that foundations aren’t used to control companies (obviously abroad the rules are different, ikea etc..)

Yes, they were one of the largest shareholders - although he sold most of his shares before the deal was approved but after it was announced.

Berk has owned DEO for a long time, off and on. These particular shares may be from T&T, not sure. Berkshire, of course, was a major investor in Anheuser Busch before the 3G guys made their bid just before the financial crisis. As others mentioned - the quotes were about wholly owned subsidiaries and it’s not totally clear if he would frown on T&T making equity investments in those industries. I could see them skipping tobacco present day. But beer is definitely fair game

Diageo is coded the same as the other Berkshire Holdings in the Gen Re New England Asset Management holdings table. Everything coded the way Diageo is coded is a Berkshire holding, so I'm willing to bet that these particular Diageo shares are also held by Gen Re / Berkshire - and not a holding of some fund managed by New England Asset Management for others. Check the info-table -> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1004244/000108514617002458/xslForm13F_X01/form13fInfoTable.xml Why do u say Diageo is a Berkshire holding?

purchased February 2018 150 strike call options on Apple at 21.68 average cost. this is a trade obviously update - added more of same at 20.25, new average cost is 20.967

$480 Billion market cap seems about right. Not crazy low, could be a little low. If they were willing to use leverage to buy a $150 billion business it would look too low in retrospect. Low turnover might stabilize the price, but in my experience Berkshire tends to level out in market value for a while and then make fairly quick reappraisals higher as some perception changes a bit. Because of the nature of continually hitting all time highs and a lot of long term, low basis, holders - Berkshire's share price tends to respond a lot to violating round number options strike price levels (190 for example) because people are forced to cover their short 'covered calls.' If this FIFO law comes into being, that would only exacerbate those type of moves going forward.

By "TBV" are you referring to tangible book value? Or just book value / shareholder equity? Book Value is what it is because of huge liabilities he calls insurance 'float'. Most people think it has some value greater than negative $113 Billion. Tangible book value is lower still because of huge sums of goodwill and intangible assets that result from buying high quality companies in their entirety at prices higher than their identifiable tangible assets. You know, their durable competitive advantage, market position, trade names, etc etc etc Unless it starts to look like Berkshire develops a reputation for overpaying for acquisitions, tangible book value doesn't have a lot of utility for a company like BRK.

I haven't seen a company with that big of a deferred tax liability either. Obviously it is a consequence of rarely, if ever, selling anything large and a half century of acquisitions. Even Precision Castparts came with ~$7.5 Billion of "income tax, principally deferred" - so a lot of this liability is never to be realized even if the equity portfolio was completely liquidated. At the last 10Q there was $82.2 Billion of unrealized appreciation in equity securities and another $1 Billion on the bond portfolio. At 35% that amounts to a $29 Billion deferred tax liability. At 20% it is $16.65 Billion, a savings of over $12 Billion if the tax plan passes and Berkshire gets the 20% rate. Year end gains look to be higher still, at least so far. Berkshire's tax rate bounces all over the place between 30% and 20% most of the time. But the tax liability on the unrealized investment gains is usually calculated right at 35%. I can't speak to the rates used to calculate the rest of that income tax liability. But it isn't nearly as important since it won't be spent. The equities may actually be sold, resulting in a real cash savings. I don't see them selling the land under BNSF's tracks or the property plant and equipment of PCC.

They didn't sell any BAC shares. For some reason 21 million shares held at General Reinsurance don't show up on Berkshire's filing. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/70858/000119312517280738/d411721dsc13ga.htm They show up under "New England Asset Management" -> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1004244/000108514617002458/0001085146-17-002458-index.htm Other Berkshire holdings in that filing (which are in addition to the reporting holdings on sites like dataroma) are - 4.217 million shares of Apple 21 million shares of BAC 227,750 shares of Diageo 431,063 shares of GS 4.386 million shares of USG 2.954 million shares of Verisk 24.3 million shares of Wells Fargo

700 million is the total number of shares owned by Berkshire. The other share holdings are not additive, they just reflect the ownership chain within Berkshire ‘s organizational structure. Certain BRK subsidiaries are owned by other BRK subsidiaries.

It really was a great series of interviews. Interesting to hear him say, in talking about his preference for running Berkshire with conservative financing, always having plenty of money around, etc - "I don't want to depend on letters of credit from banks - or anything of the sort", "no too big to fail doctrine to bail us out" in 2006.

Berkshire's book value per share has grown 8.9% since year end 2016, but I suspect you meant something else since you also said year end 2016 was 1.75 years ago.

Restaurant Brands International paying Berkshire back $3.3 Billion in December, and BRK loses another high yielding preferred (9%). Kinda slipped this one in a press release without mentioning Berkshire at all - http://www.rbi.com/file/Index?KeyFile=390786299

what does that mean?

I don't remember Air BnB ever including the exact address in the listing, but I suppose some 'hosts' put it in voluntarily. If you think it might be an issue, just ask for the exact location / address when you correspond with the host before you book the place. The cleaning fee is nothing new, different people charge different amounts but it is always disclosed in the listing, along with how strict their cancellation policy is, etc..

I see this old thread was revived. I started investing in 1999 when I got a job in Chicago designing one-page investment reports for an investment/tech startup specializing in separately managed accounts. It was a web programming / graphic design job, but required me to learn what information investors wanted and how they wanted it laid out on a one-pager. (at that age I copied morningstar's and value-line's one-pagers and tweaked from there). Back then I thought it was a big deal to have my web program query the databases and produce a PDF with performance charts, etc, on the fly. Probably not the best way to do that, especially at the time. Before that I had owned Disney shares, but that was more of a childhood gift from my Dad to get me into investing and to request the cool stock certificate to put on my wall. My father was an investor and option seller. He introduced me to options premiums, credit spreads, and various credit producing combinations when I was in high school (I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, lots of options and futures folks up there), but he passed away when I was in college. I bought my first Berkshire shares in 2000, and my first big position in Berkshire when the markets reopened following the September 11 WTC attacks. I think I remember 2001 trades being in the $2100/ B share range but I'm not sure. I know there were a block of shares with an 1850 cost basis but I think those were earlier than 2001. I was a full time investor by 2001 and still remember watching the attacks live on CNBC. Started managing accounts for a few family members in 2001. I was born in 1980, for reference