Buffett's show of support of BYD :-)

[Buffett_Groupie]

Enjoy https://en.byd.com/news-posts/byd-opens-worlds-largest-face-mask-manufacturing-plant/  :)

[ValueMaven]

Stock has gone parabolic recently with the whole EV crazy.  Given that Berk owns 25% of the o/s - I thought I'd post a comment

[wabuffo]

Probably more relevant to the value of DJCO in terms of percent of market cap.  For every 1 share of DJCO one also "owns" 4.3 shares of 1211.HK.

 

wabuffo

[gfp]

Stock has gone parabolic recently with the whole EV crazy.  Given that Berk owns 25% of the o/s - I thought I'd post a comment

 

And of course Berkshire Hathaway Energy only owns 8.25% of BYD.  Approximately $5.75 Billion worth at current prices.  225 million shares.

[sleepydragon]

and I think these masks are sold out online.

The ones selling on Amazon is a knockoff (without a byd brand icon on the front).

I did see my dentist wearing a real one though

[gfp]

and I think these masks are sold out online.

The ones selling on Amazon is a knockoff (without a byd brand icon on the front).

I did see my dentist wearing a real one though

 

They have been widely available at Costco in my market. Right at the entrance. I wonder who made that introduction...  ;)

 

[ValueMaven]

Stock has gone parabolic recently with the whole EV crazy.  Given that Berk owns 25% of the o/s - I thought I'd post a comment

 

And of course Berkshire Hathaway Energy only owns 8.25% of BYD.  Approximately $5.75 Billion worth at current prices.  225 million shares.

 

Where did you see that?  That's really interesting actually ...

[fareastwarriors]

and I think these masks are sold out online.

The ones selling on Amazon is a knockoff (without a byd brand icon on the front).

I did see my dentist wearing a real one though

 

They have been widely available at Costco in my market. Right at the entrance. I wonder who made that introduction...  ;)

 

They were even on sale for a bit. Loaded up on them.

 

Should've loaded up with the stocks instead lol

[gfp]

Stock has gone parabolic recently with the whole EV crazy.  Given that Berk owns 25% of the o/s - I thought I'd post a comment

 

And of course Berkshire Hathaway Energy only owns 8.25% of BYD.  Approximately $5.75 Billion worth at current prices.  225 million shares.

 

Where did you see that?  That's really interesting actually ...

 

That is not new information.  It is the number of shares Berkshire purchased through MidAmerican Energy years ago multiplied by the current share price.

 

One place to look is BHE's 10Q, although the BYD stock was worth a lot less on Sept 30.

 

Here is the purchase of the shares in 2008.  None have been sold from within MidAmerican, as confirmed in BYD's own Annual Reports.

https://www.ft.com/content/235c9890-8de5-11dd-8089-0000779fd18c

 

Maybe this link is better since no subscription is needed:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20080926005827/en/MidAmerican-and-Berkshire-Hathaway-Announce-Investment-in-BYD-Company-Limited

 

** it occurs to me you likely meant to ask Wabuffo.  He has a wealth of information on DJCO's undisclosed holdings that were carefully reverse engineered over the years.  Thankfully Charlie is not much of an active trader

[ValueMaven]

Thank you.  Very helpful.  I didnt know that.  Which makes me wonder -- if BHE is really sitting on a $5B gain in BYD, and has this weird real estate brokerage business which is about 10% of the value of BHE - wouldnt it be easier to simplify the businesses for investors??  Sell down BYD position - which is nearly 6 months of operating profit in BHE, and move the real estate brokerage business into MSR unit???

[wabuffo]

it occurs to me you likely meant to ask Wabuffo.

 

DJCO's 13F-HRs disclose US-listed stocks.  However Charlie has also purchased two foreign-listed stocks for DJCO (that do not need to be disclosed).  The two are 1211.HK (BYD - Hong Kong Stock Exchange) and 005389.KS (Hyundai Pfd 3 - South Korean Stock Exchange).

 

wabuffo

[benchmark]

it occurs to me you likely meant to ask Wabuffo.

 

DJCO's 13F-HRs disclose US-listed stocks.  However Charlie has also purchased two foreign-listed stocks for DJCO (that do not need to be disclosed).  The two are 1211.HK (BYD - Hong Kong Stock Exchange) and 005389.KS (Hyundai Pfd 3 - South Korean Stock Exchange).

 

wabuffo

 

When was DJCO's purchase?

[wabuffo]

When was DJCO's purchase?

 

He's purchased BYD in a few lots over the years.

- Mar-Jun Qs of 2011

- Jun-Sep Qs of 2012

- Dec Q of 2016

 

wabuffo

[ValueMaven]

At one point BERK was down about -60% in its shares of BYD.  WTI was $115 or so at the time.  Amazing what a decade does - and how Charlie (first) and Warren (second) were able to keep their respective cools w/BYD.  I bet if you told them at the time - 10 years in to the future BERK would be sitting on a $5.5B gain in BYD they likely would not have believed that.  Great example of not being shaken out of a position. 

[gfp]

At one point BERK was down about -60% in its shares of BYD.  WTI was $115 or so at the time.  Amazing what a decade does - and how Charlie (first) and Warren (second) were able to keep their respective cools w/BYD.  I bet if you told them at the time - 10 years in to the future BERK would be sitting on a $5.5B gain in BYD they likely would not have believed that.  Great example of not being shaken out of a position.

 

Haha...  Says the guy who just posted this

"wouldnt it be easier to simplify the businesses for investors??  Sell down BYD position - which is nearly 6 months of operating profit in BHE"

 

When you say they were down 60% on their investment, you must not mean from their cost basis.  I don't think MidAmerican's BYD investment ever showed them a loss once it was disclosed and earned the Berkshire halo.  Several times it has declined substantially from subsequent peaks though.

[ValueMaven]

Interesting comments from Charlie in 2009 on BYD:

 

[Jurgis]

It's fun to see CoBF value investors cry bubble about various other e-car companies but consider it Charlie and Warren's genius when BYD price runs up on the same e-car sentiment. (Yeah, the e-cars where BYD is down 36% YoY https://insideevs.com/news/454741/china-byd-plugin-sales-surges-october-2020/ - but hey Oct 2020 results are positive ) 8)

 

I would say that BYD is not really doing great in their business and the jury is very much out if it is going to be a successful company long term. BWDIK.

[treasurehunt]

Wabuffo,

 

Based on your posts here and DJCO's 10-Q, I calculate that as of today DJCO has total investments of about $280 million compared to a market cap of roughly $366 million. Did I get this right? I was wondering if DJCO is a cheap way to invest in that particular basket of stocks, but it doesn't look that way. I have no opinion on the value of DJCO's business, so the market cap would have to be close to total investments for me to consider it.

[wabuffo]

I calculate that as of today DJCO has total investments of about $280 million compared to a market cap of roughly $366 million. Did I get this right?

 

Yep - based on current prices and ignoring taxes, margin loan.  Here's my real-time tracker.  I could be wrong, of course.

 

 

wabuffo

[ValueMaven]

This is awesome!!  Thank you for posting.  I realize Munger is in love w/BYD - but wouldnt it be neat if this 95 yr old, sold all of DJCO's BYD (at the top) and was plowing it back into DJCO via buybacks.  $80M for DJCO's operating business seems on the cheap side. 

 

More interesting for me is how BHE is handling this given that the paper-gain is about ~6M of operating profit at BHE given that BYD did nothing for BERK over a 10Y window.