Look through portfolio - Google Sheets with live prices

[Dynamic]

I compared the top 15 holdings shown on page 12 of the Annual Report to my assumed holdings and found that there were three errors, while everything else matched, so I have modified my post showing the changes from 2018Q3's portfolio. Not only did the shareholdings match, but when hard-coding the closing prices at 31st Dec 2018 the value of each holding rounded to exactly the same figure as shown on p12.

 

The errors were:

1. US Bancorp (USB) I completely missed out 4,840,500 shares with manager code 2,4,11. These are now included and the shareholding is correct. The only pension fund holdings are those with manager code 4 and I correctly exclude these.

 

2. Southwest Airlines (LUV) I had slightly fewer shares because I incorrectly attributed shares held by Medical Protective Company on p9 of 15 in the SC 13G/A filing to Pension Funds. These 8,722 shares are now correctly attributed to shareholders of Berkshire, while all remaining pension fund holdings remain deducted.

 

3. Charter Communications (CHTR) was showing far too few shares attributable to BRK shareholders. Without a SC 13G filing, I have simply put in the adjustment of -244,445 shares as the assumed Pension Fund holding, with a note beside it referring to p12 of the 2018 Annual Report, noting that it has changed since my assumptions based on the 2017 Annual Report.

 

A further item to note, having compared the portfolio value based on closing prices at 31 Dec 2018 to Berkshire's reported value of shareholdings attributable to Berkshire shareholders, is that my assumed portfolio value was approx $172,296 million excluding KHC (without perfect exchange rates for assumed foreign shares), while the annual report indicated $172,757 million. This implies that it's very likely that the Sanofi holding on Euronext remains in the portfolio, though by my calculation it is outside the top 15 positions. I made it the 16th largest position at year end, equating to about $1,755 million with a currency error I didn't adjust exactly, while BYD was 17th at $1,680 million (with currency error), GM was 18th at $1,515 million, V (Visa) was 19th at $1,394 million and VRSN was 20th at $1,172 million.

 

I also updated the sheet to include the correct Book Value attributable to Berkshire Shareholders and the year-end shares outstanding (exactly matching the reported Book Value per A share equivalent). I also entered the $3,652 million in Dividends received divided by the share count into cell $AH3.

 

This year EPS is of course crazy, only slightly exceeding the dividends thanks to GAAP forcing the inclusion of unrealized portfolio losses in EPS, thus EPS excluding dividends is tiny. Depending on your purpose, you may wish to use Operating Earnings instead to analyse the profitability of the operating part of Berkshire and ignore the effects of the portfolio.

 

The EPS for the investees is likely to be less distorted than for Berkshire, so the Look-Through Portfolio EPS of $5.42 per BRK.B share  equivalent (in cell AH70, after excluding KHC's negative contribution this year thanks to their recent writedowns, which should not be included as it is accounted under the Equity Method) is probably pretty reasonable.

 

Summary of quarterly changes (errors have been struck through, but are to be edited in the original post):

AAL_________ American Airlin…Group Inc ____unch _unchanged count
AAPL________ Apple Inc._______________ __-0.02% _________-51,697
AXP_________ American Express Co______ ____unch _unchanged count
AXTA________ Axalta Coating …stems Ltd ____unch _unchanged count
BAC_________ Bank of America…rporation ___2.10% ______18,919,000
BIT:CASS____ Società Cattoli…operativa ____unch _unchanged count
BK__________ Bank of New Yor…llon Corp ___3.79% _______3,087,774
[s]CHTR________ Charter Communi…tions Inc __-5.45% ________-307,486[/s]
COST________ Costco Wholesale Corp____ ____unch _unchanged count
DAL_________ Delta Air Lines, Inc_____ ____unch _unchanged count
DEO_________ Diageo P L C Spon ADR New ____unch _unchanged count
DVA_________ DaVita HealthCa…tners Inc ____unch _unchanged count
GM__________ General Motors Co________ __77.78% ______19,808,285
GS__________ Goldman Sachs Group Inc__ ____unch _unchanged count
HCG_________ Home Capital Gr… (CANADA) ____unch _unchanged count
JNJ_________ Johnson & Johnson________ ____unch _unchanged count
JPM_________ JPMorgan Chase & Co______ __39.91% ______14,451,627
KHC_________ Kraft Heinz Co___________ ____unch _unchanged count
KO__________ Coca-Cola Co_____________ ____unch _unchanged count
LBTYA_______ Liberty Global …c Class A ____unch _unchanged count
LBTYK_______ Liberty Global …c Class C ____unch _unchanged count
LILAK_______ Liberty LiLAC Group C____ ____unch _unchanged count
LSXMA_______ Liberty Sirius … Series A ____unch _unchanged count
LSXMK_______ Liberty Sirius … Series C ____unch _unchanged count
[s]LUV_________ Southwest Airls Co_______ __-2.44% ______-1,200,000[/s]
MA__________ MasterCard Inc___________ ____unch _unchanged count
MCO_________ Moody's Corporation______ ____unch _unchanged count
MDLZ________ Mondelez Intern…ional Inc ____unch _unchanged count
MTB_________ M&T Bank Corp____________ ____unch _unchanged count
NASDAQ:LILA_ Liberty LiLAC Group A____ ____unch _unchanged count
ORCL________ Oracle Corp______________ -100.00% _____-42,691,791
PG__________ Proctor and Gamble_______ ____unch _unchanged count
PNC_________ PNC Financial S…Group Inc __30.27% _______2,175,743
PSX_________ Phillips 66______________ _-22.92% ______-3,537,182
QSR_________ Restaurant Bran…ional Inc ____unch _unchanged count
RHT_________ Red Hat Inc______________ _**NEW** _______4,175,792
SHE:002594__ BYD Company Limited______ ____unch _unchanged count
SIRI________ Sirius XM Hldgs Inc______ ____unch _unchanged count
SNY_________ Sanofi (incl Eu…v shares) ____unch _unchanged count
STNE________ StoneCo Ltd._____________ _**NEW** ______14,166,748
STOR________ Store Capital Corp_______ ____unch _unchanged count
SU__________ Suncor Energy Inc New____ _**NEW** _________300,901
SYF_________ Synchrony Financial _____ ____unch _unchanged count
TEVA________ Teva Pharmaceut…td (ADR)  ____unch _unchanged count
TMK_________ Torchmark Corp___________ ____unch _unchanged count
TRV_________ Travelers Companies Inc__ __67.32% _______2,414,703
UAL_________ United Continen…dings Inc _-15.57% ______-4,045,900
UPS_________ United Parcel S…Inc (UPS) ____unch _unchanged count
[s]USB_________ U.S. Bancorp_____________ ___3.20% _______4,385,739[/s]
USG_________ USG Corp_________________ ____unch _unchanged count
V___________ Visa Inc_________________ ____unch _unchanged count
VRSK________ Verisk Analytics Inc_____ _-75.84% ________-758,630
VRSN________ VeriSign Inc_____________ ____unch _unchanged count
VZ__________ Verizon Communi…tions Inc ____unch _unchanged count
WFC_________ Wells Fargo & Co_________ __-3.40% _____-15,806,898

[Dynamic]

Berkshire Hathaway has filed Form 3 and Form 4 with the SEC in respect of Delta Air Lines, Inc (DAL) common stock, first disclosing that they had become a 10% owner then giving details of their recent purchases.

 

This 10%+ ownership changes their reporting requirements, I believe, and would, I believe require them to report buy and sell transactions within a fairly short period of such transactions taking place. I know they have in the past applied for special dispensation to delay publication of their reporting, but I suspect the SEC is not inclined to grant this while they build their position.

 

Between 6th and 8th March they purchased an additional 5,368,956 shares of DAL and spent about $265,234,000 on these shares, giving a weighted average price of $49.4014 per share for the new purchases.

 

Between 13-F filings, I've now added the 5,368,956 shares to my sheets as an adjustment on COMBINED HOLDINGS under "Assumed non-US holdings & adjustments"

 

At 31 Jan 2019, DAL had 678,950,098 shares outstanding, so BRK's new holding of 70,903,956 represents a 10.44% stake in the company.

[Dynamic]

There is another Form 4 filing showing a little further buying of DAL on Monday 11th March 2019 at <$50 per share.

 

On the assumption this keeps happening I'll try to keep the sheets updated by changing the Adjustments column on COMBINED HOLDINGS worksheet, but I won't post here about it every time. At most I might Edit this post to note new filings.

 

If you want to see these Form 4 filings, this link (also included as a Source on COMBINED HOLDINGS column J) will show only the last 40 Ownership filings relating to Berkshire Hathaway. The Form 4 filings include the recent DAL purchases among other disclosures announced previously.

 

Fortunately, there are no Berkshire Pension Fund holdings of DAL (see form SC13 G/A) so the only adjustment needed in column J of my COMBINED HOLDINGS worksheet is the total of purchases since the last 13-F date of record.

 

     DAL   Delta Air Lines          Calculated                   
Date(US)   ShrsAdded Avg Cost      Cost of lot     Holding % held
12/31/18                                        65,535,000  9.65%
03/06/19   1,202,961 $49.6514   $59,728,697.80  66,737,961  9.83%
03/07/19   1,817,318 $49.2722   $89,543,255.96  68,555,279 10.10%
03/07/19       3,600 $49.7716      $179,177.76  68,558,879 10.10%
03/08/19   2,345,077 $49.3728  $115,783,017.71  70,903,956 10.44%
03/11/19       6,500 $49.9382      $324,598.30  70,910,456 10.44%

  TOTALS   5,375,456 $49.4021  $265,558,747.52  70,910,456 10.44%

[John Hjorth]

Dynamic,

 

Thank you for sharing your hard & cumbersome work with all the CoBF members, to the benefit of us all.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

For SU [suncore Energy] you have the number of shares held by Berkshire at 300,901, while the Berkshire 13-F/HR EOP 2018Q4 signals number of shares at 10,758,000. [You have typed in your file the value of the position instead of the number of shares.]

 

NEAM SU position EOP 2018Q4 I read to zero shares in the NEAM 13-F/HR.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

It does not matter much for the whole picture, however I've chosen to report it to you here, now that I've got aware of it.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Again, thank you very much for sharing your work, - for my part, it's really, really  appreciated.

[Dynamic]

Hi John, thank you so much for checking my work and finding an error I'd missed! That's the beauty of sharing these things.

 

I've now made the correction to SU and I'll edit the posts above about the changes in holdings accordingly.

 

I may decide to implement a method of pasting the 13-Fs and parsing them to extract the info without error. I just did it for the DAL Form 4's, so I think it shouldn't be too hard to do and should reduce the likelihood of human error on my part.

 

With that correction, my estimate of the total market value of holdings (excluding KHC) at 31 Dec 2018 is $173,342 million.

This is about $585 million more than the $172,757 reported on page 12 of the Chairman's Letter in the 2018 Annual Report (and all 15 stocks there rounded to exactly my numbers after I made a couple of corrections to mine).

 

I think it's possible that I have some more errors or that I'm unaware of or there are some pension fund holdings for companies where a SC 13/G or similar form has not been filed. It's also possible that one of the non US holdings not reported to the SEC is not at the last know size - for example Sanofi's ADRs were sold a while ago, but the last known equivalent amount of ADR is still on my sheet to reflect the majority of those that were purchased on Euronext Paris, and the year-end market value would have put it in 16th place, just outside the top 15 shown. The other potential source of error is again for foreign holdings where I haven't gone back and taken year-end currency exchange rates.

[Dynamic]

The purchase of USG Corp by Knauf completed on Wednesday at $43.50 per share (in addition to the special $0.50 dividend in Q4 2018) so I've now modified the sheets hard coded to $43.50 to reflect the cash proceeds before tax and I've zeroed the EPS figure. I'll eliminate the position when the 13-F comes out on 15th May.

[John Hjorth]

Thank you for the heads-up, Dynamic,

 

I really appreciate your tool.

[Dynamic]

Note 4 in the 2019Q1 10-Q results indicates that about 16.8 million shares of WFC were sold in the quarter up to 31st March 2019, as usual to ensure that ownership remains below 10%. I've modified the WFC holding accordingly so that the value of the holding at the 31st March closing price matches the reported stake. That is reported to the nearest 0.1 billion USD so I can only estimate to 3 significant figures right now, but better to roughly right than precisely wrong.

 

When the 13-F comes out on 15th May we'll have the accurate shareholding and I'll remove that adjustment. The other major holdings shown in Note 4 of the 10-Q (AXP, AAPL, BAC, KO etc) appear to be unchanged as the quarter-close valuations match my figures when rounded to the nearest $0.1 bn.

[Dynamic]

The new 13-F showing the portfolio position at 31st March has been published.

 

As always the primary_doc mentions New England Asset Management (NEAM) under heading List of Other Managers Reporting for this Manager and as usual the 13-F for NEAM has a primary_doc which includes:

 

List of Other Included Managers:

No. Form 13F File Number Name

1 028-04545 BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC

2 028-04922 GENERAL RE CORP

 

But this time, instead of "01 02" in the OTHER MANAGER column of the 13-F, they use "1 2", which is simply a change of formatting.

 

The Berkshire holdings in NEAM's 13-F are not widely reported on.

 

Only one change to their Berkshire holdings - the Berkshire position in VRSK Verisk Analytics is no longer present.

 

Next quarter, we will see that USG is absent after the takeover by Knauf was completed. For now I'm leaving USG in there and have hard-coded the takeover price of $43.50 as the cash proceeds after tax will be invested by Berkshire or will add to their cash balance.

 

Turning to Berkshire's own 13-F:

 

AMZN Amazon is new 483,300 shares - currently worth around $0.9bn having risen about 5.1% since the end of Q1. I'd guess it's Ted Weschler's position, but it could also be Todd Combs, and each manages around $13bn. Warren Buffett says it's not his own. I have assumed it's not invested for the benefit of pension funds until we find out otherwise.

 

CHTR Charter Comms has eliminated the position held for pension funds (was 244,445 shares) and also reduced the position for the benefit of Berkshire shareholders by about a million shares.

 

DAL Delta Air Lines - as we knew when they accidentally went over 10%, they now have about a 10.4% stake. The exact amount was confirmed by this 13-F so I have zeroed-out the adjustment column I used in the mean time.

 

JPM JPMORGAN CHASE & CO - a fairly substantial increase in stake.

 

PNC PNC FINL SVCS GROUP INC - another increase of about 5%

 

PSX PHILLIPS 66 - dropped by more than half. Possibly we'll find out it has all gone by 30th June.

 

RHT Red Hat Inc increased about 20%. My guess is it's Ted, perhaps Todd. I imagine it's a merger arbitrage play and now trades close to the expected closing price to be paid by IBM.

 

LUV Southwest Airls Co reduced slightly, probably to stay below 10%

 

WFC Wells Fargo reduced as usual to stay below 10%.

 

VRZN Verizon - this tiny 928 share position has now vanished.

 

Here's the summary table:

AAL_________ American Airlin…Group Inc ____unch _unchanged count
AAPL________ Apple Inc._______________ ____unch _unchanged count
AMZN________ Amazon Com Inc___________ _**NEW** _________483,300
AXP_________ American Express Co______ ____unch _unchanged count
AXTA________ Axalta Coating …stems Ltd ____unch _unchanged count
BAC_________ Bank of America…rporation ____unch _unchanged count
BIT:CASS____ Società Cattoli…operativa ____unch _unchanged count
BK__________ Bank of New Yor…llon Corp ____unch _unchanged count
CHTR________ Charter Communi…tions Inc _-18.81% ______-1,322,788
COST________ Costco Wholesale Corp____ ____unch _unchanged count
DAL_________ Delta Air Lines, Inc_____ ___8.20% _______5,375,456
DEO_________ Diageo P L C Spon ADR New ____unch _unchanged count
DVA_________ DaVita HealthCa…tners Inc ____unch _unchanged count
GHC_________ Graham Holdings Co_______ ________ ________________
GM__________ General Motors Co________ ____unch _unchanged count
GS__________ Goldman Sachs Group Inc__ ____unch _unchanged count
HCG_________ Home Capital Gr… (CANADA) ____unch _unchanged count
IBM_________ International B…ines Corp ________ ________________
JNJ_________ Johnson & Johnson________ ____unch _unchanged count
JPM_________ JPMorgan Chase & Co______ __18.55% _______9,398,538
KHC_________ Kraft Heinz Co___________ ____unch _unchanged count
KO__________ Coca-Cola Co_____________ ____unch _unchanged count
LBTYA_______ Liberty Global …c Class A ____unch _unchanged count
LBTYK_______ Liberty Global …c Class C ____unch _unchanged count
LILAK_______ Liberty LiLAC Group C____ ____unch _unchanged count
LSXMA_______ Liberty Sirius … Series A ____unch _unchanged count
LSXMK_______ Liberty Sirius … Series C ____unch _unchanged count
LUV_________ Southwest Airls Co_______ __-2.50% ______-1,198,186
MA__________ MasterCard Inc___________ ____unch _unchanged count
MCO_________ Moody's Corporation______ ____unch _unchanged count
MDLZ________ Mondelez Intern…ional Inc ____unch _unchanged count
MON_________ Monsanto Co New__________ ________ ________________
MTB_________ M&T Bank Corp____________ ____unch _unchanged count
NASDAQ:LILA_ Liberty LiLAC Group A____ ____unch _unchanged count
ORCL________ Oracle Corp______________ ________ ________________
PG__________ Proctor and Gamble_______ ____unch _unchanged count
PNC_________ PNC Financial S…Group Inc ___4.36% _________407,992
PSX_________ Phillips 66______________ _-53.32% ______-6,343,127
QSR_________ Restaurant Bran…ional Inc ____unch _unchanged count
RHT_________ Red Hat Inc______________ __22.38% _________934,679
SHE:002594__ BYD Company Limited______ ____unch _unchanged count
SIRI________ Sirius XM Hldgs Inc______ ____unch _unchanged count
SNY_________ Sanofi (incl Eu…v shares) ____unch _unchanged count
STNE________ StoneCo Ltd._____________ ____unch _unchanged count
STOR________ Store Capital Corp_______ ____unch _unchanged count
SU__________ Suncor Energy Inc New____ ____unch _unchanged count
SYF_________ Synchrony Financial _____ ____unch _unchanged count
TEVA________ Teva Pharmaceut…td (ADR)  ____unch _unchanged count
TMK_________ Torchmark Corp___________ ____unch _unchanged count
TRV_________ Travelers Companies Inc__ ____unch _unchanged count
UAL_________ United Continen…dings Inc ____unch _unchanged count
UPS_________ United Parcel S…Inc (UPS) ____unch _unchanged count
[color=green]USB_________ U.S. Bancorp_____________ ____unch _unchanged count (correction)[/color]
USG_________ USG Corp_________________ ____unch _unchanged count
V___________ Visa Inc_________________ ____unch _unchanged count
VRSK________ Verisk Analytics Inc_____ -100.00% ________-241,695
VRSN________ VeriSign Inc_____________ ____unch _unchanged count
VZ__________ Verizon Communi…tions Inc -100.00% ____________-928
WFC_________ Wells Fargo & Co_________ __-3.78% _____-16,965,129
WMT_________ Wal-Mart Stores Inc______ ________ ________________

 

I believe I've now updated both sheets to reflect the current known portfolio. The links in this old post will still work.

 

The spreadsheet I'd advise you to Make a copy of for your own use is:

• Berkshire Hathaway Look Through Earnings & Holdings

 

The spreadsheet that is publicly editable by anyone (but anyone can see any edits you make, the edit history, or corrupt the spreadsheet) is:

• Berkshire Look through earnings - Public editing allowed

 

As always, the holdings entered on the sheets are one-millionth of the total shares in issue as at 25th April, so the valuations and holdings of the company as a whole are expressed in $millions and millions of shares.

 

If you copy the sheet for private use using File/Make A Copy... you can enter your own holdings of Class A and Class B shares and see the look-through exposure of your own Berkshire position. You can also convert it to your preferred currency.

[Dynamic]

Thanks to a comment below a Seeking Alpha article about Berkshire's portfolio by Bower-Ranger I have now added Lanxess AG a German Chemical producer held via General Re AG at about a 5% stake since December 2017. As a non-US holding it won't ever be on the 13-F filings, but it's valued just over $250 million USD at recent prices, so it's worth including.

[Dynamic]

It turns out that I had missed a line of USB (US Bancorp) last quarter, so in fact the position is unchanged this time

 

[Dynamic]

I've discovered a few errors over the last 5 sets of 13F-HR filings which, for completeness, I'll list below. I think I should be able to automatically read in the 13F data into a spreadsheet in future and reduce or avoid the human error involved in doing so manually, and in testing that these human errors were found. I'll then copy and paste it into these Google Sheets. It should save me from reading the wrong column or mis-typing numbers most of the time!

 

4,840,500 missing USB shares in 14th Feb 2019 and 14th Nov 2018 Berkshire filings (didn't include that new row in the filing). This increase did not happen in Q1 2019, so I'll modify my post of 16th May 2019.

      600 missing JNJ shares in 14th Aug 2018 New England Asset Management filing (mis-typed figure)

  44,110 missing USB shares in 14th Aug 2018 New England Asset Management filing (figure from wrong column)

  107,575 extra GHC shares in 14th Aug 2018 and 15th May 2018 Berkshire filings, which had already been sold (didn't adequately check for absent items)

  300,000 missing LBTYA shares in 15th May 2018 filing (mis-typed figure)

 

I believe I made some other errors that were picked up by other forum members and corrected before now.

 

As always, these Google Sheets are provided on an as-is, best-effort basis and should not be relied upon to make important decisions, and the publicly editable version is potentially open to corruption by any person on the internet.

[gfp]

I was thinking this morning about how Charlie didn't hesitate when asked what large company Warren would be thrilled to purchase (or something to that effect).  He spit out Coke so quickly that it seemed well established in his mind.  I checked in on KO this morning and was surprised to see it breaking out to all time highs at $52 / share. 

 

edit: I see that American Express also hit an all-time high share price intraday today. 

[Dynamic]

I haven't looked at KO for a while. With a P/E in the 30s and over 3% yield, it pays out almost all of its earnings but is priced as a virtually indestructible consumer brand with pricing power to keep pace with general price inflation and possibly a bit higher, such as wage inflation. My guess is that it's seen by Mr Market as a defensive stock in case of economic declines, having worldwide earnings, little need for additional capital and products priced low enough that most people wouldn't switch to the cheaper alternatives that don't quite have that taste or those mental associations. Perhaps it has been seen as a 'safe' place for investors nervous of tariff wars or potential recessions. Some of the bottlers have occasionally been available at potentially attractive prices over the years.

 

Short of seeing some qualitative growth drivers, though, that are hard to envisage now it already has worldwide distribution, it seems that is pretty much fully priced to me.

 

I'm fairly sure Berkshire wouldn't be interested at these prices unless there's some hidden value I haven't noticed, but it looks like a perfect fit for Berkshire at the right price at some point - lots of cash being thrown off which could be rationally allocated to other things and would provide consistent cash inflows to rapidly replenish any large insurance losses.

[Dynamic]

In doing a little detective work in a thread about Li Lu's Himalaya Capital Management portfolio, finding out why they no longer need to file 13F I came across the SEC's 13F FAQ which clarifies a lot of the rules and provides links to a list of all the securities that are covered by rule 13F each quarter (including archives, such as 2018Q2 when Monsanto, spelled correctly in the SEC's list, was deleted having been taken over).

 

For those interested in the minutiae, there are a few nuggets extracted from the FAQ quoted on that post that may be of interest, including the clarification of the 13F filing dates, which are 45 days after the quarter ends but if that falls on a non-business day the deadline is delayed until the next business day (e.g. not a Saturday, Sunday, Presidents' Day Public Holiday etc), so while this happens to match the expected dates of 14th Feb, 15th May, 14th Aug, 14th Nov in 2019, the next filing that will be delayed is 2020Q3, where 14th Nov is a Saturday so the filing will be on Mon 16th Nov (unless that's a Public Holiday for some reason) and we won't get back to the normal 45 days after quarter-end until 14th Feb 2022 as they'll fall on weekends until then!

 

There are also descriptions of the confidential treatment provisions towards the end of the FAQ. Apparently when the confidentiality period ends, an amendment would be filed.

 

For some filers, but probably not Berkshire, they mention rules about not having to disclose or net-out short positions (including short options positions such as put-writing or call-writing) but the need to disclose all long positions. Interestingly, about 186 securities containing the word INDEX are on the list of reportable 13F securities, some of which seem to be ETFs and some CALL and PUT options too.

 

In other news, alongside automatically reading in the 13F filing data for Berkshire and the relevant entries from New England Asset Management so that I avoid so much human error in future, I believe I'm homing in on a good approach to simplifying the appearance and sort-ability of my Look-Through Portfolio. I'm trying that out in my private version, so I may well update it by about the time the next 13F drops on 14th August.

[John Hjorth]

Your analysis of what's been going on with the Himalaya Capital Management portfolio is just straight out awesome, Dynamic.

 

I also hold your work in this topic with the Berkshire portfolio very high, now during almost three years. To me, it's a gem - nothing less.

 

Thank you for sharing.

[shalab]

+1, excellent work!

 

Your analysis of what's been going on with the Himalaya Capital Management portfolio is just straight out awesome, Dynamic.

 

I also hold your work in this topic with the Berkshire portfolio very high, now during almost three years. To me, it's a gem - nothing less.

 

Thank you for sharing.

[Dynamic]

Thanks for the kind words. It has continued to be useful to me too, and I greatly appreciate all the help from everyone on this thread who have helped point me to new information or to spot errors, thus helping me to improve its usefulness to me and to everyone else. Nice to be part of a virtuous circle!

[gfp]

Hey Dynamic - do you have the American Airlines position size correct in the spreadsheet?  Thanks and good work as always

[Dynamic]

It's late here but I'll try to check tomorrow.

 

I think the 13F total agrees with my automated parsing to avoid human error, and that's 43.7 million shares.

 

In the adjustments column I subtract all the pension scheme assets and I've left the calculation which I entered manually from reading the 13G linked in the next column, so I'll try to check the figures tomorrow.

 

That subtracts 20.742 million shares almost halving the total on the 13F to leave only those for the benefit of Berkshire shareholders.

[gfp]

That makes sense - it was probably the original airline investment for Berkshire by Ted Weschler - he was the Doug Parker fan who got Berkshire into airlines first.  And I believe a good bit of what Ted and Todd manage is in subsidiary pension plans.

 

It's late here but I'll try to check tomorrow.

 

I think the 13F total agrees with my automated parsing to avoid human error, and that's 43.7 million shares.

 

In the adjustments column I subtract all the pension scheme assets and I've left the calculation which I entered manually from reading the 13G linked in the next column, so I'll try to check the figures tomorrow.

 

That subtracts 20.742 million shares almost halving the total on the 13F to leave only those for the benefit of Berkshire shareholders.

[Dynamic]

Incidentally, gfp, I have checked the values held in the pension plans against the 13ga filing and indeed they check out, totalling 20,742,000 shares owned by pension funds for employees and not owned for the benefit of Berkshire shareholders.

 

That's 47.46% of the total AAL shares reported in form 13F-HR that must be deducted.

 

Incidentally, I have made an Adjustment to the BAC total to reflect the Form 3 filing showing an increase of 31,080,000 share of BAC to reach a grand total of 950,000,000 shares (all of which are attributable to shareholders not pension funds).

 

All the major 'reliable' press I have seen has been getting this wrong by reporting that Berkshire added over 50 million shares since 31st March counting only the 896,167,600 on Berkshire's main 13F-HR and ignoring the 22,751,400 held via New England Asset Management (they don't read the cover page of the 13F-HR submission). The 10-K reports the previous total of 918,919,000 shares and the last 10-Q reports the correct closing market value using BAC's quarter end closing price, and the 13F filings published 14th Feb 2019 and 15th May 2019, combined, also gave 918,919,000 in total.

 

We don't know yet whether these purchases were made before 30th June or between 1st July and 17th July, though I suspect the former, meaning that all 950,000,000 will be split across the two 13F-HR filings (Berkshire and NEAM).

 

As BAC closed the quarter on $29.00 per share, this would be confirmed by a reported Q2 holding valued at $27.6bn ($27.550 billion rounded to nearest $0.1bn). Even one share less and the rounding would make it $27.5bn ($27,549,999,971 rounded down), surprisingly enough. Just days until we see the 10-Q now!

 

edit on 5th August: We now know that the increase to 950,000,000 shares did take place by 30th June as $27.6bn market value was reported in the Notes to the 10-Q.

[Dynamic]

AAL_________ American Airlin…Group Inc ____unch _unchanged count
AAPL________ Apple Inc._______________ ____unch _unchanged count
AMZN________ Amazon Com Inc___________ __11.20% _________537,300
AXP_________ American Express Co______ ____unch _unchanged count
AXTA________ Axalta Coating …stems Ltd ____unch _unchanged count
BAC_________ Bank of America…rporation ___3.40% _____950,000,000
BK__________ Bank of New Yor…llon Corp ____unch _unchanged count
CASS________ Società Cattoli…operativa ____unch _unchanged count
CHTR________ Charter Communi…tions Inc __-5.00% _______5,426,609
COST________ Costco Wholesale Corp____ ____unch _unchanged count
DAL_________ Delta Air Lines, Inc_____ ____unch _unchanged count
DEO_________ Diageo P L C Spon ADR New ____unch _unchanged count
DVA_________ DaVita HealthCa…tners Inc ____unch _unchanged count
GL__________ Globe Life Inc …ark Corp) ____unch _unchanged count
GM__________ General Motors Co________ ____unch _unchanged count
GS__________ Goldman Sachs Group Inc__ ____unch _unchanged count
HCG_________ Home Capital Gr… (CANADA) ____unch _unchanged count
HKG:1211____ BYD Company Lim… Listing) ____unch _unchanged count
JNJ_________ Johnson & Johnson________ ____unch _unchanged count
JPM_________ JPMorgan Chase & Co______ ____unch _unchanged count
KHC_________ Kraft Heinz Co___________ ____unch _unchanged count
KO__________ Coca-Cola Co_____________ ____unch _unchanged count
LBTYA_______ Liberty Global …c Class A ____unch _unchanged count
LBTYK_______ Liberty Global …c Class C ____unch _unchanged count
LILA________ Liberty LiLAC Group A____ ____unch _unchanged count
LILAK_______ Liberty LiLAC Group C____ ____unch _unchanged count
LSXMA_______ Liberty Sirius … Series A ____unch _unchanged count
LSXMK_______ Liberty Sirius … Series C ____unch _unchanged count
LUV_________ Southwest Airls Co_______ ____unch _unchanged count
LXS_________ Lanxess AG_______________ ____unch _unchanged count
MA__________ MasterCard Inc___________ ____unch _unchanged count
MCO_________ Moody's Corporation______ ____unch _unchanged count
MDLZ________ Mondelez Intern…ional Inc ____unch _unchanged count
MTB_________ M&T Bank Corp____________ ____unch _unchanged count
PG__________ Proctor and Gamble_______ ____unch _unchanged count
PNC_________ PNC Financial S…Group Inc ____unch _unchanged count
PSX_________ Phillips 66______________ ____unch _unchanged count
QSR_________ Restaurant Bran…ional Inc ____unch _unchanged count
RHT_________ Red Hat Inc______________ ___1.20% _______5,171,890
SAN_________ Sanofi Euronext Paris____ ____unch _unchanged count
SIRI________ Sirius XM Hldgs Inc______ ____unch _unchanged count
STNE________ StoneCo Ltd._____________ ____unch _unchanged count
STOR________ Store Capital Corp_______ ____unch _unchanged count
SU__________ Suncor Energy Inc New____ ____unch _unchanged count
SYF_________ Synchrony Financial______ ____unch _unchanged count
TEVA________ Teva Pharmaceut…Ltd (ADR) ____unch _unchanged count
TRV_________ Travelers Companies Inc__ ____unch _unchanged count
UAL_________ United Continen…dings Inc ____unch _unchanged count
UPS_________ United Parcel S…Inc (UPS) ____unch _unchanged count
USB_________ U.S. Bancorp_____________ ___2.20% _____149,497,786
USG_________ USG Corp_________________ -100.00% ________________
V___________ Visa Inc_________________ ____unch _unchanged count
VRSN________ VeriSign Inc_____________ ____unch _unchanged count
WFC_________ Wells Fargo & Co New_____ ____unch _unchanged count

[gfp]

Thanks Dynamic.  Good job with the formatting!

[Dynamic]

Thanks gfp. For now, it's fixed-width text using

Tt

and it works OK, though it ran over to two rows on mobile view at least on my phone. I have an idea to encode the formatting as a table using forum code that I can copy and paste from the spreadsheet to the forum posts.

 

A few notes on the latest update. I've been very busy with work, so I'm a few days late in posting here.

 

I had already changed the non-publicly-editable version on 15th Aug but have now got both done. A bit of a format change is planned so that I'll have an alphabetical list then a sortable table based on that with a simpler, clearer layout, but it's not ready yet.

 

I might also make some kind of graphical representation - any suggestions welcome. I'm thinking perhaps a pie chart, area chart or bar graph showing different holdings. Could potentially also group together certain holdings that share characteristics - (e.g. airlines, banks, insurance & other financial, etc...) or in another plot the categories might be (near permanent holdings, merger arbitrage, other mergers agreed, etc.). The question then is also, do we include KHC or exclude it as it's carried under the Equity Method, as a Control Position. In some way it would be go to show it alongside the 100% at an equivalent scale. I could also show the look-through earnings from various holdings. A bar chart would be good here, as negative earnings are usually going to feature.

 

Torchmark TMK has changed ticker to GL and changed name to Globe Life Inc since the end of Q2, so I've already reflected that name change even though the 13F-HR has to report it by its official name at the time.

 

USG was taken over by Knauf during the quarter, so is no longer in the portfolio. As the cash is shown elsewhere on the balance sheet, the proceeds are no longer shown in my portfolio.

 

RHT was presumably a merger arbitrage (purchased by IBM) and the merger closed, I believe at $190 per share, after the end of the quarter. So I've put in $190 as the market price now so that the cash proceeds (pre-tax) are reflected in the portfolio value, although it closed the quarter a little lower. I guess its EPS should really be stripped out of the look-through EPS, which I haven't done yet.

 

It's worth remembering that Anadarko voted to be taken over by OXY, so Berkshire's $10bn 8% preferred stock investment in OXY was probably the most significant capital allocation of the quarter, although the capital hadn't actually left the building until about 8th August.

 

AMZN increased +11.20% to 537,300 shares worth around $1 billion at market value, so still seems to be a Ted or Todd position.

 

BAC increased +3.40% to 950,000,000 shares market value $27.55 bn on 30th June. Since then they found that with the share count reduction they held more than 10% and there have been no filings since indicating whether the holding had to be reduced or was allowed to remain while new bank holding company rules are being considered by the authorities.

 

CHTR decreased -5.00% to 5,426,609 shares (approx $2.1bn) continuing the gradual disposal.

 

RHT increased +1.20% to 5,171,890 shares (approx $1.0 bn) which was taken over by IBM since 30th June.

 

USB increased +2.20% to 149,497,786 shares (approx $7.8 bn to $7.9 bn)

 

The current and old versions of 13F-HR worksheets (right hand group of tabs on the sheet) on the non-publicly-editable version of the sheet now combine Berkshire's own 13F (figures in black) with any of the rightmost figures in bold and blue being those holdings that belong to Berkshire but are reported within the New England Asset Management (NEAM) 13F-HR (Other Manager 01 02 denotes these holdings). This will allow you to check my work, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate. These 13F tabs are now labelled not by the date the 13F was published but by the quarter-end date that the snapshot represents, as in 13F 2019-06-30 meaning the snapshot at 30th June 2019.

 

The links to Google Finance page and the code to grab prices now explicitly includes the exchange, such as NYSE:USG. For cases such as USG, or RHT where a takeover has taken place, this means you'll usually get the correct security not some random obscure security that uses a similar ticker on a difference exchange. I've also put in a Takeover Price override, so for example, Red Hat and USG have $190 and $43.50 entered there, respectively. This is part of some general improvements I'm including.

 

The COMBINED HOLDINGS Q2 tab is changed slightly, in that it no longer splits out the Berkshire and NEAM holdings plus or minus the adjustments but reports the combined total only in column D. If you want to see the holdings on Berkshire's 13F and NEAM's 13F, you can go to the 13F tabs over to the right. I still show the Adjustments that have been applied and the URLs to the SEC filings or news articles that justify each. I'm putting these on the Ticker List tab in their original form as part of my improvement to the sheet, and a lot of the negative adjustments show their working if you look at the formula. I even sometimes show values I have removed as new filings come out by putting 0*234567 within the formula to zero-out former pension fund holdings that are no longer reported. The idea is to make it easier to check my working.

 

These Adjustments are typically one of two kinds:

 

1. Negative Adjustments to account for holdings that belong to Pension Funds of Berkshire or its Subsidiaries, that are not beneficially owned by Berkshire Shareholders. Berkshire has to report the positions it or its managers have control to buy or sell or voting rights upon in form 13F-HR, not only positions owned for the benefit of shareholders. I usually link to the most SEC filing (often on form 13D or 13G) from which I've derived this information by adding up all the positions held by the various pensions funds. In one of two cases where perhaps there is no 13D or 13G filing, Berkshire has indicated in its 10-K exactly how many shares are beneficially owned by Berkshire Shareholders, and the difference between that and the 13F to 31st December that year is then used as an Adjustment. The details are mostly on the Ticker List, which I'll be using more in future as a helper sheet.

AAL and GM are examples where the pension fund holdings are a truly significant proportion of the total holding.

 

2. Positive Adjustments are usually there to account for foreign positions or any other positions that are not subject to rule 13F that are known or strongly suspected to be held by Berkshire. Here I usually link to the relevant source of this information, but I might as well re-cap here:

 

a. Sanofi. Back in 2016's 10-K this was one of the top 15 positions listed, with a note explaining that the majority of the holding was on Euronext Paris, and a minority was held via ADRs. Only the ADRs are 13F securities. The ADRs were eventually sold, but the Euronext holdings would have fallen just outside the top-15 holdings by year-end market value since then and appear to be necessary to match the portfolio value in Holdings in equity securities reported in the annual and quarterly filings (which excludes KHC and pension fund holdings).

 

b. BYD Company Ltd. 225 million shares held by Berkshire Hathaway Energy. I have switched this to the Hong Kong listing (not the Shenzhen listing) as I've seen tables showing Berkshire's holding being on that exchange, and I understand that Shenzhen listed shares cannot be held by non-Chinese entities. The prices, converted to USD, don't seem to be especially close very often, but it seems that the HKG:1211 listing more closely matches Berkshire's reported valuation. This holding is still reported in Berkshire Hathaway Energy's filing at $1,358 million which matches my quarter end valuation when converted from HKD to USD currency to the nearest million. I also see a small holding in Rabbi trusts is mentioned there, which I am ignoring. There is also some "Other" which I'm also ignoring.

 

c. Società Cattolica di Assicurazione - Società Cooperativa - this was an estimated holding based on news reports at the time. The exact share count is unknown, so it's probably correct to about 3 significant figures at best, assuming it's still held.

 

d. Home Capital Group (CANADA) - Not a 13F holding, and reports indicated that Berkshire had planned to 'substantially exit' its position, so I've assumed the position is now zero.

 

e. Lanxess AG (Germany) - I had seen a record of a stake disclosure from a few years ago and briefly included it, but my quarter end valuation was within 0.01% of Berkshire's 10-Q valuation if I excluded it, so I have excluded it and removed it from the Look-Through portfolio.

 

Checking my total market value against Berkshire's 10-Q

At Quarter-end prices with currency conversion to USD at quarter-end rates, my portfolio market value (excluding KHC, as is correct) came to $200,490,678,602, which is -$25,321,398 less than the 10-Q's Investments in Equity Securities at $200,516,000,000 (a -0.01% shortfall), so I'm pretty happy I'm roughly right with these foreign company adjustments and the pension fund adjustments.

 

It could be luck that my omissions and errors in part cancel others on this occasion, but the difference is probably immaterial given that we have most things accurate and many stocks will move up and down with the general market by similar proportions.

 

It's probable that the look-through earnings (always trailing twelve months data as provided by Google) and the look-through holdings are pretty close to correct. Some stocks such as certain Liberty tracker stocks don't return EPS figures, but I think their impact is fairly immaterial. And as always, reported EPS can be somewhat misleading. Semper Augustus was saying that about 15% of reported EPS over time tends to be wiped out by write-offs etc. and perhaps pension shortfalls too according to their analysis.

 

Edit: Just corrected an error with RHT and sorted by holding size. I now report the takeover price and date if there is one and zero the EPS if there has been a takeover. So RHT shows as $190 per share = 982.66 million USD with zero earnings (rather than negative earnings contribution).