INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
By Katherine ChiglinskyThe world’s most famous stock-picker showed a growing appetite for equities in the third quarter -- including a
rare move to buy his own firm’s shares
Now, October’s market slide opens the door for Warren Buffett to finally make a dent in his giant pile of cash.
Berkshire Hathaway
Inc.’s chairman poured more money into stock purchases last quarter than he has in over four years
Buffett also spent $928 million on share buybacks during a few weeks in August, a move he’s typically spurned
While the repurchases amounted to less than 1 percent of the company’s cash, they set a new precedent.
“It’s really important in terms
of a signaling effect,” Jim Shanahan, an analyst at Edward Jones, said in a phone interview
“What they’ve demonstrated is a willingness to use cash to buy back the stock if it reaches a value that they believe is less than
intrinsic value.”
Buffett, 88, has been facing a conundrum
He’s long preferred to use Berkshire’s cash to hunt for large deals or snap up stocks in companies such as Apple Inc
While it’s still a goal to have “one or more huge acquisitions,” he’s bemoaned that prices for many businesses have reached
“all-time highs.” That’s left him struggling to put to work a cash pile that’s topped $100 billion in the past five quarters.
Too
much cash is a high-class problem, and one made possible by well-performing operations across the conglomerate’s swath of energy, railroad
A rebound in the company’s insurance unit led to operating profit doubling to $6.88 billion in the third quarter.
But sitting on such a
large stack of cash has led to pressure from investors to use it or give it back to shareholders through buybacks and dividends.
“If this
were any company that he owned, he wouldn’t be able to understand why they aren’t buying a ton of stock back,” Bill Smead, whose Smead
Capital Management oversees $2.2 billion including Berkshire shares, said in a phone interview.
Berkshire’s board acknowledged that
pressure in July with a loosened repurchase policy, allowing Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger to buy back stock whenever they felt
the shares were below intrinsic value
The previous policy limited them to purchasing stock only when the price was below a 20 percent premium to book value.
Buffett repurchased
$1.2 billion from the estate of a long-time shareholder in 2012, but he’s detailed to shareholders how he prefers to find other uses for
that money unless prices make sense
During his annual meeting in May, Buffett said he would prefer share buybacks to a special dividend.
Now, the worst month for U.S
stocks in seven years has made several of his favorite companies significantly cheaper
Shares of Apple Inc., Berkshire’s top holding, have dropped 8.1 percent since the end of September, while Bank of America Corp
has slumped 5.3 percent in that time period.
Fear in the market “creates prices that make me want to shovel out the money as fast as I
can,” Buffett said in August in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s David Westin
“But we’ve been shoveling out money anyway.”
Despite prices that have thwarted any major deals, Buffett has found stocks he likes
He purchased $12.6 billion of equity securities on a net basis during the third quarter, the most in more than four years
A regulatory filing indicated Berkshire added billions to its stake in Bank of America in the third quarter, continuing a trend from the
second quarter of adding to positions in financial stocks.
The market declines have also left Berkshire’s shares below the price where
Buffett bought them back, leading some investors to think he could dwarf the third quarter’s total in the final three months of the year
-- despite his feelings on buybacks.
“It’s close to one of the last things he wants to be doing,” said Steven Check, president of
Check Capital Management, which oversees $1.5 billion including investments in Berkshire
“He’s avoided it pretty well for 50-plus years.”
