Warren Buffett 01 (May 08 - Jan 10)

[winston]

Two investors put in the winning bid of $650,100 in a charity auction to break bread with billionaire Warren Buffett.

Mohnish Pabrai, who will put up most of the money, said Saturday that he's going to be well-prepared by the time he meets the famed investor at a New York steakhouse.

"I'll probably download the menu and see what we want so we don't waste our time looking at the menu," Pabrai. "My wife's not a big fan of steakhouses — but I told her they serve fish as well."

( Winston's comments: This guy, Mohnish Pabrai is a smart cookie. Pls. see his portfolio under the Carl Icahn thread )

Pabrai, his wife and two daughters will join his bidding partner, Guy Spier of Aquamarine Capital Management LLC, and Spier's wife at the dinner with Buffett, the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

The group will dine at the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York City.

[winston]

June 28, 2008, 12.11 pm (Singapore time)
Warren Buffett lunch sells for record US$2.11m

NEW YORK - It takes millions to have lunch with someone who control billions.

The winner, Zhao Danyang, a general manager at Pure Heart China Growth Investment Fund, won the right to dine with Mr Buffett

A bidder agreed to pay US$2.11 million to have lunch with billionaire Warren Buffett, more than triple last year's record for the annual charity auction.

The winner, Zhao Danyang, a general manager at Pure Heart China Growth Investment Fund, won the right to dine with the 76-year-old chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, a spokesman at the Glide Foundation said.

Auction proceeds benefit the Glide Foundation, a non-profit group in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that helps serve poor and homeless people.

The five-day online auction concluded on Friday night on eBay's website. After starting at US$25,000, a battle broke out between two bidders in the final stretch of the auction with bid prices jumping seven-fold in two hours.

Last year's winners, including Mohnish Pabrai, an Irvine, California-based investor who models his investment style on Mr Buffett's, dined with him this week in New York at steakhouse Smith & Wollensky.

Mr Pabrai, who bid for five years before being the top bidder, and Guy Spier, a friend who runs the Aquamarine LLC hedge fund, paid a then record US$650,100 to dine with Mr Buffett.

Mr Zhao was not immediately reachable for comment.

An eBay spokesman said the bid was among the highest priced items ever up for auction on the service and is the most expensive charity bid in its history, topping the US$2.1 million price paid for a letter to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Mr Buffett has pledged most of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities. Forbes magazine earlier this year estimated his net worth at US$62 billion.

Mr Buffett began donating the lunches in 2000, after his wife Susan introduced him to Glide, its affiliated church, and the Rev Cecil Williams, who runs both.

The auctions were conducted live for three years, and have raised over US$4 million for Glide since moving to the Web in 2003. Glide's annual budget is about US$12 million.

Mr Buffett has since 1965 transformed Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire from a failing textile maker into a conglomerate with more than 70 businesses ranging from insurance to ice cream to underwear, and a market value exceeding US$168 billion. -- REUTERS

[Niczach]

视频描述： 主持人：李南
邀请嘉宾：
汇添富基金管理公司首席投资理财师刘建位
还有一位是《听我非常道》的老道友邓智敏
播出时间：6月25日晚零点（周四）湖南卫视《听我非常道》
视频简介：
俗话说的好：'炒股不识巴菲特，纵称高手也惘然'。无论牛市多牛
、熊市多熊，巴菲特叱咤股市风云多年总是能把准股市跳动脉搏。'该出手时就出
手，风风火火闯股市' 巴菲特一次又一次的创造着股市的投资神话。然而很多人
都胆怯熊市，在熊市中碰壁，熊市来临会显得措手不及。这时人们会想到股神巴菲特，
他也会面对熊市，为什么他就不怕熊市呢.那么他在熊市的一天会做些什么呢？




http://vhead.blog.sina.com.cn/player/ou ... 1276311044

[helios]

informative video-buzz : Warren buffett's lunch consists of hamburger, coke, beef steak ...

[millionairemind]

QUESTION TO ALL VALUE INVESTORS READING THIS FORUM

Paiseh, you know I not a value investor cos' I not as smart as those ppe. who knows how to value a company

Got a question to ask on Berkshire Hathaway.

The annual report keeps harping about book value and uses that to determine the compounded return, instead of the share price. The differences can be quite significant.

Can anyone enlighten me on Y this is so?

We know book value can be very decieving.. Bear Sterns had a book value of $84 before it went into receivership.

I ask this question in earnest to learn something about value investing...

Thanks.

[Musicwhiz]

Dear MM,

I will try my best to answer your question but I will delve into accounting in order to express it better (paiseh la, me trained as an accountant !).

Book value, put simply, refers to the value of the net assets of a company. However, the components of book value can differ pretty significantly and that's what sets one company apart from another. Quality of assets, recoverability of debts, saleability of inventory and length of loans are some of the factos which may affect the "book value" of a company. Two companies having the same book value may carry different types of assets with different market/liquidation values; thus how can one rely on simple book value to make a judgement call ? Berkshire, I believe, uses book value because the underlying asset base consists of investments and investment-holding companies. These companies are acquired (usually 100%) and the initial cost is recorded at book value as most companies are valued using NAV. Thus, Berkshire, being what it is, uses book value extensively and this is quite applicable for their type of business. There is nothing much you CANNOT value in terms of their business, as they simply buy other businesses.

For companies like banks with dubious CDO on their Balance Sheet, book value then becomes more ephemereal because the stated book value may not be the real and true market value for their assets anymore. Book value then becomes an unrealiable measure of a company's NAV and may be subject to further scrutiny.

Hence, the concept of book value can be pretty subjective and contentious. I know of value investors who like to buy at 50-60% of NAV (i.e. book value) to achieve margin of safety. But I always caution that book value represents historical costs for certain assets and one cannot be certani that asset quality has not eroded enough for NAV to be impaired. This is actually an accounting problem and most investors may not realize that NAV is not always a good measure of the "book value" of a company. If one uses current cost accounting for the Balance Sheet, you may be surprised that NAV drops a lot more than what was originally recorded due to the dominance and prevalence of using historical cost to value assets and some liabilities. The recent introduction of mark-to-market accounting for impairment losses and accumulated holding gains for investments which have a quoted value (i.e. they are listed on an exchange) helps to mitigate this problem somewhat, but does not eliminate it entirely.

Hope this helps to demystify a little.

[kennynah]

mwhz : thanks....insightful and "valuable" indeed..... you simply cannot be certain about NAV of a company, in short. right?

[millionairemind]

MW,

Very kamsia...

My take away from your post is - never take anything at face value.... sorly, Book Value

Cheers,
mm

[kennynah]

Book Value

[millionairemind]

Buffett Can't Escape Credit Pinch as Debt Costs Soar (Update2)
By Bryan Keogh

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Even Warren Buffett can't escape the credit crunch.

Top-rated Berkshire Hathaway Inc. offered the highest yield over benchmark rates it's paid to issue $1 billion of five-year debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company, which gets about 40 percent of its revenue from finance-related businesses, is paying the same spreads as Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., a bottling company rated six steps lower, paid yesterday.

Even as stocks rally, the Federal Reserve keeps its spigot open to Wall Street and federal regulators act to stop naked short-selling, bond investors aren't persuaded that the global credit crisis is easing. They're forcing the best-rated corporate borrowers, especially those tied to the finance industry, to pay the highest yields since the last recession.

``If you're an issuer that doesn't have to come to market for a while there's no reason to pay the price that the market is demanding,'' said Scott Schroepfer, a portfolio manager at Riversource Investments in Minneapolis, who helps oversee $100 billion in fixed-income assets.

Companies sold $35.5 billion of bonds in July, the slowest month in at least five years, Bloomberg data show. Sales are down because the risks are growing, with the U.S. speculative-grade default rate forecast to rise to 4.7 percent by the end of the year from 1.92 percent in June, according to Standard & Poor's.

TED Spread

Banks and brokerages have suffered about $476 billion of losses and writedowns since the beginning of 2007, limiting their ability to extend credit to companies as economic growth slows. Banks remain concerned about lending, money-market rates indicate, raising costs for borrowers.

The difference between the three-month Treasury bill yield and the three-month London interbank offered rate, the so-called TED spread, has risen to 112 basis points from 92 basis points on July 1. The average for the past 12 months has been 128 basis points, compared with 38 basis points for the 12 months before that. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Investors are demanding some of the highest yields relative to benchmark rates on record, pushing average borrowings costs on corporate bonds to a six-year high of 7.66 percent last week, according to Merrill Lynch & Co.'s U.S. Corporate and High Yield Master index. That's 8 basis points from the most since July 2001, the midpoint of the last U.S. economic recession.

Investment-grade bond spreads average 298 basis points, 7 basis points from the record high reached March 20.

With its target interest rate at a four-year low of 2 percent, the Fed today extended its emergency lending to Wall Street firms through January, and the Securities and Exchange Commission took additional steps to rein in naked short-selling, in which traders sell shares they don't have.

Berkshire Hathaway doubled its sale of five-year notes from an earlier-planned $500 million by luring investors with a coupon of 5 percent and a spread of 168 basis points, Bloomberg data show.

Jackie Wilson, a spokeswoman for Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, didn't immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

``They are going to pay record high spreads just because of the nature of where the market is,'' said Mirko Mikelic, a senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which manages $22 billion in assets. ``High quality, non-cyclical issuers should not have a problem coming to market, but they will have to pay a concession.