WEB:The Oracle of Omaha- Warren Buffett
- MichaelC_AU
- MichaelC_AU
- JenL_3
- Hugs
- JenL_3
- Kirk
- Rande
- JenL_2
- MichaelC_AU
- MichaelC_AU
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» MichaelC_AU - Incredible Article
I just finished reading the article I refered to above. It is a great biography, by TMF Seymor.-- posted by MichaelC_AU
» JenL_3 - Call Him E-Buffett!
Looks like Warren Buffet may finally be understanding high-tech and the internet. This from 9/17 WSJ:Call Him E-Buffett: Famed Investor Dips His Toe Into High-Tech Sector
By JOSEPH B. CAHILL
Is Warren Buffett feeling smarter?
As part of his aw-shucks approach to investing, the Omaha, Neb., investor has long said he doesn't buy stock in companies he doesn't understand, and that has left him on the sidelines during the incredible boom in technology stocks.
Mr. Buffett has at times ridiculed the Internet investment boom. At the 1998 meeting of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Mr. Buffett's company, he jokingly suggested that business schools ought to teach the principles of valuing companies by asking students, "Here's the stock of any Internet company. What's it worth? And anybody who gave an answer flunks."
Maybe palling around with Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., is easing Mr. Buffett's technology fears. A recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing shows that more than a year ago, Berkshire invested in First Data Corp.
That company is the dominant provider of back-office processing to credit-card issuers, a mundane business, but it also is a leading maker of online payment systems for electronic commerce, one of the industries Mr. Buffett has avoided.
According to the 13F filing, Berkshire bought three million shares of First Data, Atlanta, in the second quarter of 1998. Under a special arrangement with the SEC, the closely watched filings disclosing Berkshire's holdings are kept confidential for a year. And Berkshire's annual report only discloses the names of its largest holdings.
Today, the First Data investment would be valued at about $130 million. Because of the delay in releasing the filings to the public, it isn't known if Mr. Buffett has increased, reduced or eliminated the First Data stake. First Data shares rose 56.25 cents to $44.625 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading Thursday.
Berkshire's investment portfolio is weighted toward old-line companies with widely known brand names and entrenched market positions, such as Coca-Cola Co., Gillette Co. and Walt Disney Co.
Some of those stocks, notably Coca-Cola and Gillette, came under pressure last year. Mr. Buffett ruefully acknowledged in his annual letter to shareholders that his equity investments "did not perform nearly as well as the S&P 500" in 1998.
Whether the First Data investment means Mr. Buffett has decided to boost returns by joining the Internet party can only be guessed at. He doesn't comment beyond SEC filings and the Berkshire annual report.
Unlike such Internet highfliers as eBay Inc. and Priceline.com, which have built towering stock market valuations on the promise of future profits, First Data has big revenue and earnings today. The company posted net income of $465.7 million, or $1.04 per diluted share, on revenue of $5.1 billion last year. It bills itself as the largest third-party processor of bank credit-card payments. It even owns a venerable old brand name: the Western Union money-wiring service. And it has significant operations in Mr. Buffett's hometown of Omaha.
Now, First Data is trying to bring its processing expertise to the Internet. It has partnerships with Internet portals Excite At Home, iMall Inc. and Yahoo Inc. and processes payments for online merchants such as barnesandnoble.com, Dell Computer Corp. and Ticketmaster OnlineCitySearch Inc.
"I think Warren and others have figured out that there are going to be a lot of payments processed on the Internet, and that's what we do," said Rick DuQues, chairman and chief executive of First Data. Mr. Buffett's office declined to comment....
.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_3
» JenL_3 - Buffet Buys into Power Sector
These excerpts from 10/25 WSJ:Investors Led by Buffett to Buy Iowa's MidAmerican Energy
By STEVEN LIPIN and JAMES P. MILLER
An investor group led by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and the chairman of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. is acquiring the Des Moines, Iowa, utility for about $2 billion and $7 billion in assumed debt.
The transaction, Berkshire's first deal ever in the power sector, is valued at $35.05 a share, a 28.6% premium over Friday's closing stock price of $27.25 a share. Berkshire is investing a total of about $2.05 billion in the form of common and preferred stock for a 75% stake in a company that has grown rapidly through acquisitions but whose strategy hasn't delivered for shareholders in recent years.
Though going-private transactions are rare in the utility industry, it is a reaction to a stock price that has been flat for the last couple of years but whose assets may be attractive. The fact that such a value investor as Mr. Buffett is investing in the sector could help move stocks in the sector.
Commenting on the Berkshire Hathaway investment, Mr. Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement that "we buy good companies with outstanding management and good growth potential at a fair price, and we're willing to wait longer than some investors for that potential to be realized. This investment is right in our sweet spot."....
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....Berkshire's purchase of an energy concern is a significant departure from Mr. Buffett's investing strategy. Berkshire has a substantial portfolio of holdings in the stock of companies such as Coca-Cola Co., Gillette Co. and American Express Co., and it also has a significant number of operating companies that it owns outright in such fields as publishing, manufacturing, aviation services, and jewelry and furniture retailing. It has recently bulked up in the insurance business.
In acquiring MidAmerican, Berkshire is joining forces with an energy concern that has pursued a wide-ranging expansion plan and achieved mixed results.....
--Joseph B. Cahill contributed to this article.
.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_3
» Kirk - A good article
Mr. Buffett on the Stock MarketFull Story
http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/1999/1...
The most celebrated of investors says stocks can't possibly meet the public's expectations. As for the Internet? He notes how few people got rich from two other transforming industries, auto and aviation.
-- posted by Kirk
» Rande - Kirk,
Kirk,Hopefully, Mr. Buffet has more than glib and shallow analogies to explain why the Internet and modern technology is, in his mind, NOT any different than past innovations such as the automobile and airplane. Have to agree with BB on this one -- Buffet's stubborn refusal to participate in the technology boom (even to a slight and "prudent" degree) has increased the danger that many might place him in the category of "former" legend the more time goes by.
-- posted by Rande
» JenL_2 - Stock Screening - Buffett Style
This article in Forbes.com has assembled links to a number of stock screening tools that will supposedly enable any person to invest the Buffett way:Investing - Buffett for a day - Financial Tools to profit by
.....Jen
-- posted by JenL_2
» MichaelC_AU - I Disagree.
Rande,There will always be enough noninternet businesses for WEB's approach to work. BRK's 25%/year days have been called to an end by all for the past 20 years.
I agree with you and WEB about the the likelyhood of continued performance, but for reasons other than the internet, this will not effect him at all. Sure if he were to live 20-40 years he would be doing internet commerce profitably in some capacity, but now he knows the prospects of earnings in doing so are slim.
BRK will have the same problem any other $200 Billion fund would have, it is harder to beat the market when you're becoming the marker.
Say you find a company that meets the tests, good management, for less than bookvalue, and with the opportunity to yeild 50% of its current share price. What good is it going to do BRK to buy the entire company of $500 Million? You would have to find 50-100 of them to impact the BRK performance.
I would like to see him liquidate again. We would finally know the real value per share when each share holder gets a check.(hopefully for tax reasons a series of checks)
-- posted by MichaelC_AU
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