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Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Expands in Wisconsin

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices has announced its further expansion in the state of Wisconsin with the addition of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Matson Real Estate. The growth comes on the heels of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices network’s growth in Massachusetts and Florida.

With over 45 years of industry experience, President Thomas W. Matson will lead the brokerage. On joining the brand Thomas said, “Having the opportunity to align with one of the country’s largest names in real estate and brand recognition, paired with our firm’s wealth of experience is a winning combination. We share the same values of trust, integrity, stability and longevity. This is an affiliation that will help us to provide an even more stellar experience to our clients from start to finish.”

By joining the network, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Matson Real Estate agents gain access to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices’ active referral and relocation networks, and its “FOREVER Cloud” technology suite, a powerful source for lead generation, marketing support, social media, video production/distribution and more.

The brand also provides an exclusive Luxury Collection marketing program for premier listings. Its Prestige Magazine showcases network members’ premium listings with a strong lineup of feature stories covering topics that appeal to high-end real estate clients.

“We are thrilled to align with such a remarkable group of professionals to grow our presence in Wisconsin further,” said Christy Budnick, CEO, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. “The leadership, agents and teams joining the brand are known for their work ethic, professionalism and dedication to client services. We are excited to bring the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Forever Agent℠ story to the clients in Stoughton, Wisconsin and beyond.”

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell a stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Adds Homegenius Technology

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is adding homegenius, a full-service ecosystem of real estate services leveraging advanced technology and the latest developments in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), for its 50,418 U.S. based agents.

Through this agreement with homegenius Inc., a subsidiary of Radian Group Inc., homegenius will enable Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices’ network agents, brokers and owners to access homegenius’s geniusprice property intelligence engine. geniusprice technology gives brokers and agents access to next-level analytics and insights in an interface that’s easy to use and takes home price estimates to a new level.

“By leveraging powerful computer vision technology, homegenius’ revolutionary property intelligence engine has made the traditional Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) report obsolete by marrying advanced valuation automation with local property data in an entirely new way. With the opportunities provided by this relationship, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices’ network agents can save time, streamline their workflow, deepen their market analyses, and build their pipelines of qualified leads, while offering a truly personalized search for homes that meet a buyers’ specific requirements,” added Jose Perez, Senior Vice President, Business Development.

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell a stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Minority Stock Positions Stock Portfolio

Link Transit Purchases 8 More BYD Battery-Electric Buses

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Berkshire Hathaway-backed BYD has announced that Wenatchee, Washington-based Link Transit has purchased eight additional 30-foot American-made BYD battery-electric buses, building on Link’s long commitment to energy-saving, zero-emission transit technology.

The eight new BYD buses will complement Link’s growing all-electric fleet of 12 30- and 35-foot vehicles, with three additional 35-foot buses on order. Once the new vehicles are delivered, nearly half of Link’s total heavy-duty fleet of 48 vehicles will be all electric.

“We’re thankful for our partnership with Link Transit and to have the opportunity to provide their community with state-of-the-art clean-technology vehicles that are redefining public transportation,” said Patrick Duan, BYD’s Senior Vice President of Operations.

The eight new buses are being built by BYD at its Lancaster, California, Coach & Bus Manufacturing facility.
Every American-built, zero-emission BYD bus eliminates approximately 1,690 tons of carbon dioxide over its 12-year lifespan, according to the U.S. Transportation Department. This is equivalent to taking 27 cars off the road. Each bus also eliminates 10 tons of nitrogen oxides and 350 pounds of diesel particulate matter, improving air quality in the communities that they serve.

“These vehicles have been a tremendous success for us. Without opportunity charging, we’re seeing a range of 190 usable miles. With our Momentum Dynamics wireless opportunity chargers, we are extending this range to over 300 miles per day by charging the vehicles for 5 to 7 minutes 4 – 5 times per day while the vehicle is in the terminal on its hourly end of run lay-over. We have succeeded in replacing our diesel buses with our BYD buses on a one-to-one basis. We use these vehicles for all of our urban routes, in everyday use, with significantly lower operating costs. BYD has been great to work with,” said Richard DeRock, General Manager of Link Transit.

The Link Transit battery-electric fleet in 2022, averages 44 cents a mile in total operating costs, versus 88 cents a mile for its diesel vehicles. (With the recent run-up of diesel prices, the cost per mile has increased to 92 cents).

DeRock noted that the battery-electric buses have been particularly effective in navigating the extreme climate conditions within Link Transit’s service area. “It’s a very challenging operating environment – our winters are cold, and we can see 100 degrees in the summer. Finding vehicles that can maintain their effective range under these conditions is critically important,” he said.

BYD and Berkshire Hathaway

In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares for $232 million. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $232 million had grown in value to $7.69 billion as of December 31, 2021.

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway and BYD, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell a stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Lessons From Warren Buffett Value Investing

Lessons From Warren Buffett: You’re Neither Right nor Wrong Because People Agree With You or Disagree

Warren Buffett believes firmly that the work of the investor is to find opportunities, and it makes no difference if other people agree with you or not.

“Ben Graham said long ago that you’re neither right nor wrong because people agree with you or disagree with you,” Warren Buffett noted at the 2006 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting. “You’re right because your facts and reasoning are right. So all you do is you try to make sure that the facts you have are correct. . . . And then once you have the facts, you’ve got to think through what they mean. And you don’t take a public opinion survey. You don’t pay attention to things that are unimportant. I mean, what you’re looking for is something — things that are important and knowable. If something’s important but unknowable, forget it. I mean, it may be important, you know, whether somebody’s going to drop a nuclear weapon tomorrow but it’s unknowable. It may be all kinds of things. So you — and there are all kinds of things are that knowable but are unimportant. In focusing on business and investment decisions, you try to think — you narrow it down to the things that are knowable and important, and then you decide whether you have information of sufficient value that — you know, compared to price and all that, that will cause you to act. What others are doing means nothing.”

Hear Buffett’s full explanation

See the complete Lessons From Warren Buffett series

© 2021 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Minority Stock Positions Stock Portfolio

Berkshire Hathaway Adds to Its Occidental Petroleum Stake

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

A dip in the price of Occidental Petroleum has Warren Buffett resuming his purchases of OXY shares on May 10 and 11.

In its latest Form 4 filing Berkshire made the following purchases:

Common Stock 05/10/2022 716,355 $57.3161
Common Stock 05/02/2022 185,419 $57.3386

After these purchases, Berkshire holds 143,162,392  shares of OXY common stock.

In addition to its over 15% stake in OXY common stock, Berkshire also holds 200,000 series A preferred stock shares and warrants that Berkshire for roughly 84M shares of common stock at $59.624 per share.

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell a stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Kraft Heinz

Kraft Heinz Tests Paper-Based, Renewable and Recyclable Ketchup Bottle

HEINZ, maker of the world’s favorite ketchup and beloved condiments, is teaming up with Pulpex to develop a paper-based, renewable and recyclable bottle made from 100 percent sustainably sourced wood pulp.

Innovating its iconic ketchup bottle, HEINZ is the first sauce brand to test the potential of Pulpex’s sustainable paper bottle packaging for its range of world-famous condiments.

HEINZ, maker of the world’s favorite ketchup and beloved condiments, is teaming up with Pulpex to develop a paper-based, renewable and recyclable bottle made from 100 percent sustainably sourced wood pulp. (Photo: Business Wire)

For Kraft Heinz, this collaboration is the latest step in its journey to reduce its environmental footprint. It progresses the Company’s sustainable packaging ambitions, in that it aligns with its goal to make all packaging globally recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. It is also an innovation that will help Kraft Heinz achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

HEINZ and Pulpex are developing a prototype to test how the cutting-edge innovation could be used for HEINZ Tomato Ketchup bottles and other packaging formats in years to come. Pulpex’s current data indicates the carbon footprint of Pulpex bottles is materially less than glass and plastic on a bottle-by-bottle basis. Once used, they are also expected to be widely and readily recyclable in paper waste streams.

“Packaging waste is an industrywide challenge that we must all do our part to address,” said Kraft Heinz CEO Miguel Patricio. “That is why we are committed to taking steps to explore sustainable packaging solutions across our brands at Kraft Heinz, offering consumers more choices. This new HEINZ bottle is one example of how we are applying creativity and innovation to explore new ways to provide consumers with the products they know and love while also thinking sustainably.”

The next step in the process will involve prototype testing to assess performance before testing with consumers and bringing the bottle to market.

“We hope to bring this bottle to market and to be the first sauce brand to provide consumers this choice in their purchasing decisions, as many consumers today are looking for more sustainable packaging options,” said Rashida La Lande, EVP & Global General Counsel and Chief Sustainability and Corporate Affairs Officer at Kraft Heinz. “We’re eager to continue discovering more sustainable packaging for our beloved and iconic brands.”

“We are delighted to work with HEINZ to bring our patented packaging technology to such a famous name in food and are excited about the potential of this collaboration,” said Scott Winston, Pulpex CEO. “We believe that the scope for paper-based packaging is huge, and when global household names like HEINZ embrace this type of innovative technology, it’s good news for everyone – consumers and the planet.”

The pulp-based bottle would become the newest option available to HEINZ Tomato Ketchup fans, joining the recyclable HEINZ iconic glass bottle and plastic bottle, as well as plastic squeeze bottles with their 30 percent recycled content (available only in the E.U.) and 100 percent recyclable caps.

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Lubrizol

Lubrizol and Park Place Technologies Partner to Expand Collaboration With Intel by Providing World-class Service, Maintenance and Monitoring for State-of-the-art Immersion Cooling Systems in Data Centers

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Today, data centers are largely cooled by inefficient and expensive air conditioners. Lubrizol’s immersion cooling ecosystem solution, using CompuZol™ Immersion fluids, addresses the limitations posed by air-cooled methods by delivering a turn-key, sustainable immersion-cooled solution that enables superior thermal management and increased infrastructure density. The solution helps protect customers’ enterprise infrastructure investments and provides greater assurance to future technologies than traditional air-cooled systems, all while helping customers reach their global sustainability goals.

Now, Berkshire Hathaway’s The Lubrizol Corporation and Park Place Technologies have announced that Park Place will become a certified partner of this ecosystem solution, leveraging its market-leading capabilities to provide on-demand service, maintenance and real-time monitoring capabilities to customers utilizing immersion-cooled solutions from Lubrizol. Park Place is an Intel® Data Center Solutions Premium Support Partner that brings global reach and scale together with Intel® certified testing and validation capabilities.

“Lubrizol’s immersion cooled ecosystem solution delivers advantages to today’s data center operators ranging from lower energy costs and higher computing densities to longer server life, all through a more sustainable solution than conventional air cooling,” said Matt Joyce, Vice President, Corporate Business Development for Lubrizol. “Our partnership with Park Place Technologies adds a world-class service, maintenance and monitoring capability to our sustainable offering.”

“Park Place’s industry-leading global service, support, and preventative maintenance capabilities provide the optimal synergy with Lubrizol’s immersion cooled ecosystem solution, delivering a circular economy and sustainability-focused solution aimed at unlocking power densities of the future,” said Chris Adams, President and CEO of Park Place. “Our portfolio of third-party data center hardware maintenance, professional service, infrastructure managed services, network performance monitor and hardware sales, paired with Lubrizol’s novel turn-key solution using CompuZol™ immersion fluid, will deliver substantial value to our customers and end-users, enabling virtually seamless adoption of single-phase immersion cooling technologies with the support of world-class organizations.”

“Scaling innovative technologies such as liquid immersion cooling is critical to maximizing data center power efficiency as well as minimizing data center carbon footprint,” said Jennifer Huffstetler, VP and GM, Data Center Platform Strategy, Mobilization, Sustainability and Services at Intel. “We’re thrilled to see the partnership of Lubrizol and Park Place Technologies to scale the commercial deployment of CompuZol™ based liquid immersion cooling solutions. The combination of Park Place Technologies’ expertise in deploying Intel Xeon® processor-based solutions along with Lubrizol’s proven, validated, and environmentally friendly CompuZol™ liquids demonstrates the technology is ready for worldwide deployment.”

Lubrizol’s immersion cooled ecosystem solution begins with Lubrizol’s family of patented thermal management CompuZol™ immersion fluids, designed specifically for Data Center, Edge, and Far Edge applications. Through a multi-year collaboration with Intel, and partnerships with other industry leaders in the infrastructure, server design and manufacturing, and immersion tank industries – and now in maintenance and service through Park Place – this ecosystem solution brings together Immersion Cooling with new technology advancement for sustainability, and delivers a turn-key solution for customers looking to unlock higher computing power densities while reducing energy and water consumption and extending server life.

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell a stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Insurance

Berkshire’s Gen Re and Suffolk University Launch Strategic New Behavioral Economics Relationship

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Berkshire Hathaway’s Gen Re has looked to Suffolk University professors for their expertise in behavioral economics in a unique business relationship designed to benefit the reinsurer’s clients in the areas of underwriting, marketing, client engagement, customer service and more.

Behavioral economics draws from the fields of psychology and economics to better understand human behavior and decision-making when they deviate from strict rationality.

Over the past several years, Gen Re has conducted and shared results of several in-house behavioral economics studies focusing on key areas of interest to insurers. This research helped Gen Re’s reinsurance clients improve disclosure on insurance applications and personal history interviews, as well as explore other areas of interest such as policyholder communication, financial planning presentations, marketing materials and website design.

Expanding upon the Gen Re Research team’s existing efforts, the relationship with Suffolk University will provide:

• The ability for Gen Re clients to complete professor-developed and led behavioral economics training modules, extending from basic to advanced courses
• Broader outreach on the topic of behavioral economics and related applications in the insurance industry
• Speaking engagements with Suffolk University professors at Gen Re sponsored events

“Traditional economics is all about rational individuals, how they respond to prices, etc.,” explains Jonathan Haughton, professor of Economics at Suffolk University in Boston. “However, there are all sorts of cases where we don’t behave quite so rationally.”

Haughton and Suffolk Assistant Professor Lawrence De Geest both teach in the field of behavioral economics and are sharing their knowledge with Gen Re’s Research team. De Geest’s research examines the emergence of social norms and the effect of information on decision-making.

“All kinds of psychological factors outside of traditional economics play into people’s decision-making,” Haughton says. “For example, when it comes to health and medical disclosure, the way a question is framed in a questionnaire can make a big difference to what people choose to disclose. Loss aversion is another psychological factor that can affect economic decision-making. People are very averse to losing things to which they have become attached, so instead of saying, ‘Save $50 a month,’ you might say ‘Stop losing $50 a month. Don’t lose your ability to support your household.’”

Keith Brown, Senior Vice President and Head of Individual Life at Gen Re, says it’s important for insurers to pay attention to these important behavioral factors: “At a time of rapidly evolving underwriting approaches, uncertainty about future morbidity and mortality improvement, and increased insurer focus on client engagement, the behavioral economics training is being made available to Gen Re clients at an important industry inflection point.”

Suffolk University, located in the heart of downtown Boston, has a long history of partnering with industry to share relevant academic and business knowledge, research, and expertise.

“I am a big believer in faculty doing work with business, government and the non-profit sector outside of the academy,” Haughton says. “I think in the right proportion, it hugely benefits teaching and research.”

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell a stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Marmon Group

Marmon Aerospace & Defense Begins Construction of New Facility

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Berkshire Hathaway’s Marmon Aerospace & Defense has broken ground on a new 80,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Hooksett, New Hampshire.

Upon completion, by the fall of 2023, the plant is expected to bring an additional 20 production jobs to the area. The company will invest $30 million in the new facility, which will house a state-of-the-art manufacturing operation producing large shipboard power cables to support the U.S. Navy and its ship-building network.

4659358 new facility scaled

The new operation will complement the company’s current product line at its plants in nearby Manchester, New Hampshire, and in Naples, Florida.

“This new facility will broaden Marmon’s military shipboard cable product offerings, which already include power, data, instrumentation, control, and communications cables,” said Robert Canny, Marmon Aerospace & Defense Group president. “We are pleased to make this investment in service to our customers, our team, and our community.”

Marmon Aerospace & Defense, is wholly-owned by Berkshire Hathaway under its Marmon Holdings division. The company has locations in Manchester, New Hampshire and Naples, Florida that manufacture wire and cable solutions for the key defense markets of land, air, sea, and space.

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell a stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Lessons From Warren Buffett

Lessons From Warren Buffett: When They Say the Word Synergy They Really Mean

While discussing what makes Berkshire Hathaway an attractive place to sell your successful business to, Warren Buffett noted that the term synergy is really just another way of saying that that a lot of people are going to get fired. And often first in line to get fired are the people that helped make a company successful in the first place.

“They would have all these ideas about synergy, and synergy would mean that the people that had helped him build the business over 30 years would all get sacked,” Warren Buffett said at the 2013 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting. “And that the acquiring company would come in like Attila the Hun and be the conquering people, and he just didn’t want to do that to the people that helped him over the years.”

Hear Buffett’s full explanation

See the complete Lessons From Warren Buffett series

© 2022 David Mazor

Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.