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Authors: JordanNEW DELHI: The much-awaited speech from iconic investor Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway's upcoming annual shareholder meeting on Saturday is keeping investors wide-eyed.
Just how much is at stake And how big is his empire Let's dive in.
Known as Oracle of Omaha, Buffett is third-richest on this planet with $83 billion in personal wealth, according to Bloomberg Billionaire list.
This is more than double India's richest man Mukesh Ambani's net worth.
Buffett's diversified company Berkshire Hathaway, which deals in insurance and reinsurance, utilities and energy, freight rail transportation, finance, manufacturing and retailing, is sitting on a whopping $116 billion in cash and short-term US treasury bills, at the last count.
He has 17.2 per cent ownership stake in the New York Stock Exchange listed firm as per a Reuters report.
The sheer value and size of Berkshire's cash and investments is huge.
To get a sense, let's see where it stands in the Indian context.
85% of banking bad loansBerkshire's cash muscle is jaw-dropping.
At a rupee-dollar exchange rate of 66, its $116 billion of cash pile amounts to Rs 7,65,600 crore.
The cash level equals 85 per cent of total gross non-performing assets of Rs 8,96,891 crore of 40 listed domestic banks, latest quarterly filings showed.
Berkshire's cash is in fact 9.67 times cash and cash equivalents of $12 billion, or Rs 78,063 crore, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries had as of March 31.
Tops BSE200 firmsThe deep pocket dwarfs cash and cash equivalents and current investments of all BSE 200 companies (excluding banks and financial institutions) taken together, according to Capitaline.
A total of 154 BSE 200 companies had total cash amounting to Rs 7,32,132 crore, financial disclosures for the latest financial year suggest.
Profit exceeds Sensex bottom lineBerkshire reported $44.94 billion net profit for 2017.
At exchange rate of 66, this translates into Rs 2,96,604 crore and is higher than Rs 2,55,836 crore consolidated profit of Sensex companies for full financial year, as per their latest filings.
The profit figure for 30 Sensex firms is arrived at by adding FY18 earnings of 14 index companies (available so far) with FY17 earnings for the rest.
Revenues more than twice of Tata Group'sBerkshire's revenue for 2017 stood at $242.13 billion, which roughly stands at Rs 16 lakh crore at the current exchange rate.
This is 2.4 times higher than Tata Group's FY17 revenue of $100 billion, or Rs 6.73 lakh crore.
5 top bets worth a fourth of BSE smallcapsBerkshire's top 5 common stock investments worked out to $111 billion at 2017-end, which is roughly Rs 7.33 lakh crore.
The list includes Wells Fargo Company ($29.27 billion), Apple ($28.21 billion), Bank of India Corporation ($20.66 billion), Coca Cola (18.35 billion) and American Express ($15.05 billion).
That's 27 per cent of BSE Smallcap index's total m-cap of Rs 27 lakh crore, with 860-odd constituents.
20 quotes from Oracle of Omaha on investing, life and success4 May, 2018
When Warren Buffett speaks, the world listens! As Omaha readies to host the much-awaited Berkshire AGM, we bring you twenty pearls of wisdom from the legendary investor whose each word, each statement becomes the gospel truth for investors.Focus on quality4 May, 2018“Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise, when it is marked down.”On greed and fear4 May, 2018Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.Investing rules4 May, 2018Rule No.
1: Never lose money.
Rule No.
2: Never forget rule No.1Risk comes from ignorance4 May, 2018“Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.”Cash enough to buy India's most-valued firmBerkshire's idle cash is enough to buy India's most valued firm TCS, which recently hit $100 billion mark -- the only Indian IT company to do so.
On Wednesday, TCS market value stood at $106 billion.
Can buy 5% of BSE listed stocksWith $116 billion in cash, Berkshire can buy 5 per cent of total listed stocks on the BSE.
At Rs 7,65,600 crore, Berkshire's cash is equal to 5.08 per cent of market capitalisation of total BSE listed stocks valued roughly at Rs 150 lakh crore.
Nearly a fifth of India's GDPNow, take this.
Berkshire's market valuation at $470 billion is nearly 21 per cent of India's GDP.
It is bigger than economies such as Thailand, Iran, Austria and Norway and nearly close to that of Belgium.
