Buffett/Berkshire - general news

[Eldad]

2 hours ago, KPO said:

Yes. If there isn’t a directive, Greg isn’t doing his job. I don’t think one of the 4-5 largest purchasers of connectors, anchors, and truss plates is buying from Menards, or paint from retailers. At least I’d hope their supply chain is more sophisticated, or soon will be. If not, it’s a great efficiency opportunity lost, plus it would be disappointing to see them financially supporting the competition.

Gotta trust the managers to make those decisions for their company. They spent a large potion of the AGM preaching decentralization. 

[KPO]

Just now, Eldad said:

Gotta trust the managers to make those decisions for their company. They spent a large potion of the AGM preaching decentralization. 

Exactly. Create a construction platform, chemicals platform, retail platform, etc. and let the CEOs of each manage. Of course they already have the insurance platform. Makes sense to me. I do hope they start selling or winding down irrelevant companies where they have no prospect of scale to maximize cash flow. 

[NnnnotSoSmart]

4 hours ago, ander said:

Berkshire buying of course suggests it is an attractive priced security or some element of if AI is going to be a big part of economy having a 2.5% investment (incl current holding) via GOOG may be reasonable and the best way to express it. Because even if it's wrong, the other pieces of GOOG likely support current share price.

The private placement was done at $351.8 per Class A and $348.2 per Class C share. 

 

This increases BRK's GOOG(L) position by 50% above the latest 3/31/26 13F.. 
 
During April:
GOOGL traded at prices ranging from $291-348/share.
GOOG traded at prices ranging from $290-340/share.

Those prices are less than what BRK paid in the private placement.

The probability that they picked up additional GOOG(L) shares in the open market during April is greater than zero.

 

We'll see...
.
 

Edited Tuesday at 01:30 AM by NnnnotSoSmart

[Spekulatius]

4 hours ago, Munger_Disciple said:

I am a little surprised that Berkshire is buying stock at a 25X multiple. I was hoping that it would be a convertible preferred stock with a big coupon attached. Why not a $10B buyback instead?

Indeed the end of an era. WEB never bought anything above 15x earnings as far as I recall.

[scorpioncapital]

I wonder if Greg learned something and taking some lessons from the Japanese conglomerate houses which also have these interlocked conglomerate structures? I mean Alphabet is a conglomerate and now Brk owns part of that. 

[73 Reds]

9 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Indeed the end of an era. WEB never bought anything above 15x earnings as far as I recall.

Maybe, but not sure why current earrings have anything to do with companies that Berkshire acquires.    

[John Hjorth]

13 hours ago, yesman182 said:

I have doubt, why do you think Berkshire will start specifying internal purchasing? Benjamin Moore isn’t a new construction paint company, the county I live in has 1 Benjamin Moore store and dozens of sherwin williams, so in my area all commercial and new construction painters use sherwin Williams and I suspect that’s the same for most areas. Similar story with Simpson vs mitek hangers. Every lumber yard in my area stocks Simpson hangers, you can only buy mitek at Menards. I don’t see that an as easy switch. You think there will be an internal directive to only order from Berkshire companies? 

 

13 hours ago, KPO said:

Yes. If there isn’t a directive, Greg isn’t doing his job. I don’t think one of the 4-5 largest purchasers of connectors, anchors, and truss plates is buying from Menards, or paint from retailers. At least I’d hope their supply chain is more sophisticated, or soon will be. If not, it’s a great efficiency opportunity lost, plus it would be disappointing to see them financially supporting the competition.

 

@yesman182 & @KPO,

 

A 'directive' could also be a request, call, invitation and suggestion for meeeting to discuss a frame work for collaboration on various aspects of activities among Berkshire subs engaged in a broad sense in home building, where it would make sense for all, 'just' hooking them up', as colleagues.

 

No matter what will be happening, it will be interresting.

[Pellom]

Agree with most here that it's a puzzling decision based on valuation alone. 

 

But there are other factors we're not privy to, of course, and over the long term I think owning a chunk Alphabet is better for shareholders than having $10B in cash today. 

 

Just speculation and rumination, but it'll be interesting to see if this is Berkshire "picking their horse" in the AI capex boom. Not to say they are making a prediction about an ultimate winner or loser, but I remember at last year's AGM, Greg was adamant they would not let data centers hook up to BHE without the implicit understanding the data center(s) wouldn't receive preferential treatment, and that rates would not be increased for smaller customers due to capacity constraints. My feeling is Greg (and probably Warren too) feel more comfortable about how Alphabet's management is approaching these issues than the other players, but again, that is just speculation. 

[Pellom]

Quote

Implicit in this analysis was that there was enough compute capacity in the world to be bought; what happens, however, when and if there isn’t? What if the ultimate battle — the one that determines who gets compute — becomes a matter of who can bring the most cash to bear? And what if that advantage compounds, such that the company with the most cash capacity ends up with the most compute capacity (which we already know they will sell, in addition to using themselves) driving the ability to generate more cash? In that world, what company would be your best bet?

 

We now know which one Berkshire Hathaway is betting on.

 

 

https://stratechery.com/2026/the-google-capital-company/

Edited Tuesday at 02:04 PM by Pellom

[rogermunibond]

The interesting thing from this investment by Greg Abel is that BRK is undoubtedly a customer of Google Cloud, as well as MSFT Azure, and AWS.  And Abel probably has the technical competence to see what makes the GCP more valuable over time than say Azure or AWS.

 

 

[Eldad]

4 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Maybe, but not sure why current earrings have anything to do with companies that Berkshire acquires.    

Well we know WB’s conservatism doesn’t project 20 or even 15 % growth rates into the future so it’s different anyway you slice it. 

[73 Reds]

5 minutes ago, Eldad said:

Well we know WB’s conservatism doesn’t project 20 or even 15 % growth rates into the future so it’s different anyway you slice it. 

I think the difference is that WEB has always been averse to real estate investments (even though he often uses a farm in his analogies for income producing assets) and Greg is not.  

[Charlie]

The interesting fact is that Greg Abel in the first months as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway is

that he is correcting Buffett and Mungers few "business mistakes":

 

- He wanted to sell the Kraft Heinz shares.

- He is increasing efficiency in the operating businesses.

- He restarted the share repurchase programm.

- He is investing in "god" Google, which seems to have great business momentum/ could be 

the AI winner.

 

Or as Buffett said: "Greg is a very, very, very, very smart business man."

We, Berkshire Hathaway shareholder, should be so lucky to have him. 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 12:09 AM by Charlie

[KPO]

40 minutes ago, Charlie said:

The interesting fact is that Greg Abel in the first months as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway is

that he is correcting Buffett and Mungers few "business mistakes":

 

- He wanted to sell the Kraft Heinz shares.

- He is increasing efficiency in the operating businesses.

- He restarted the share repurchase programm.

- He is investing in "god" Google, which seems to have great business momentum/ could be 

the AI winner.

 

Or as Buffett said: "Greg is a very, very, very, very smart business man."

We, Berkshire Hathaway shareholder, should be so lucky to have him. 

 

 

Worth watching: https://www.forbes.com/sites/garthfriesen/2026/04/25/spacex-ipo-is-forcing-changes-to-index-and-underwriting-rules/

 

If I’m a financial advisor that typically defaults to the indexes, do I like this? Second order effect….what are my alternatives?
 

Many hate Berkshire because they have limited tech exposure and no SpaceX or AI exposure. Check out the second largest SpaceX shareholder. Who now has exposure to AI, but not to the tune of 35-40% of net income as the S&P has? Berkshire is spreading their bets and becoming a better index. I like what I’m seeing from Greg in this first two quarters. 

[Spekulatius]

LOL

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Spekulatius

[John Hjorth]

7 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

LOL

 

 

I like the entertainment around here! 

 

Different men, different points in time, both men right!  Naturally 'easy' for everyone to understand! 

[mattee2264]

Changing of the guard really. 

 

Buffett did say he regretted not investing in Google back in the days when they had a wonderful monopoly with Google Ads a tollgate business. 

 

But Google are a different animal now they are betting their future on AI. Buffett has enough intellectual honesty and humility to admit he doesn't understand AI. Greg presumably thinks he does. 

 

One interesting perspective which might bring Google within Berkshire's circle of competence is that the Big Tech companies are becoming a lot more like heavy industry/utility companies with high capex requirements and making a lot more money from commoditised products such as cloud/compute and LLMs also are becoming commodity like as they are all trained on the same public databases and deliver similar outputs. 

 

Although those type of companies generally don't sell for 30x earnings so I think there is some overvaluation risk. 

 

 

 

[Gamecock-YT]

Don’t really understand the Google deal from either parties perspective. Is Google concerned about their credit rating that they’d rather raise equity than debt? 
 

If you are Berkshire do you want to get involved with committing capital at this point in the cycle when all the other AI players are going public? That screams late cycle. Sure, maybe on a sum of the parts if you think you can get a piece of YouTube, Waymo, etc. 

 

I could see Buffett doing the home builder deal, but I don’t see him ever doing the Google deal unless he’s getting a sweetener. 
 

I guess Able can always provide them a Goldman-like sweetheart deal when the AI trade blows up. 

[73 Reds]

12 hours ago, Charlie said:

The interesting fact is that Greg Abel in the first months as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway is

that he is correcting Buffett and Mungers few "business mistakes":

 

- He wanted to sell the Kraft Heinz shares.

- He is increasing efficiency in the operating businesses.

- He restarted the share repurchase programm.

- He is investing in "god" Google, which seems to have great business momentum/ could be 

the AI winner.

 

Or as Buffett said: "Greg is a very, very, very, very smart business man."

We, Berkshire Hathaway shareholder, should be so lucky to have him. 

 

 

+1. I think it all comes down to a change in investment objectives.  Buffett's was purely preservation of wealth.  Greg's is more growth.  I prefer the latter.

[Pellom]

9 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

LOL

 

 

I read this from someone on the board, so not taking credit, but I think they were waiting for Ron Olson to leave the board of directors. 

Edited 12 hours ago by Pellom

[thepupil]

1 hour ago, Gamecock-YT said:

Don’t really understand the Google deal from either parties perspective. Is Google concerned about their credit rating that they’d rather raise equity than debt? 
 

If you are Berkshire do you want to get involved with committing capital at this point in the cycle when all the other AI players are going public? That screams late cycle. Sure, maybe on a sum of the parts if you think you can get a piece of YouTube, Waymo, etc. 

 

I could see Buffett doing the home builder deal, but I don’t see him ever doing the Google deal unless he’s getting a sweetener. 
 

I guess Able can always provide them a Goldman-like sweetheart deal when the AI trade blows up. 

 

one thing I haven't seen discussed too much is a goal of portfolio simplification. they were net sellers of $10 billion of stocks in Q1 (from Q), completely exiting 16 stocks, going from 40--->26 (quick AI search result). 

 

Would i prefer a berkshire that owns $30B or $50B or $60B of Google, researches the company well, interacts with management in a real way, learns stuff about what's goinng on in the world from that diligence/ownership to one that owns 16 meaningless stock positions managed by a mediocre market neutral financials PM that happened to charm Buffett (which is who Todd Combs was)....of course, I'd prefer that that, it's not like he sold 50 cent dollars to buy Google.

 

now in reality that's not how it went down exactly. Todd left, he blew out of todd's portfolio...the alphabet deal came together over weekend, goldman called Berkshire and berkshire took it down. but in substance, we have a Berkshire that has a still small, but more material position in a leading business rather than a berkshire that owns a bunch of meaningless positions....even if it's not particularly "cheap" 

 

this is also marketing. you're showing that you're good for 11 figures over a weekend at a very reasonable / commercial discount. 

 

it's also not wildly off from an index like position in alphabet, not that Berkshire is direct indexing....but 

 

 

there's like 6 stocks that matter 

 

Apple ($70B)

Amex ($47B)

Coke ($30B)

Japan (trading houses) ~$30B

Alphabet ($30B)

Energy (CVX/OXY) ~$30B

 

[Gamecock-YT]

22 minutes ago, thepupil said:

 

one thing I haven't seen discussed too much is a goal of portfolio simplification. they were net sellers of $10 billion of stocks in Q1 (from Q), completely exiting 16 stocks, going from 40--->26 (quick AI search result). 

 

Would i prefer a berkshire that owns $30B or $50B or $60B of Google, researches the company well, interacts with management in a real way, learns stuff about what's goinng on in the world from that diligence/ownership to one that owns 16 meaningless stock positions managed by a mediocre market neutral financials PM that happened to charm Buffett (which is who Todd Combs was)....of course, I'd prefer that that, it's not like he sold 50 cent dollars to buy Google.

 

now in reality that's not how it went down exactly. Todd left, he blew out of todd's portfolio...the alphabet deal came together over weekend, goldman called Berkshire and berkshire took it down. but in substance, we have a Berkshire that has a still small, but more material position in a leading business rather than a berkshire that owns a bunch of meaningless positions....even if it's not particularly "cheap" 

 

this is also marketing. you're showing that you're good for 11 figures over a weekend at a very reasonable / commercial discount. 

 

it's also not wildly off from an index like position in alphabet, not that Berkshire is direct indexing....but 

 

 

there's like 6 stocks that matter 

 

Apple ($70B)

Amex ($47B)

Coke ($30B)

Japan (trading houses) ~$30B

Alphabet ($30B)

Energy (CVX/OXY) ~$30B

 

I mean, everyone knows Berkshire, it’s not like they need to give some sweet deal to let them know they are open for business. Barring the Fed, they are a pseudo-lender of last resort as long as the terms are grossly in their favor. 
 

and sure, it’s an index position, but barring Apple, all the big players having rapidly expanded their capex. The Google of Buffett rueing not investing isn’t necessary the Google of today. but again, if you quantify the value of YouTube and Waymo, maybe you think your downside is protected? 
 

but end of the day I don’t think having Todd’s money burning a hole in your pocket is a good reason to deploy at this point into Google. Especially without getting a sweetener on top. 

Edited 11 hours ago by Gamecock-YT

[gfp]

A lot of the reporting seems to imply Berkshire is buying up here for the first time.  Berkshire started building a major position below $200 / share and is adding to an already large and profitable holding.

 

It sucks when a stock you are buying over several quarters goes up but sometimes the worse mistake is anchoring on your starting cost basis and pausing the accumulation and missing out entirely - which Berkshire has plenty of experience in.

 

Now lets have Greg announce full acquisitions of AMRZ and EQT before year end and people might start to appreciate his swagger

[thowed]

30 minutes ago, thepupil said:

 

one thing I haven't seen discussed too much is a goal of portfolio simplification. they were net sellers of $10 billion of stocks in Q1 (from Q), completely exiting 16 stocks, going from 40--->26 (quick AI search result). 

 

Would i prefer a berkshire that owns $30B or $50B or $60B of Google, researches the company well, interacts with management in a real way, learns stuff about what's goinng on in the world from that diligence/ownership to one that owns 16 meaningless stock positions managed by a mediocre market neutral financials PM that happened to charm Buffett (which is who Todd Combs was)....of course, I'd prefer that that, it's not like he sold 50 cent dollars to buy Google.

 

now in reality that's not how it went down exactly. Todd left, he blew out of todd's portfolio...the alphabet deal came together over weekend, goldman called Berkshire and berkshire took it down. but in substance, we have a Berkshire that has a still small, but more material position in a leading business rather than a berkshire that owns a bunch of meaningless positions....even if it's not particularly "cheap" 

 

this is also marketing. you're showing that you're good for 11 figures over a weekend at a very reasonable / commercial discount. 

 

it's also not wildly off from an index like position in alphabet, not that Berkshire is direct indexing....but 

 

 

there's like 6 stocks that matter 

 

Apple ($70B)

Amex ($47B)

Coke ($30B)

Japan (trading houses) ~$30B

Alphabet ($30B)

Energy (CVX/OXY) ~$30B

 

 

Thanks, yes, I find this a decent way of looking at it.  I always say you can never underestimate how hard succession is, but Todd did not seem to work.  No doubt Google will go in and out of favour in time, but it still feels to me like one of the world's best businesses with a pretty strong moat (it's a verb!) and so good for BRK to own for decades.

[jbwent63]

A couple of comments/thoughts:

 

1. The Japanese Trading Houses and Tokio Marine Holdings have a current market value of about $42.7 billion (even after the last month of significant underperformance vs the Nikkei 300).

2. Is it possible that in the background Google is dealing with BHE for electricity for its AI infrastructure build out, and BH's investment in GOOG is a way to ensure BHE is a long-term partner in that electricity business?