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Uncle Carl doesn't like the Berkshire financing deal with Occidental.

 

The suit questions Occidental Chief Executive Officer Vicki Hollub, who fended off a competing takeover offer for Anadarko from Chevron Corp., as well as her deal with Buffett. “A ninety-minute deal ‘negotiation’ with one of history’s canniest investors, is no place to gain M&A experience -- at least if you care about protecting your stockholders," the suit said.

 

The suit also criticizes the $8.8 billion agreement to sell Anadarko’s African assets to Total SA. “From all appearances it seems that Occidental sold these assets in a quickly arranged fire sale before it even owned them.”

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-30/icahn-challenges-occidental-s-hugely-overpriced-anadarko-deal

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https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/06/03/1559583403000/A-crypto-Buffett-lunch-is-on-the-cards--Poor-Warren-Buffett-/

 

In 2017, mid ICO mania, Warren Buffett predicted that initial coin offerings would end badly.

 

So one can only imagine his delight upon finding out that the highest bidder for his annual charity lunch was Justin Sun, the founder of the TRX token, which raised $70m in an ICO in 2017. Sun is also the CEO of Tron, a blockchain-based gaming platform (which uses the TRX token):

 

 

More than that: as you can see in the tweet above, Sun reckons he's going to be inviting "#blockchain industry leaders" to join him for the lunch too (is he allowed to do that?). Poor Warren Buffett.

 

Sun's winning bid was $4,567,888 -- a record bid for the annual lunch, which has been running for 20 years, and smashing the previous record by over $1m. Small fry, though, for a token with a stated "market cap" of about $2.5bn.

 

Poor Warren ;D

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https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/06/03/1559583403000/A-crypto-Buffett-lunch-is-on-the-cards--Poor-Warren-Buffett-/

 

In 2017, mid ICO mania, Warren Buffett predicted that initial coin offerings would end badly.

 

So one can only imagine his delight upon finding out that the highest bidder for his annual charity lunch was Justin Sun, the founder of the TRX token, which raised $70m in an ICO in 2017. Sun is also the CEO of Tron, a blockchain-based gaming platform (which uses the TRX token):

 

 

More than that: as you can see in the tweet above, Sun reckons he's going to be inviting "#blockchain industry leaders" to join him for the lunch too (is he allowed to do that?). Poor Warren Buffett.

 

Sun's winning bid was $4,567,888 -- a record bid for the annual lunch, which has been running for 20 years, and smashing the previous record by over $1m. Small fry, though, for a token with a stated "market cap" of about $2.5bn.

 

Poor Warren ;D

 

This is probably the "What's Wrong, Warren?" moment of 2019.

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Kraft Heinz (KHC) has now filed its 10-K for year ended 29th Dec 2018 with the SEC. In various stories such as this from Reuters we hear that KHC has completed its internal investigation into accounting practices, and the results are much in line with the 8-K filed in early May. They say the amounts of prior year misstatements were immaterial from a quantitative perspective but qualitatively the misconduct is material and lasted some time. A regulatory probe is still ongoing. This seems to differ from some of the interpretations in the KHC thread on Investment Ideas.

 

Berkshire's 26.7% share of the original annual results including the write-downs, were incorporated into Berkshire's Annual Report and 2018 earnings and book value under Equity Method Accounting and it appears that the differences will be largely immaterial to Berkshire's results presentation, though they will probably make minor adjustments to some of the figures reported next quarter and potentially restate some items for current and prior years in the 2019 10-K next February, even if the changes are minor.

 

The KHC 10-Q for the first quarter is still awaited, and only after that is released can Berkshire incorporate its share of those earnings. My guess back in early May was that a typical Q1 for KHC would contribute about 200-230 million USD to Berkshire's earnings adding about $0.09 of Book Value per BRK.B share (around $130 of BV per BRK.A share). The dividends to Berkshire of 130 million USD per quarter at $0.40 per share would have been reflected in cash in hand already but also deducted from the carrying value of KHC in book value already under Equity Method Accounting, so their share of KHC's Q1 net earnings should add directly to BV when known, if I understand correctly.

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I understand it exactly the same way as you do, Dynamic,

 

Recently, I have been pretty annoyed about KHC - as a part of the Berkshire sphere - not being in compliance with regulatory reporting requirements for a US listed company. I've spent a couple hours today reading the KHC 10-K. It has softened me up a lot. The work with the KHC 10-K is from a professional angle to me very good, - at first glance. David Knopf - the KHC CFO - appears to me to be competent - he's fairly young, 31 years old. I need to study the 10-K more, as of now.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-11/why-is-warren-buffett-s-berkshire-hathaway-borrowing-in-europe

 

edit:

Red herring prospectus filed, no size or rates yet.  Expect rates to be awfully low for such long dated paper

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312519170674/d753526d424b2.htm

 

I don't believe this signals any impending European acquisition.  Berkshire isn't the type to borrow and then announce a buyout.  Just an opportunistic sale of ridiculously low interest bonds.

 

2nd edit:

 

Sounds like they dropped the Euro issuance and borrowed 1.75 Billion pounds instead (20 year and 40 year durations)

https://www.globalcapital.com/article/b1fthckhhnk9hc/berkshire-hathaway-drops-euros-breaks-sterling-long-bond-record-instead

 

Final rates -

 

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312519172618/d753526d424b2.htm

BH_bond_issue.pdf

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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-11/why-is-warren-buffett-s-berkshire-hathaway-borrowing-in-europe

 

edit:

Red herring prospectus filed, no size or rates yet.  Expect rates to be awfully low for such long dated paper

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312519170674/d753526d424b2.htm

 

I don't believe this signals any impending European acquisition.  Berkshire isn't the type to borrow and then announce a buyout.  Just an opportunistic sale of ridiculously low interest bonds.

 

2nd edit:

 

Sounds like they dropped the Euro issuance and borrowed 1.75 Billion pounds instead (20 year and 40 year durations)

https://www.globalcapital.com/article/b1fthckhhnk9hc/berkshire-hathaway-drops-euros-breaks-sterling-long-bond-record-instead

 

Final rates -

 

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312519172618/d753526d424b2.htm

 

Amazing notes transactions, gfp,

 

Thank you for sharing. Berkshire working on both sides of its balance sheet. Do you know who is the decision maker at Berkshire on such transactions? - Mr. Buffett, or is this perhaps the playground for Mr. Hamburg?

 

To me it's incomprehensible that somebody will tie up capital for 20 & 40 years respectively on such conditions. I wonder who is buying this stuff?

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I am fairly certain it is the pension funds of Europe. Berkshire is a better/safer bet than the negative yields.

 

https://www.ipe.com/analysis/analysis/ipe-top-1000-european-pension-assets-grow-by-9/10014864.article

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-11/why-is-warren-buffett-s-berkshire-hathaway-borrowing-in-europe

 

edit:

Red herring prospectus filed, no size or rates yet.  Expect rates to be awfully low for such long dated paper

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312519170674/d753526d424b2.htm

 

I don't believe this signals any impending European acquisition.  Berkshire isn't the type to borrow and then announce a buyout.  Just an opportunistic sale of ridiculously low interest bonds.

 

2nd edit:

 

Sounds like they dropped the Euro issuance and borrowed 1.75 Billion pounds instead (20 year and 40 year durations)

https://www.globalcapital.com/article/b1fthckhhnk9hc/berkshire-hathaway-drops-euros-breaks-sterling-long-bond-record-instead

 

Final rates -

 

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000119312519172618/d753526d424b2.htm

 

Amazing notes transactions, gfp,

 

Thank you for sharing. Berkshire working on both sides of its balance sheet. Do you know who is the decision maker at Berkshire on such transactions? - Mr. Buffett, or is this perhaps the playground for Mr. Hamburg?

 

To me it's incomprehensible that somebody will tie up capital for 20 & 40 years respectively on such conditions. I wonder who is buying this stuff?

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I am fairly certain it is the pension funds of Europe. Berkshire is a better/safer bet than the negative yields. ...

 

Thanks, shalab,

 

That makes sense, perhaps combined with local/national capital allocation restrictions among asset classes for those pension funds. Viewed isolated it just looks like the last idiot isen't dead yet.

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"To me it's incomprehensible that somebody will tie up capital for 20 & 40 years respectively on such conditions. I wonder who is buying this stuff?"

 

The long and low interest game has introduced a relative idiocy paradigm. Another area to look for potential candidates are European life insurers who own huge chunks of the fixed income market and who have to deal with guaranteed return and duration mismatches. The 90's Japanese experience comes to mind for life insurers. Fairfax recently issued 10-year bonds with (from memory) the lowest coupon ever for that duration. Forgetting all global unintended consequences for a minute, what's not to like when risk is basically free?

 

On the who's buying question and their state of mind in Europe, prolonged ultra-low interest rates can produce weird phenomena. In the last few years, it has been possible, in some instances and in a few European countries, to finance or refinance individual mortgages at a negative (!) yield for quite significant durations. In those specific cases, it looks like the financial institution would choose to incrementally lower the principal owed instead of paying interest to the customer. ???

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/bankers-stunned-as-negative-rates-sweep-across-danish-mortgages

 

Mr. Buffett is a fundamental investor though he has been suspected of occasional bets on currencies. The recent UK currency issue seems just like a specific opportunity for cheap capital and perhaps will match in due course specific asset investments. Yesterday, I came across an interesting piece that shows how challenging it will be for him or his legacy to beat the crowd. I would bet that the ability to do so will be based on rationality.

https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2019/06/warren-buffett-versus-s-500.html#.XQPiZ9NKjOQ

 

 

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