Editor’s Note: Related tickers: Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A), eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG), Cna Financial Corp (NYSE:CNA), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)
Warren Buffett is famously hands-off when it comes to running the subsidiary businesses of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) -0.11%, but some Berkshire CEOs have been craving a little more contact – at least with each other. Buffett’s financial assistant Tracy Britt is making it happen. The 28-year-old Harvard MBA has worked by the legendary investor’s side since 2009, and is taking on more responsibility within Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A), including the chairmanship of four of its subsidiaries. One of her goals is to increase interaction among the managers of Berkshire’s 80-odd businesses. She travels frequently to the far-flung units to visit Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) executives and learn about their business challenges and practices, often using that knowledge to put CEOs in touch with each other.
Hillary Clinton Twitter: Warren Buffett Hints At Her 2016 Presidential Run (Policymic)
Now that Hillary Clinton has joined Twitter and her supporters have done their celebratory happy dance, the Washington Post has also joined in by publishing a 26 paragraph article solely dedicated to her arrival into the Twitter world. What is now even greater than Hillary joining Twitter, though, is that she has received a hearty welcome and endorsement from Warren Buffett. The noteworthiness is further compounded by the fact that his tweet to Hillary was one out of the three he has ever posted on Twitter, which paired with his decision to call Clinton “one of [his] favorite women in the world” is tremendous.
Buffett charity lunch sold for $1 million-plus (NDTV)
The annual charity auction of a private lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett went for just more than $1 million — a bargain price compared to past years for an opportunity to sit down with one of the world’s most successful philanthropists. An anonymous donor had the high bid of $1,000,100 when the bidding ended Friday night on eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY). The private audience with Buffett drew bids of more than $2 million in each of the past five years, including last year’s record-setting winning bid of $3,456,789. All proceeds go to the Glide Foundation, which helps the poor and homeless in San Francisco. The nonprofit relies on the auction to provide a significant chunk of its $17 million annual budget.
Berkshire’s Eastwood Builds Team to Take On Ex-Employer AIG (SFGate)
Peter Eastwood, who left American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) with three other executives in April to start a new insurer at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A), said he’s finding it easy to attract staff. Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance had 40 employees at the end of last week, a month and a half after it was founded, Eastwood said today in an interview. It now has people in Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta after bringing on staff from insurers including American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and Cna Financial Corp (NYSE:CNA), he said. “Talent attracts talent,” Eastwood said on the sidelines of a conference hosted by Advisen in New York. “We’ll absolutely be hiring more.”
Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer auctioning off lunch for charity (BayouBuzz)
Following in the footsteps of Warren Buffett, Mayer will have lunch with a winning bidder to raise money for charity. Bidding site Charitybuzz is running the Mayer lunch auction , which received a bid of $41,500 shortly after it was posted on Tuesday. The one-hour lunch with Mayer will be held at Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)‘s Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters. And yes, the winning bidder will be allowed to take photos. Mayer’s charity of choice is the Aspire East Palo Alto Charter School, a high-poverty California school. The charity will receive 80% of the winning bid after Charitybuzz takes its 20% cut, the site’s CEO Coppy Holzman told CNNMoney. The auction will end June 27.
Berkshire’s New Insurance Push Driven By Lack of Price Spikes (WSJ)
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) is taking a big new plunge into the business-insurance sector in part because of a shift in the way the sector operates, a top executive at the company said. Mr. Buffett and his insurance lieutenant, Ajit Jain, have long been known for jumping into the commercial insurance sector when prices spike. But the executive leading Berkshire’s new push said Tuesday that significant price increases are becoming far less common because of how quickly fresh capital can be deployed to react to those price increases. That’s why Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) is looking at “operationalizing our balance sheet in a more permanent way, long term,” said Peter Eastwood, who recently jumped to Berkshire from American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) to head the new effort.
What Warren Buffett should like about Shoppers Drug Mart (TheGlobeAndMail)
Toronto-based Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation licenses retail drug stores operating under the Shoppers Drug Mart and Pharmaprix names. It has a network of more than 1,240 stores across Canada, a $9.3-billion market cap and has taken in more than $10.7-billion in sales in the past year. Shoppers also licenses or owns 59 medical clinic pharmacies operating under the name Shoppers Simply Pharmacy or Pharmaprix Simplement Santé and six luxury beauty destinations operating as Murale. Validea’s Warren Buffett-based stock-picking model looks for increased earnings per share, which Shoppers’ has every year for the past decade. The Buffett model also likes that its average return on equity is over 15 per cent for past decade.
