Grenville

Awesome! Thanks.

Thanks for the post! Here is the release from Berkadia: Berkadia Acquires One of the Nation's Largest Multifamily Investment Sales and Research Firms, Hendricks & Partners http://www.berkadia.com/newsandresearch/SitePages/NewsRead.aspx?storyID=259 "Since the company was formed back in 2009, Berkadia has been able to steadily grow its strength and presence in the commercial real estate industry," said Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman and CEO. "We see Berkadia's acquisition of Hendricks as another significant step in the growth of their multifamily expertise and services." Also while looking around the Berkadia site I found these interesting nuggets: 1.Randall Jenson "Randall Jenson is president, chief financial officer and a member of the Executive Committee. In this role he is responsible for the finance, accounting, treasury, process improvement and risk divisions as well as mergers and acquisitions and general management. Prior to joining Berkadia, Mr. Jenson spent nine years with Ranch Capital, LLC as co-founder and president. Ranch identified the investment in Berkadia and introduced it to Leucadia and Berkshire. While at Ranch he also worked as interim chief financial officer of Hawaiian Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Hawaiian Airlines, a Ranch Capital portfolio company, and currently serves on the board of directors for Hawaiian Holdings, and several private companies. Prior to joining Ranch, he held various positions at Leucadia National Corporation, including business development and president and CEO of Banking and Lending Operations for more than five years. Mr. Jenson is a Certified Public Accountant and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in accounting from the University of Utah and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School." 2.India Ops "Mark E. McCool is an executive vice president and member of the Executive Committee of Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, one of the largest commercial real estate finance companies in the nation. Berkadia, a privately held company in which Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Leucadia National Corporation each hold a 50 percent ownership interest, acquired the loan origination and servicing businesses of Capmark Financial Group Inc. in December 2009. Mr. McCool currently oversees all Servicing Operations as well as Strategic Initiatives with management responsibility of Asset & Portfolio Management, Servicing Administration, Offshore Administration, BPO Administration, Strategic Initiatives and Banking for a $215 billion portfolio. Mr. McCool joined GMAC Commercial Mortgage in January 1998 as Vice President of Negotiated Transactions where he was responsible for the valuation of servicing rights and the negotiation of structured finance and servicing agreements. Prior to this position, he served from 1987 as a manager in various capacities for GMAC Financial Services and has more than 20 years’ experience in the commercial real estate business. He actively participates in various industry trade groups, task forces and committees, CREF-C Board of Governors and the CREF-C Executive Committee, is a former Co-Chairman of the Freddie Mac Seller/Servicer Advisory Council and currently sits on the Board of Directors of Berkadia’s wholly owned India subsidiary, Berkadia Services India Pvt. Ltd. Mr. McCool holds a B.S. from the University of Scranton. " --> The office is in Hyderabad India

Really cool feature added by Amazon for MP3s based on what you've bought on Amazon as a cd or mp3. They give you free cloud access to stream or download 256kb/s rip of the music. "Introducing “Amazon AutoRip” – Customers Now Receive Free MP3 Versions of CDs Purchased From Amazon – Past, Present and Future" http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1773251&highlight= “What would you say if you bought music CDs from a company 15 years ago, and then 15 years later that company licensed the rights from the record companies to give you the MP3 versions of those CDs… and then to top it off, did that for you automatically and for free?” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Well, starting today, it's available to all of our customers – past, present, and future – at no cost. We love these opportunities to do something unexpected for our customers.”

Here's a link to the third letter. http://www.shareholdersforsandridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Third_Letter_To_SandRidge_12_24_12.pdf I hope a lot of what they are saying about Ward isn't true. If it is, I wouldn't be too happy as an owner.

Thought this was interesting. Ronald Olson bought 2,500 BRK-Bs http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000118143112066401/xslF345X03/rrd364227.xml

Here's the official release from Knight regarding the merger. http://www.knight.com/investorRelations/pressReleases.asp?compid=105070&releaseID=1768498 Cash and stock deal w/cash at 3.75/share.

Most likely! And a nice public advertisement to any other large blocks of stock who now know they can lock in a 15% rate on a lifetime's worth of appreciation at 13x,000/share with a call to Omaha. I hope there are more in the next few weeks. Did not think about that. I hope other's bite!

Amazon beginning to test out service offering in Seattle. The one mentioned is a TV installation service conducted by a third party. http://gizmodo.com/5967752/amazon-wants-to-ship-you-a-laborer-to-install-your-purchases

Berkshire just bought back 1.2bln! Wow, that's a large slug of shares.

New refreshed website. Nice update. http://www.jefferies.com

My thoughts exactly. Is there anything stopping BAC from buying some common stock and adding it to the mix of securities it returns to MBIA in a settlement. Common shares are much cheaper than debt in terms of value to MBIA in a settlement (if book value is an indicator). On the other hand debt has a more defined value.

"Former Executive office building of the Berkshire Hathaway Company owned by the billionaire Warren Buffett. Beautiful mahogany and oak offices. Own a piece of history, this is where Warren Buffett started his fortune. 97 Cove St. New Bedford, MA 02744 Corner property on a busy street. South end of New Bedford. Close to beaches. Right off route 18. Minutes from downtown." http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/14685222/97-Cove-St-New-Bedford-MA/ Found on Cove Street Capital website: http://covestreetcapital.com/Blog/?p=793 I'm assuming this is where the operations were run from when the textile mills were bought.

Nice notes. Thanks for posting.

Good article on Amazon's distribution center growth and strategy. Also talks about the limited use of Kiva robots for now. Amazon Plans Carefully Its Distribution Capacity Growth http://logisticsviewpoints.com/2012/12/03/amazon-plans-carefully-its-distribution-capacity-growth/ "Since a highly-automated warehouse would take months longer to complete, Amazon uses warehouse automation sparingly to preserve scalability." Another article on Kiva: Amazon's Robotic Future: A Work in Progress http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-30/amazons-robotic-future-a-work-in-progress

Thanks DrewDalton for the link!

Do you guys remember where Bruce gave an outline for the worth of the real estate? I'm looking for the source. I could be wrong on my numbers, hence looking for the source. My notes say he valued the real estate: 20% at 500 sq/ft 80% at 10 sq/ft

Thanks. Not the best PR for Davita. + The Vainer Private Civil Suit started in 2008 and covers Vitamin D and Iron Agents + The Woodward Private Civil suit that was started in 2007 was settled recently for 55mln recently and related to EPO dosages + I'm not a huge fan of the 100mln spent to build the new HQ in Colorado. I don't know if that's a lot for HQ but it seems a bit high. Thoughts? + Kent Thiry does get paid well + If the claims from the Vainer suit are true I don't understand why the government is not involved in supporting the litigation.

How Amazon Followed Google Into the World of Secret Servers http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/11/amazon-google-secret-servers/ Article on how many big players are cutting out middlemen for servers and switches. They are building them direct in Asia and ordering chips directly from Intel and others. The article also quotes Chris Pinkham, who built EC2 in its early days in South Africa.

Excellent Interview. I hope they post the remaining portion if there is more. + Checklists + Permanent capital + Behavioral finance + Fairholme Foundation

Video of Jeff Bezos from the conference. Nothing groundbreaking. I enjoyed the talk after the first 5-10min Interesting topics covered: + Running a low margin business + Use of Japanese lean principles in the fulfillment centers (some good anecdotes) + Long term thinking Good summary article of the topics covered: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57556330-92/bezos-amazon-web-services-is-lean-manufacturing-for-it/

Just listened to the above link. It does sound like the full interview (~ 26min long). Excellent interview with the two! Sound quality is awesome. It feels like the two are in the room with you. (I listened to the feed through the player on the website) Interesting tidbits: 1. Coastal Energy investment that Buffett and Loomis made together when they first met that developed out of something in the footnotes. (anyone have any additional details?) 2. Warren said that at the upcoming AGM, he will have short sellers as one of the groups asking questions. He wants tougher questions and make the meeting more interesting for attendees.

Here is a link to Andy Jassy, head of AWS, keynote presentation at the first AWS Re:Invent Conference today. I encourage anyone who doesn't know much about AWS or who wants to know more to watch the presentation. Interesting parts: + Good conversation with Reed Hastings (36min mark) + Dropped pricing on S3 storage service 25% + Computing is shifting to a utility model + The last comment on how the Obama campaign utilized AWS is also interesting (1hr22min mark)

Awesome interview! Thanks for posting. I enjoyed the part about how Warren says the story is in the footnotes.

Thanks for the link on the bad conditions in one of the warehouses. I hope that's been fixed. Doesn't make sense to have that situation both for employees or employers.

Here are some of my thoughts for what it's worth on where they might use the capital. + 1.16bln for the HQ that they are buying from Vulcan. It's a set of buildings in South Lake Union that were built in the last three years. They are all next to each other. Bezos answered a question at the annual meeting (it was quoted in something I read) that they decided to buy the buildings because it was getting harder to find space so close together for the growing rank of employees. + I remember seeing a figure somewhere that each fulfillment center is ~100mln + They are opening two more fulfillment centers in California (Tracy & Patterson both near SF) in addition to the recently opened one in San Bernardino http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-amazon-opening-distribution-center-20121127,0,5209399.story + Small business loans to FBA merchants + More data centers (recently opened an availability zone in Australia) + Acquisitions (Brazil online site maybe) + Dry powder for a share buyback (960mln in Q1'2012 at ~ $180/share) Amazon is in expansion mode along a number of fronts. The retail business is expanding both here and abroad. The content creation and distribution business is growing with both Kindle readers and Kindle fires which are top selling items. Amazon web services continues to expand across the globe. The computing power grows to support Amazon's retail and content business while supporting 3rd party businesses. I've also attached the employee numbers and they are growing much faster than one would expect for supporting just the retail business. I don't think Amazon just hires people because they can. They have faced tough times in the past and they seem to be stingy with their spending. Also I don't think they are raising debt because it's cheap. If they were, they could raise much more than 3bln. Also in 2011 they had about 5bln in inventory at year end versus 42bln in product sales.