Michael's Berkshire Notes

The real financial story behind Berkshire Hathaway's first decade under Buffett - 1966 through 1976.   I was just

Personally, I dislike shopping and avoid stores like the plague (except Costco). If I have to

Those reading through the proxies of the Heinz transaction and other recent acquisitions – Lubrizol

I got a call --a referral by a mutual acquaintance-- asking if I could spend a couple of

If the phone ain’t ringin’, maybe there’s a reason.  The biggest competition to Berkshire

As readers may have long suspected, if you catch me trying to add some anecdotal

 We certainly appreciate the influences a single person can have on retailers and brands, but

Maybe a dozen years ago I was sitting in on a session with a successful private equity

Q: What is it about Costco that makes you not hate being there?

The mention a of PIPE the (private placement of public equity) financing in a Chinese-controlled

NYU’s Spring semester MBA classes in Valuation and Corporate Finance are underway -- videos of

Here’s something got me thinking about the private company opportunities.  I’ve been lending

Continuing an online bank valuation discussion:

It's helpful to keep in mind that in BRK valuations, we’re trying to arrive at a reasonable

Why not do a straight-up valuation of Berkshire? While the exercise may not be for

A reader of Alice's blog posted the simple question regarding Berkshire's offer to buy

Hilco and Gordon Bros fund their larger purchases, such as Borders, with short-term

The Borders liquidation news is interesting from a number of perspectives, not the least

National Presto was almost like a long-forgotten high school friend.  Berkshire owned

There was some disbelief here and there when Buffett said that he thought unemployment

Say we wanted to get an updated value of various Berkshire subs – or get an idea of a public-equivalent

It’s telling that even Berkshire shareholders are starting to think of Berkshire as a conglomerate.

I think I’m a fairly typical long-term Berkshire Hathaway shareholder, as much as there is such a thing.

Each of the four major international retailers - US's Walmart, France's Carrefour, England's Tesco,

I’m sure I’m in the small minority in thinking that Hamburg should be cuffed upside the head.

We’ll remember that Mark Cuban ran afoul of regulators for selling his stake

How about an ATF theme. The whole idea is actually intriguing. If we packaged this

It never entirely made sense to me that Santulli's departure was about earnings. Buffett hates losses

Lubrizol’s filing includes the two ‘fairness opinions’ prepared by Lubrizol’s advisers, Evercore and Citi.

Some of the credit probably should also go to the interviewer, Anjana Menon. We'll notice that her

Is DJCO an example of Munger’s Japanese-style model for public ownership?

Looking into BNSF's capital expenditures... The ATSF merger was finalized at the end of 1996, but

Hopefully Burlington Northern only gets better from Q1.   The $2.25B in dividends paid out

If we look back from about the beginning of time (Berkshire’s Buffett era) to the end of

Awhile back, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Meyer Shields put that highly publicized ‘sell’ recommendation

From the ‘black and white’ perspective, a disgruntled BRK shareholder might be forgiven for

Some of us won't spend $30/year at Walmart, and have given up on BJ’s.  We'll shop Costco, though.  But as a

Taking a lesson from Berkshire valuation exercises, sometimes it’s helpful to look at the value of the underlying

The challenge with look-through earnings over extended periods – and when there is trading – is

Last I checked, Berkshire’s position in Tesco was almost equivalent (on a dollar basis) to its

In 2010, Walmart earned more than all of the following retailers combined - on slightly less revenue.

Long-standing moats seem to be most vulnerable to fundamental changes that initially are not

In Berkshire circles there's often discussion as to the PE that might be applied to Berkshire’s

Companies – foreign or domestic, here and abroad – are generally only required to pay taxes in

Here are some of the examples I cited earlier, with the definitions verbatim from the referenced SEC

Gross profit percentages of major retailers range from the 'teens' to approaching 50%.  The margins,

We might question why wouldn't we give Walmart same store growth credit for any of their ‘same stores’ outside

'Same store sales' need a bit of clarification. There is no GAAP or industry definition for

Barron's ran a featured article entitled Most Respected Companies.  Their top pick:

I'll be the first to admit that Sen. Rockefeller's crusade to regulate the railroads is a long shot indeed.

Few individuals have offered as much, without regard to political correctness. Examples:

One of the beauties of Buffett's acquisitions is that he almost always has been adept at playing

AIG in India is a reminder of one of my favorite-to-watch companies, Tata. Much as we

APB 11 was the accounting profession's initial solution to handling 'book depreciation'

atWe’ll remember years ago Buffett liked Pinkerton’s, specifically because his managers

Munger's periodic criticisms of accountants usually have merit, and always give us

The problem, to put it bluntly: too much recent success, both in underwriting

Essentially, Owner's Earnings are pretty much the same as Free Cash Flow .... at least as FCF

The 2008 spike in price lasted just a few days.  That was a monumental few days that

Whenever I read about companies claiming abuse by short sellers, I'm reminded

Walmart/Tesco/Metro/Carrefour - These guys are all in the same boat in terms of

A rookie Brazilian-born reporter for Forbes has picked up a short piece in a Brazilian

Whenever the IV subject comes up, I think of Vornado. As pointed out in Snowball, Berkshire

Obviously, Buffett didn’t jump into Gen Re with the idea of changing management. The

Since deregulation – and where there is competition on a route – prices will tend to

As subscribers to the 'two-column' method for looking a Berkshire, we wouldn't

A long term bias towards reducing A shares?   Back before Gen Re,

While Buffett has long advertised his allegiances to his businesses, his actions suggest an

"How, exactly, would you put BNSF out of business?"

The rating aside, the GS report itself is a trove of information about Berkshire and

The term we sometimes see used for the Merkel's, Leucadia's, Brookfield's, etc, etc.   At an event

A Barron's article included mention of Jim Maguire, NYSE's former specialist for BRK (now

Berkshire notably does not have a 'conglomerate discount', nor does it or its companies warrant

Some CEO's are intolerant of hearing bad news. That's not just a problem for internal

Pure speculation.. but...having no insights on this other than the post above, it just could be that once

Dollar stores are the new retail darlings. We can hardly read anything about retailing these days

Some notes: ( a) industry demand for wallboard (20 bill sf) vs current capacity (35 bill sf) is

I would suggest that anyone wanting to make the case that Berkshire pay a dividend simply invoke

First ...Any time a retailer stops reporting monthly 'same store sales' with everyone else, because it

Retail casualties have included:

A refresher on how Buffett's switch from Lincoln took place:

http://www.aba.com/Issues/Issues_UpdatingSEC.htm Reporting requirements basically depend on the

The Gordon Growth Model:  "A model for determining the intrinsic value of a stock, based on a future