redskin Posted October 13, 2023 Posted October 13, 2023 On 10/11/2023 at 12:08 AM, schin said: Articles about his HF performance https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2010/10/28/buffett-acolytes-scrutinize-todd-combs-returns-and-wonder-why/?sh=29512bd7440c https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshirehathaway-combs/warren-buffetts-latest-pick-investor-todd-combs-idUSTRE69O5B220101025 https://www.ctinsider.com/business/article/Who-is-this-Todd-Combs-anyway-747167.php I remember Warren Buffett saying that both Ted and Todd have been underperforming the S&P in their portfolio over the past few years. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkshirehathaway-combs/warren-buffetts-latest-pick-investor-todd-combs-idUSTRE69O5B220101025 If you listen to the video, Todd has strong opinions about GEICO and Progressive. Essentially, they will be investing more in technologies as their IT is antiquated. I have friends that work there and it's definitely outdated. We'll see if he can add value to GEICO. He was hired for his investment prowess -- less see if he can reinvigorate GEICO on the operational side. The Forbes article gives his performance from 2006 through 2009. He was up 35% over that period. The S&P 500 total return over the same period was -2.6%. I don't understand how they could be critical?
xo 1 Posted October 13, 2023 Posted October 13, 2023 On 10/11/2023 at 9:19 AM, ValueMaven said: I was blown away by Todd's interview. You can see why WEB and Charlie hired him. Same for Ted. These guys are unique and PERFECT for the culture at Berkshire. The piece that I appreciated most was the value of his leadership at GEICO. I knew he had worked with Progressive, but I didn't realize that his work their overlapped with GEICO's weaknesses. I am optimistic that even as a part-time CEO, he will be able to provide the direction needed to restore GEICO.
UK Posted October 20, 2023 Posted October 20, 2023 https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/geico-lays-off-6-of-workforce-prioritizes-return-to-office-463726.aspx
CassiusKing1 Posted October 24, 2023 Posted October 24, 2023 Interested to see if the stock buyback's have picked up steam again with it trading back in the 30's.
james22 Posted October 25, 2023 Posted October 25, 2023 On 10/9/2023 at 8:17 AM, VersaillesinNY said: Todd Combs - Investing, the Last Liberal Art, Oct 9th, 2023 https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/14034172/combs-todd-combs-investing-the-last-liberal-art?tab=transcript Really great. Thanks.
gfp Posted October 27, 2023 Posted October 27, 2023 Interesting - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/berkshire-sued-changing-accounting-rules-221454765.html
UK Posted October 27, 2023 Posted October 27, 2023 44 minutes ago, gfp said: Interesting - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/berkshire-sued-changing-accounting-rules-221454765.html Indeed. Not sure what to think about it? Maybe some kind of misunderstanding which will be yet explained. I doubt Greg already has changed BRK's acquisition policy to hostile/active/aggressive:)
UK Posted October 27, 2023 Posted October 27, 2023 https://www.reuters.com/legal/buffetts-berkshire-is-sued-by-haslam-family-over-pilot-truck-stop-takeover-2023-10-27/ The complaint said the family objected repeatedly, but Buffett refused to commit not to use pushdown accounting. It said he instead told Pilot founder and Jimmy Haslam's father James Haslam II this month: "I said that Berkshire will comply with the terms of the contract. That's exactly what will happen." Buffett's assistant did not immediately respond to a request for comment after market hours. Kristin Seabrook, Pilot's chief legal counsel, in a statement said the lawsuit concerned "a narrow issue between owners," and declined further comment about it.
gfp Posted October 27, 2023 Posted October 27, 2023 (edited) If I had to guess, I would guess this: The second tranche of equity Berkshire purchased was extremely expensive and the price paid was based on a formula that was laid out in a contract years earlier. Berkshire paid what the formula spit out but Buffett was not happy about the way the game was played. But he honored his commitment. Then immediately Greg fires the Pilot CEO and CFO, brings in BHE and former BHE executives, and immediately exits a few of Pilot's newer lines of business. Now this disagreement over accounting methods / treatments comes public. I think it is clear that Buffett didn't love what he saw and Greg is now in control cleaning it up. (notice the first listed defendant in the lawsuit is Abel) Buffett overpaid for the recent chunk of equity (much of which did not go to the Haslams, but to the other family). His reputation for honoring his commitments was more important than a few billion dollars. Further confirmation would be when we see the goodwill write down on Pilot. I'm sure he contrasts this behavior with the way the Pritzkers handled the multi-stage Marmon deal and this behavior compares unfavorably. Charlie would say that this (gaming of the system based on incentives in a contract) is exactly what we should expect and take it as a learning experience towards the next similar contract that MTO writes up for BRK. edit: just to update this, the main dispute seems to be over the huge depreciation and amortization that depresses the reported net income of Pilot post-acquisition by Berkshire. This huge jump in non-cash D&A was mentioned in Berkshire's 10Q: "Operating and other expenses include depreciation and amortization expense of $243 million in the second quarter of 2023 and $411 million in the five months ending June 30, 2023, a significant portion of which derives from property, plant and equipment and finite-lived intangible asset fair value remeasurements in connection with our application of the acquisition accounting method in 2023. " Edited October 27, 2023 by gfp
John Hjorth Posted October 27, 2023 Posted October 27, 2023 Thank you for sharing your analysis here, @gfp, After spending just a bit of time revisiting this acqusition again, your analysis appears to connect the dots in my opinion to perfection : Stepwise clean-up process. Pilot Company Press Release [April 10th 2023] : Pilot Company welcomes two new executive leaders. For the sake of the proportions of it : From Berkshire 2023Q2 10-K : So the item at hand for dispute is measured at USD 3.370 B end of January 2023 by Berkshire, and we are talking about goodwill and other intangible in total of USD 13.309 B, while the item at dispute at EOP 2023Q2 was measured at USD 3.210 B by Berkshire :
CanadianMunger Posted October 27, 2023 Posted October 27, 2023 (edited) gfp - Your explanation looks spot on, great post. I can't recall Berkshire initiating a management change of an acquisition this quickly before(?) so yeah it looks like they weren't happy being gamed. edit: imo, gfp your commentary on Berkshire has the most signal to noise ratio and that includes the greats such as mungo and rationalwalk among others. I always look forward to reading your posts - thanks sir! Edited October 27, 2023 by CanadianMunger
Munger_Disciple Posted October 27, 2023 Posted October 27, 2023 1 hour ago, CanadianMunger said: edit: imo, gfp your commentary on Berkshire has the most signal to noise ratio and that includes the greats such as mungo and rationalwalk among others. I always look forward to reading your posts - thanks sir! +1
yesman182 Posted October 28, 2023 Posted October 28, 2023 1 hour ago, Munger_Disciple said: +1 I agree @gfp is a must read poster.
Gamecock-YT Posted October 28, 2023 Posted October 28, 2023 lol, have to love the Haslam family, everything they touch turns to shit.
Xerxes Posted October 30, 2023 Posted October 30, 2023 https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/acquired/id1050462261?i=1000633030747
Malmqky Posted October 30, 2023 Posted October 30, 2023 30 minutes ago, Xerxes said: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/acquired/id1050462261?i=1000633030747 No way! Excited to listen to this.
Monsieur_dee Posted October 30, 2023 Posted October 30, 2023 So this is the podcast he was talking about being on at the AGM
UK Posted October 30, 2023 Posted October 30, 2023 1 hour ago, Xerxes said: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/acquired/id1050462261?i=1000633030747 Thanks!
UK Posted October 31, 2023 Posted October 31, 2023 (edited) Does anybody know if there is transcript of this interview available? Tried to search and did not find find any, yet this is whar google shows on it's search page: Edited October 31, 2023 by UK
gfp Posted October 31, 2023 Posted October 31, 2023 2 hours ago, UK said: Does anybody know if there is transcript of this interview available? Tried to search and did not find find any, yet this is whar google shows on it's search page: It is worth listening to if you skip the long Tiny ad at the beginning- it is a rare well edited audio feed of Charlie. But if you need to read it, this is what I found - https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/89341322
UK Posted October 31, 2023 Posted October 31, 2023 7 minutes ago, gfp said: It is worth listening to if you skip the long Tiny ad at the beginning- it is a rare well edited audio feed of Charlie. But if you need to read it, this is what I found - https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/89341322 Thank you very much! I listened to it, very good interview with some really interesting tidbits, just wanted to check some places on transcript to be sure I understand them correctly:)
gfp Posted October 31, 2023 Posted October 31, 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Energy has continued to sell some BYD shares in Hong Kong. We know now that these sales have been used to purchase a $3.3 Billion interest in the Cove Point LNG business. Since June 19th (the last update), they have sold an additional ~$335 million worth of BYD shares (an estimate based on average prices). The media will of course misreport the sale as only 820,500 shares when the report is actually showing the sale of 10.99 million shares. https://di.hkex.com.hk/di/NSAllFormList.aspx?sa2=an&sid=2508&corpn=BYD+Co.+Ltd.++-+H+Shares&sd=31/10/2022&ed=31/10/2023&cid=2&sa1=cl&scsd=31%2f10%2f2022&sced=31%2f10%2f2023&sc=1211&src=MAIN&lang=EN&g_lang=en&
backtothebeach Posted October 31, 2023 Posted October 31, 2023 On 10/30/2023 at 2:22 AM, Xerxes said: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/acquired/id1050462261?i=1000633030747 Some takeaways: *Warren doesn’t like retail. *Munger doesn’t even look at the auto industry for investment, BYD was an exception. *Still believes in China, sees having roughly 18% of the Munger portfolio at risk in China as justified. About predicting the future of companies: “You can’t confidentally say what is going to happen. Cause you may get some guy like Iger in, who just wants to push everything …” “Warren still cares more about the safety of his Berkshire shareholders, than he cares about anything else.” Q: Charlie, you turn 100 … on January 1st of next year. Do you have any plans? Charlie: “I’m gonna party!”
Luke Posted October 31, 2023 Posted October 31, 2023 9 minutes ago, backtothebeach said: Some takeaways: *Warren doesn’t like retail. *Munger doesn’t even look at the auto industry for investment, BYD was an exception. *Still believes in China, sees having roughly 18% of the Munger portfolio at risk in China as justified. About predicting the future of companies: “You can’t confidentally say what is going to happen. Cause you may get some guy like Iger in, who just wants to push everything …” “Warren still cares more about the safety of his Berkshire shareholders, than he cares about anything else.” Q: Charlie, you turn 100 … on January 1st of next year. Do you have any plans? Charlie: “I’m gonna party!” This is highly interesting: Well, my position in China has been, the Chinese economy has better future prospects for the next 20 years than almost any other big economy. That's number one. Number two, the leading companies of China are stronger and better than practically any other leading companies anywhere. And they're available a much cheaper price. So naturally I'm willing to have some China risk in the Munger portfolio. How much China risk, well that's not a scientific subject, but I don't mind whatever it is, 18% or something, whatever. Whatever's worked out in the Munger family, it's okay with me.
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