Tag: Warren Buffett

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Acquisitions Commentary Minority Stock Positions Warren Buffett

Commentary: Will Berkshire Ever Seal the Deal on USG?

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

If ever there was a company that looks like the perfect fit for Berkshire Hathaway it would have to be USG–the leading manufacturer of gypsum wallboard. After all, Berkshire already owns insulation manufacturer Johns Manville, Acme Brick, and presently has a 41.91% stake in USG.

USG and Berkshire

Berkshire played a key role in saving USG during the nadir of the Great Recession.

In 2008, with the housing market imploding and lending all but frozen, Berkshire came to USG’s rescue with $300 million of convertible notes that paid Berkshire 10-percent interest. At the time, the boost in confidence that USG received from Warren Buffett’s financing helped the company avoid bankruptcy. Boost investor confidence it certainly did, and the day of the transaction USG’s stock soared 22-percent to $6.89 a share.

Five years later, in December 2013, Berkshire exchanged $243.8 million of the convertible notes for common stock, and with additional purchases, its stake in USG now makes it the company’s single largest shareholder.

USG is a solid earner with a Price/Book of 2.16, a P/E of only 3.73, and EPS of $6.72. The stock currently pays no dividend and USG has stated they have no plans to do so. USG does carry a substantial amount of debt, which as of December 31, 2014, totaled $2.209 billion.

Wallboard Numbers Are Up

So, is now the time for Berkshire to fully bring USG into the Berkshire family of companies? Demand for gypsum wallboard is up. According to the Gypsum Association, a not-for-profit trade association, roughly 21.8 billion square feet of gypsum board were shipped in 2014. This was an increase of approximately 4% from 20.9 billion square feet in 2013. USG’s share of the gypsum board market in the U.S was approximately 26% in 2014, basically unchanged from 2013.

The Chinese Drywall Scandal

As an American manufacturer, USG has been a beneficiary of the Chinese drywall scandal that came to a head in 2009. Imported wallboard from China that had high sulfur content brought reports of fumes that created upper respiratory problems, and the market for wallboard from China was hit hard. Thousands of homes in Florida and other states needed to have their wallboard ripped out and replaced.

About USG

In 1902, 30 independent gypsum rock and plaster manufacturing companies merged to form the United States Gypsum Company. Over more than a century, USG has been issued 1,100 patents for its products. In addition to wallboard, the company is a leading manufacturer of acoustical panel and specialty ceiling systems. The company has 34 manufacturing plants in the U.S., and has roughly 9,000 employees in more than 30 countries.

USG’s a true market leader with a 26% market share of the U.S. gypsum wallboard market. It is followed by National Gypsum at 21%, and Georgia-Pacific at 16%. It has an even more commanding 50% share of the joint compounds market.

Time to Pull the Trigger?

The Chicago-based company has seen its ups and downs, including three bankruptcies. The last bankruptcy was in July 25, 2001 under Chapter 11 in order to deal with a mountain of asbestos litigation costs related to asbestos containing joint compounds. The establishment of the The United States Gypsum Asbestos Personal Injury Settlement Trust put the company’s asbestos woes in the rear-view mirror, and its stock price reflects it.

Also on the upside is the extensive cost cutting the company has done over the past decade. USG has closed high-cost manufacturing plants, and used salaried workforce reductions and other cost reductions to trim an additional $22 million to $28 million annually. In all, its cost reductions have totaled $500 million.

With a market cap of just over $3.66 billion ($1.46 billion of which is already owned by Berkshire), USG is a great fit for Berkshire if it wants to gobble up the whole thing. USG would fit nicely into the Marmon Group of companies, which include a host of companies that supply the construction industry.

So, will Berkshire pull the trigger? A two billion dollar deal is not a big one for Berkshire these days, and with new housing starts hitting a nine-year high, and slowly heading back towards the historical levels of 1.5 million starts a year, USG looks like a solid company worth adding to the Berkshire portfolio.

© 2016 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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Clayton Homes Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett Vigorously Defends Clayton Homes in Annual Shareholder Letter

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

“The Best defense is a good offense,” is the old saying, that is exactly the approach Warren Buffett continues to take in defending Berkshire Hathaway’s mobile-home manufacturer Clayton Homes from those who say it preys on low-income home buyers.

It was less than a year ago that the company first came under attack, when with the force of a volcano, a Seattle Times and the Center for Public Integrity investigative report titled “The Mobile Home Trap” accused Clayton Homes of relying on “predatory sales practices, exorbitant fees, and interest rates…trapping many buyers in loans they can’t afford and in homes that are almost impossible to sell or refinance…”

Buffett’s immediately addressed the accusations head on at the 2015 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, when he said, “I make no apologies whatsoever about Clayton’s lending terms.”

Now, in his 2015 annual letter to shareholders, Buffett has a devoted one and a half pages to defending Clayton Homes from its detractors.

In a vigorous defense, Buffett wrote:

“Our retail outlets, employing simple language and large type, consistently inform home buyers of alternative sources for financing – most of it coming from local banks – and always secure acknowledgments from customers that this information has been received and read.”

In an unusual move, Buffett went so far as to include the actual form on page 119 of the 2015 annual report.

In the Same Boat as the Home Buyer

In defending Berkshire’s practices as a home seller and mortgage lender, Buffett points to Berkshire’s holding on to the mortgages it originates rather than selling them off in the broader market. Buffett notes that this adds risk to Berkshire, and that by holding on to the mortgages it is in the same boat as the home buyer. If a home buyer defaults on their mortgage it leaves Berkshire not only with a bad loan, but it also has to eat the costs associated with repossessing a used mobile home.

“At Clayton, our risk retention was, and is, 100%. When we originate a mortgage we keep it (leaving aside the few that qualify for a government guarantee). When we make mistakes in granting credit, we therefore pay a price – a hefty price that dwarfs any profit we realized upon the original sale of the home. Last year we had to foreclose on 8,444 manufactured-housing mortgages at a cost to us of $157 million. The average loan we made in 2015 was only $59,942, small potatoes for traditional mortgage lenders, but a daunting commitment for our many lower-income borrowers. Our buyer acquires a decent home – take a look at the home we will have on display at our annual meeting – requiring monthly principal-and-interest payments that average $522.

Some borrowers, of course, will lose their jobs, and there will be divorces and deaths. Others will get overextended on credit cards and mishandle their finances. We will lose money then, and our borrower will lose his down payment (though his mortgage payments during his time of occupancy may have been well under rental rates for comparable quarters). Nevertheless, despite the low FICO scores and income of our borrowers, their payment behavior during the Great Recession was far better than that prevailing in many mortgage pools populated by people earning multiples of our typical borrower’s income.”

Congress Weighs In

The Seattle Times report did not fall on deaf ears in the halls of Congress. In January, Representatives Maxine Waters, Michael Capuano, Emanuel Cleaver and Keith Ellison wrote a letter to the Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau calling for a probe of the company’s lending practices.

So far, there has been no action by the Justice Department or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and in his annual letter Buffett forcefully touts what he feels is Berkshire’s outstanding record in regards to adhering to the regulations that govern mortgage lending.

“Let me talk about one subject of which I am particularly proud, that having to do with regulation. The Great Recession caused mortgage originators, servicers and packagers to come under intense scrutiny and to be assessed many billions of dollars in fines and penalties.

The scrutiny has certainly extended to Clayton, whose mortgage practices have been continuously reviewed and examined in respect to such items as originations, servicing, collections, advertising, compliance, and internal controls. At the federal level, we answer to the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Dozens of states regulate us as well. During the past two years, indeed, various federal and state authorities (from 25 states) examined and reviewed Clayton and its mortgages on 65 occasions. The result? Our total fines during this period were $38,200 and our refunds to customers $704,678. Furthermore, though we had to foreclose on 2.64% of our manufactured-home mortgages last year, 95.4% of our borrowers were current on their payments at yearend, as they moved toward owning a debt-free home.”

While all has been quiet recently in regards to Clayton Homes, the fact that Buffett has devoted so much space in his annual letter to defending the company may mean that more tremors are coming, and issues related to Clayton Homes could erupt again in the future.

© 2016 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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Charlie Munger Warren Buffett

Berkshire to Live-Stream 2016 Annual Meeting

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Until now, if you wanted to hear Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger answer questions at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting you had to make the pilgrimage to Omaha, Nebraska.

Over 40,000 people from all over the world did just that last year and when they got there they heard Buffett and Munger take 5 hours of shareholder and financial reporter questions. Their answers, which contain insight, humor and wisdom, have never been allowed to be audio or video recorded.

Now, Berkshire Hathaway is letting the rest of the world in on the action. The 2016 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, which will be held at the CenturyLink Center on April 30, 2016, will be live-streamed over the internet.

Will the move keep people from travelling to Omaha for Berkshire’s event-filled weekend? Unlikely, as hearing Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger in person is always a treat.

And, besides, you can always get your year’s supply of See’s Candies.

© 2016 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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Acquisitions Berkshire Hathaway Automotive Berkshire Hathaway Energy Duracell Minority Stock Positions NetJets Precision Castparts Warren Buffett

Commentary: A Christmas Wish List for Under Warren Buffett’s Tree

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Here’s a Christmas wish list for presents under Warren Buffett’s tree. The items are big, so we’ll fit them under Charlie Munger’s tree as well.

1. Precision Castparts: There’s nothing like getting the present you bought for yourself. The pending acquisition the aerospace manufacturer looks like the gift that will keep on giving.  Demand for new airplanes will double over the next 15 years, as aging fleets are retired and millions more people start to fly regularly in India and China.

2. Duracell: Because everyone likes to get cash for Christmas! With the Duracell acquisition set to close in February 2016, Berkshire will gain not only the leading alkaline battery manufacturer, but will also get a company recapitalized by P&G with $1.7 billion in cash, and will get huge tax savings as it trades in its appreciated P&G stock for the battery maker.

3. More German Companies: Warren Buffett’s admiration for the German economy was on full display at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in May 2015. This past February, Berkshire Hathaway struck a deal to acquire Devlet Louis Motorradvertriebs, a mail-order and retail chain selling motorbike clothing and accessories. The move, according to Buffett, was just the first small acquisition in a country with a strong economy and work ethic. And, with a rising dollar and a shaky euro, will more German companies fit under Berkshire’s tree?

4. Lots of Natural Gas: As the world dumps coal and moves to cheaper and cleaner forms of energy, Berkshire’s on the verge of striking it rich in Australia’s gas fields. Natural gas prices may be cratering now, but it never hurts to have a majority share of four trillion cubic feet of gas-in-place (yes, trillion) in Australia’s Whicher Range and Wonnerup gas fields. A new test well hopefully will bring good news in the new year.

5. More Auto Dealers: When Berkshire Hathaway jumped into the auto retailing business in March 2015, with its acquisition of the Van Tuyl Group, it added a whole new line of business to the mega-conglomerate. The Van Tuyl Group was the largest privately owned auto dealership group in the U.S., and Buffett promised that this was just the start of building a major auto-retailing empire. So, will Herb Chambers Companies, a privately-held, Boston-based dealership group with 55 total dealerships, be the perfect fit for Berkshire Hathaway Automotive? Its owner looks ready to sell. Time to wrap this one up and put a bow on it.

6. Happy Pilots at NetJets: Forget your crazy uncle, there’s nothing like having a happy family at Christmas. This holiday, NetJets’ pilots and its flight attendants will be celebrating their new contracts that bring substantial raises. Hopefully, they’ll use it to buy some of Berkshire’s fine products. How about some jewelry from Borsheims? It’s been a good year. Go for it!

7. More Solar & Wind! Berkshire’s quickly becoming the leading energy producer and distributor of solar and wind energy. This year saw major wind farm projects, including a new wind farm site in Adams County, Iowa, which will produce 162 megawatts of additional wind generation capacity in Iowa. Berkshire’s aggressive expansion of it solar power farms saw its Topaz Solar Farm in San Luis Obispo County, California, become one of the largest photovoltaic solar farms in the world. And, there’s plenty of room under the tree for more such projects, which not only bring cheap energy, but also lower environmental costs as they are emissions free. With the cost of solar energy dropping fast, Berkshire’s been signing amazing deals that are a Christmas present now and for decades to come. In Nevada, it has contracted to buy electricity from First Solar’s soon to be built Playa Solar 2 at the astoundingly low rate of only 3.87 cents a kilowatt-hour, and the deal is a fixed rate contract for twenty years.

8. More Deals with 3G Capital: Because everyone likes surprises. 3G’s aggressive acquisition strategy has been the perfect partner for Berkshire’s cash. 3G brings not only the aggressive cost-cutting (aggressive is an understatement) that is bringing legacy companies such as Kraft-Heinz into the 21st century, but also gives excellent financing and equity opportunities. 3G’s merger of Burger King with Tim Hortons brought Berkshire fat interest payments and made Berkshire a minority owner of the newly formed Restaurant Brands International. Surely, there are more deals to be done.

Hard to fit this all under the Christmas tree? Berkshire’s a big company. There’s room for all this and more.

Merry Christmas everybody!

–David Mazor

© 2015 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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Commentary

Commentary: Time to Break Up Berkshire Hathaway? Not By a Long Shot!

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Is it time to break up Berkshire Hathaway? A November 14, 2015, opinion piece in Barron’s by retired analyst Thornton Oglove asserts that it is.

In Oglove’s view, Berkshire’s companies are undervalued in its current mega-conglomerate structure and would be worth more spun-off as individual dividend-paying companies.

I beg to differ.

Twelve Big Reasons Berkshire is Stronger Together than Broken Up

1. Berkshire’s not your typical conglomerate. Back in the 1960s, conglomerates got a bad name because weak companies were tied together in the hopes that the combined assets would be overvalued by investors. Unfortunately, as with all things overvalued, prices eventually decline. With Berkshire, you have quality assets that continue to grow in value. What is the value of BNSF Railway today, for example, as compared to when it was acquired in 2009? Not only is it worth significantly more, but only five years after it was acquired, Berkshire had already recouped 100% of the cash it had spent in the acquisition.

2. Berkshire’s greatest strength is its ability to move capital tax free across industries. Under its current structure Berkshire can use its profits from one of its companies to meet the needs of another. Warren Buffett began this practice long ago, and it is why, for example, you don’t find a See’s Candies in every mall. He recognized that See’s profits were better spent invested in other companies in other sectors rather than in building a candy empire.

3. Berkshire can use capital much more effectively for acquisitions than you or I can. In the past year, Berkshire has helped fund the $12.5 billion merger between Burger King and Tim Hortons, gaining among other things a 4.8% stake at a penny a share; merged H.J. Heinz with Kraft Foods in order to form the third-largest food and beverage company in North America (picking up a nice a $4 billion gain in the process); and is now on the cusp of acquiring Precision Castparts in a $42 billion deal that will bring into the fold a major aerospace manufacturer just as demand for commercial airlines is expected to double over the next 15 years. These deals, and a number of other smaller ones, demonstrate that just as a tidal wave of water is infinitely more powerful than a lot people sitting at home filling their teacups, a tidal wave of money is far more powerful than a lot of individual dollars sitting in your bank accounts.

4. Berkshire’s philosophy is one of the reasons its companies are worth so much. Most companies have one eye on the calendar every 90 days as they sweat out the latest quarterly earnings report. Not Berkshire’s companies. Warren Buffett wants his managers making their decisions based what is good for the long term, and he couldn’t care less about appeasing those obsessed with quarterly earnings. This makes a huge difference at capital-intensive companies such as BNSF Railway, which are freed up to make the kinds of capital investments that bring great returns down the line even if they hurt short term earnings. The same goes on the insurance side, where Buffett has never been a fan of excessive underwriting that boosts premiums on the short term, but risks big losses down the road.

5. Berkshire’s diversity is one of its great strengths. Gone are the days when Berkshire was an insurance company above all else. Today’s Berkshire is tremendously diversified with everything from insurance, utilities, and clothing manufacturing, to a leading freight railroad under its umbrella. Investing in Berkshire means weakness in a given sector won’t torpedo your investment.

6. Berkshire provides a great home for companies looking to sell. Got a billion-dollar company that you want to sell? Berkshire could be the perfect home for you. If you’ve founded a company in your garage and watched it grow into a five-billion-dollar company, do you want to sell it to a private equity firm now that you are ready to retire? If you do, the management is likely to be dumped and it’s the company broken up into pieces and sold off. Not with Berkshire, and that’s why companies such as ISCAR Metalworking approach Berkshire about being acquired.

7. Berkshire’s loyalty attracts quality assets. Not every company Berkshire has acquired over the years has worked out, yet Berkshire doesn’t sell off the losers. Why? Because the promise that once you become part of the Berkshire family you stay part of the Berkshire family helps attract quality companies. So if Berkshire has to carry a few underperformers in order to attract quality assets, that loyalty pays off over and over again.

8. Are you as patient as Berkshire? Berkshire is not afraid to sit on its money waiting for opportunity. When the economy collapsed in 2009, Berkshire’s huge cash position allowed it to make extraordinary deals with cash-strapped Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and others. The Wall Street Journal calculated a 40 percent return on those blue chip investments. Berkshire was also able to acquire quality assets, such as RV-maker Coachman, for a song when they ran into cash-flow problems.

9. Berkshire’s stock portfolio is better than a mutual fund. While Berkshire’s $100 billion-plus portfolio of blue chip stocks, including Coca-Cola, IBM, Walmart, and Wells Fargo, among others, may or may not outperform the broader market in a given year, don’t make the mistake of thinking it is just a mutual fund wrapped in a conglomerate. Berkshire’s portfolio offers an opportunity to put its cash to work and still liquidate stock positions in ways no mutual fund or ETF can. Just look at this summer’s tax-free swap of billions in appreciated Procter & Gamble stock for P&G’s Duracell division, and its recent tax-free swap of Phillips 66 stock for the company’s specialty chemicals division as just two examples of Berkshire leveraging its portfolio.

10. Berkshire expands the capabilities of its existing companies. Unlike conglomerates that are always acquiring assets only to starve them of the resources that can make them flourish, Berkshire helps its companies grow. Buffett is a big believer in the bolt-on acquisition that adds new capabilities to Berkshire’s existing companies. Many of these acquisitions don’t get much media play, but they continually make Berkshire’s existing companies stronger. For example, Berkshire’s billion-dollar acquisition of Cornelius made the Marmon Group the world leader in beverage dispensing, Lubrizol added Weatherford International’s global oilfield chemicals business, and MiTek Industries added M&M Manufacturing, one of the country’s largest producers of sheet metal products.

11. Berkshire makes its constituent companies stronger and less failure prone. Not only was Berkshire able to scoop up bargains during the Great Recession, but it was also able to ensure the survival of its companies during a time when many companies were filing for bankruptcy protection. Berkshire’s strength and diversity enabled its manufacturing and service companies to survive a financial downturn that wiped out similar companies that had to go it alone.

12. Berkshire allows you to invest like Warren Buffett. Unlike most conglomerates that pay millions to a CEO who may end up using a golden parachute at your expense in a few years, Berkshire’s CEO only earns $100,000 a year. Yes, you got that right, it’s not missing a few zeros. As an investor in Berkshire, you are growing your wealth on the same basis as Buffett, through the appreciation of the stock price. What’s more, he’s doing all the work. Try and find a hedge fund or mutual fund run on the same basis.

Deconglomerate? Not on Your Life!

It’s true that Berkshire will never again experience the explosive growth that it did in its first few decades, but don’t think that with all its diversity it’s the “ponderous” entity that Thornton Oglove claims it is. Warren Buffett’s pretty darn smart and has created an outstanding combination of safety and earning power that will carry on long after he is gone. You just have to look at Berkshire’s outstanding track record of acquisitions over the past six years to prove that its best years are not a distant memory, and that’s more than enough reason to resist the siren call to “deconglomerate.”

© 2015 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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Kraft Heinz Warren Buffett

Kraft Heinz Slashing Ad Agency Dollars as Part of Cost Cutting

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Newly formed Kraft Heinz is looking to change the way it produces its advertising, as part of its goal in wringing $1.5 billion in annual savings out of the combined company.

After merging on July 2, 2015, Kraft Heinz is now third-largest food and beverage company in North America and ranked number five world-wide. The company has eight $1 billion+ brands.

The merger left Heinz’s ad agency out in the cold. In late August, management shifted the Heinz accounts that had been handled by Interpublic’s UM to Kraft’s agency Starcom MediaVest Group’s Starcom. In addition, Kraft Heinz is now reviewing all of its creative accounts, according to Ad Age.

Ad Age reports that all the creative agencies have been asked to provide information and those chosen will be responsible for creative ideas, but will no longer provide the actual production of the ads, which will go directly to production houses.

Cost-Cutting Across the Board

Kraft Heinz’s chief executive Bernardo Hees is a partner in 3G Capital, which teamed with Berkshire Hathaway take over both companies and merge them together. He came to the helm of the combined company after a stint as the chief executive at A.J. Heinz where he slashed 7,000 jobs and brought a tight-fisted approach that made no expenditure too small to be examined.

At Heinz, Hees imposed cost controls big and small that include cuts to travel expenses, limits on the number of printer copies that can be made each month, the elimination of snacks in break rooms, and new mandates on cutting electricity usage. After assuming the helm of Kraft Heinz he immediately cut 2,500 jobs in his first week.

Among the management changes Hees has made was the appointment of Nina Barton to Senior VP of Marketing Innovation, Research and Development. Ms. Barton first joined Kraft in 2011 and was most recently the VP of Marketing for Coffee. She reports directly to George Zoghbi who was appointed Chief Operating Officer of U.S. commercial business.

Gone were Tom Bick, who was Heinz’s senior director-integrated marketing communications and advertising for the Oscar Mayer business, and Kara Henry, who was Heinz’s senior marketing director, communications and agency relations.

Warren and Charlie Agree

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger’s have both supported Hees’s approach, believing that these legacy food companies, which both date back to the 1800s, need cost-cutting to be competitive in the 21 century.

“3G has been buying businesses that have too many people,” Buffett explained at the 2015 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. “You will have never found a statement from Charlie or me saying that a business should have more people than needed.”

© 2015 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.

Categories
Commentary Warren Buffett

Commentary: Is there Money for Berkshire in an A-B InBev Merger with SABMiller?

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

As soon as the news hit that a megamerger was in discussion between Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller, my first thought was “Is there money to be made for Berkshire?”

There sure is.

A merger of Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller would create a $275 billion company, and would need somewhere around $100 billion in financing to complete the deal.

With Anheuser-Busch InBev controlled by Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital Management, it would be logical that such a mammoth deal could use at least some financing from Berkshire Hathaway.

The companies previously collaborated on 3G’s Burger King takeover of Tim Hortons, and 3G and Berkshire’s worked jointly to takeover A. J. Heinz, and later to merge it with Kraft Foods Group.

Berkshire and 3G clearly like working together because each provides half of a winning formula. Berkshire produces a lot of cash that needs to be put to work, and 3G is an acquirer of large-scale, high quality assets for which it provides management that aggressively wrings out savings that flow back to shareholders.

Any takeover by Anheuser-Busch InBev of SABMiller is sure to face antitrust issues, as the combined company would own 30% of the global beer market, but if it could get by regulators, here’s what to expect.

Preferred Stock Financing

For the past decade, Warren Buffett has especially used the issuance of preferred shares that pay Berkshire a fixed dividend in exchange for billions in financing.

Buffett’s love of preferred stock financing provided much needed cash to Goldman Sachs, Wrigley, and Bank of America during the Great Recession, and more recently helped 3G finance its Burger King/Tim Hortons merger and the A. J. Heinz and subsequent Kraft Heinz deals. In each deal, Berkshire ended up receiving juicy dividends that ranged from 6% in the case of Bank of America to 9% with Burger King/Tim Hortons.

Common Stock for Berkshire

An Anheuser-Busch InBev/SABMiller merger would likely give Berkshire a sizeable common stock position as well. For example, in providing financing for 3G’s Burger King takeover of Tim Hortons, Berkshire received warrants for 8,438,225 shares of the new combined company, Restaurant Brands International Inc., for a penny a share. The warrants came attached to 68,530,939 Class A 9.00% Cumulative Compounding Perpetual Preferred Shares, and gave Berkshire 4.18% of the outstanding Common Shares and 14.37% of the total number of votes attached to all outstanding voting shares of the Corporation.

Berkshire as the Linchpin

With 3G’s Burger King merger, Berkshire provided roughly 25% of the financing and was the linchpin that quickly brought other financing to the deal. When Warren Buffett wants in, others surely follow.

Look for Berkshire to take a portion of any Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller deal if regulators ever allow it to happen.

© 2015 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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NetJets Warren Buffett

Pilots’ Union Set to Resume Picket of NetJets

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Sometimes a familiar face is not enough to bridge a labor contract dispute.

The NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP) has set September 10 as the date to resume picketing NetJets at seven airports. The resumption of picketing reflects the union’s frustration with its lack of progress in getting a new contract.

NetJets pilots have been working without a contract since the prior agreement expired in 2013.

A Familiar Face Returns

On June 1, Berkshire Hathaway, the owner of NetJets, fired NetJets’s chief executive and chairman Jordan Hansell. Hansell was replaced with Adam Johnson, who had spent 22 years at NetJets.

At the time, NJASAP was positive in the change in NetJets’s leadership.

“Newly appointed CEO Adam Johnson and COO Bill Noe bring much needed experience in both operational and labor relations to their respective positions. Union Leadership looks forward to engaging the new team: We hope they share our goal of rebuilding a once progressive labor management relationship. Similarly, Union Negotiators remain ready and willing to work with senior management to bring contract negotiations to a successful conclusion on behalf of our pilots.”

Unfortunately, after a 90-day summer ceasefire, the union is ready to resume its picketing, noting that the union and management are still far apart.

Johnson has pointed to the “remarkable” progress the two parties have made, but notes, “due to the parties’ views about the economics of this business — and thus how much additional cost we can take on over the next decade — as well as different expectations concerning the demand for the services we provide.”

NJASAP is seeking a 35% pay increase over three to five years. Currently, its captains with 10 years of experience earn $131,179 a year.

Words of Wisdom from Warren

“It’s human nature to sometimes have differences about how people get paid,” Berkshire chairman Warren Buffett said, when questioned about the dispute at the 2015 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.

Unfortunately, those differences don’t look any closer to being resolved.

© 2015 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 Minority Stock Positions

Berkshire Reveals Major Stake in Phillips 66

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Berkshire Hathaway has revealed that it now owns more than ten-percent of refiner Phillips 66 (PSX).

In early 2014, Berkshire swapped a large portion of its previous Phillips 66 position for the Houston-based company’s chemical business unit, which was added to Berkshire’s specialty chemical maker Lubrizol.

“We were able to do that on a tax-advantage basis. We didn’t trade them because we didn’t like the stock,” Warren Buffett said on CNBC’s Squawk Alley.

“I had always intended on coming back in, assuming that the price was right.”

A Surprise Revealed

In its SEC Form 13F filing on July 31, 2015, Berkshire stated that “confidential information has been omitted from the public Form 13F report and filed separately with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,” which implied that the company was amassing shares in a company that it would reveal at a later date.

Berkshire, in its SEC Form 3 filing on August 25, stated it had accumulated 54,800,415 shares of Phillips 66 common stock. The position is worth aproximately $4.5 billion, and including shares owned prior to July 31, Berkshire owns 58 million shares.

51,873,456 of the total reported securities are owned by National Indemnity Company, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, and no price for those shares was reported.

However, 6,102,000 of the total reported securities are owned by the following pension plans of Berkshire’s subsidiaries: FlightSafety International Inc. Retirement Income Plan (350,000), Fruit of the Loom Pension Trust (921,300), GEICO Corporation Pension Plan Trust (2,499,700), Johns Manville Corporation Master Pension Trust (2,187,000), and General Re Corp. Employee Retirement Trust (144,000). The purchase price of those shares ranged from $71.56-$77.26.

About Phillips 66

Phillips 66 was spun-off of ConocoPhillips in May 2012, and its refining and petrochemical business has been mostly immune to the downward pressure on oil prices, as the demand for refined products, including gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel remains strong. Phillips 66 also transports crude oil, refined products, natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL). It gathers, processes and markets natural gas and NGL to power businesses, heat homes and provide feedstock to the petrochemical industry.

The company’s 52-week share price high was $87.98, and it currently pays an annual dividend of 56 cents, yielding 2.9%.

Buffett, Combs or Weschler

Berkshire does not normally announce which transactions are the work of Warren Buffett, and which transactions are the work of his two portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. While Warren Buffett has acquired most of Berkshire’s portfolio, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler each manage a portfolio that is roughly $9 billion in assets. The two investment managers are widely assumed to be the future managers of the entire portfolio.

The total portfolio slipped to a market value of $107.182 Billion at the end of second quarter from $110.776 billion at the end of the 1st quarter 2015.

(This article contains updated information from when it was first published.)

© 2015 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.

Categories
Acquisitions Kraft Heinz Warren Buffett

No More Elephants For Buffett’s Famed “Elephant Gun,” For Now

(BRK.A), (BRK.B)

Warren Buffett likes to refer to his hunting for big companies, such as his acquisition of BNSF Railway, and the recently announced Precision Castparts Corp., as hunting for elephants with his “elephant gun.”

While each year Berkshire does on average $3 billion of bolt-on acquisitions for its various companies, it takes something really elephant-sized to move the needle on a conglomerate with a market value of a third of a trillion dollars.

Those kinds of deals, be they BNSF, Kraft Heinz, or Precision Castparts, also mean that the Buffett’s elephant gun will be quiet while he refills the cash coffers. Berkshire is spending down its $66 billion in cash by $20 billion, and Buffet likes to maintain at least $20 billion in cash as a reserve in the case of economic downturns.

Buffett Reloads the Cash

“This takes us out of the market for an elephant but we will probably be buying a few small things in the next 6 months,” Buffett recently remarked, explaining the deal for Precision Castparts. “We are in negotiations on a couple but in terms of a deal of similar size it pretty much takes us out. What we will probably do on this one, we will probably borrow about $10 billion and use about $23 billion of our own cash on that order. We’ll be left with over $40 billion probably in cash when we get all through. But I like to have a lot of cash at all times, so this means we have to reload over the next 12 months or so, but it doesn’t preclude doing smaller deals, but we will be doing a few probably.”

That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles

So, despite the recent excitement around activist investor Bill Ackman of Pershing Square having taken a $5.5 billion stake in snack food company Mondelez, perhaps with the goal of seeing it sold to a buyer like Berkshire, don’t look for it to merge into either Berkshire or Kraft Heinz any time soon.

© 2015 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.