Buffett keeps buying Berkshire but not much else
| Buffett keeps buying Berkshire but not much else Berkshire Hathaway bought back $7.6 billion of its own stock in the third quarter. That brings the year-to-date total to $20.2 billion, on track to top last year's record $24.7 billion.
At the same time, Berkshire was a net seller of stocks for its portfolio. According to its quarterly report, it spent $1.4 billion on equities while selling $3.4 billion worth, for a net reduction of just under $2 billion.
(We'll get some details on the buying and selling on Monday when Berkshire files its end-of-third quarter portfolio snapshot with the SEC.)
Bloomberg notes its Berkshire's fourth consecutive quarter of net equity sales, contributing to a new record high for cash at $149.2 billion.  Its story quotes Cheviot Value Management's Darren Pollock as saying all that cash is a good sign for the company's health. "We're happy with it because the alternative is that cash isn't growing as much and that means that Berkshire's operating companies aren't of as high quality as we thought."
Profits from those operating companies increased by 18% to $6.5 billion for the quarter.
Berkshire said in its report that with help from a recovering national economy, "many of our businesses experienced significantly higher sales and earnings relative to the second quarter, reflecting higher customer demand."
But it warned that "the extent of the effects over longer terms cannot be reasonably estimated at this time."
And it noted that supply chain problems around the world put some downward pressure on operating profits.
Buffett: "My children are devoted to maintaining the culture" Warren Buffett tells the Omaha World-Herald the recent addition of his daughter Susie to Berkshire's board will help prevent any big changes when he's not longer in charge.
"All three of my children (Susie, Howard, and Peter) are devoted to maintaining the culture of the place. They have an unusual amount of devotion to that."
Howard Buffett is set to become Berkshire next chairman, although he won't be CEO. Greg Abel is in line for that job.
Maximum sentence for Ponzi schemer who defrauded Berkshire A California man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, the statuary maximum, by a federal judge after pleading guilty last year to an almost $1 billion Ponzi scheme that included Berkshire Hathaway among its victims.
Jeff Carpoff and his wife ran a now defunct company called DC Solar that claimed to be leasing out mobile solar generators that were supported by federal tax credits.
But prosecutors say the Carpoffs lied about market demand and revenues, using money from new investors to pay older investors. Eventually, they say, the company stopped building the generators altogether, and at least half of the 17,000 generators DC Solar said it made didn't exist.
In a statement, an FBI agent involved in the case said, "Carpoff's egregious scheme fueled his rapacious desire for luxury and prominence with showy, public expenditures including the purchase of a sports team, high-end collector's vehicles, international real estate and a NASCAR team."
Carpoff's wife, Paulette Carpoff also pleaded guilty in 2020. She faces a statutory maximum of 15 years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for next week.
In 2019, Berkshire took at $377 million charge after investing $340 million in DC Solar funds because the company believed "it is more likely than not that the income tax benefits that we recognized are not valid."
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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
  BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Nov 12, 2021
 Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded U.S. stocks by market value, based on today's closing prices.
Holdings are as of June 30, 2021 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on August 16, 2021, except for Apple, Bank of America, and U.S. Bancorp, which also include shares held as of June 30, 2021 as disclosed in New England Asset Management's 13F filing on August 16, 2021.
In addition to U.S. stocks, shares held as of December 31, 2020 of China's BYD, as listed in Buffett's 2020 letter to shareholders, are included. The price of those shares in U.S. trading is used to approximate the current market value of the position. The value of the stake as a percentage of the company's market value is fixed at what was listed as of December 31, 2020 in the letter.
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
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-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
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