• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Buffett buys $5 Billion oof B of A.......

Help Support Ranchers.net:

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 12, 2008
Messages
24,216
Reaction score
0
Location
real world
.....with some of the stimulus dollars he received, no doubt.

He should offer up more taxes, so he can get a 5:1 payback from his buddy Barry. He must have thought he needed another "too big to fail", before the next bailout


Warren Buffett's Bank Of America Investment Shows Faith In Government Support, Experts Say

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/25/warren-buffett-bank-america-too-big-to-fail_n_937118.html
 
So both of you are asking for fewer and fewer regulations and sweetheart deals? What if this sweetheart deal comes at the expense of the regular mom and pop investor?

Buffet and the other billionaires will play by the rules they can get away with. It is up to a competent government to make the rules so that the very wealthy do not capture all of the economy. Don't call out Buffet only on this deal. His is allowed under current policy, obviously. The policy needs to be changed or an invisible Warren Buffet ie--Koch brothers, will do the same thing. I am glad there is a little focus on this deal. Warren Buffet is making it plain what is happening. Private investors hide it.

Tex
 
Retraction:
Warren Buffett may have earned $1.3 billion in one day on his $5 billion investment in Bank of America Corp. (BAC)

The preferred shares Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) bought are worth about $3.53 billion, Phil Jacoby, chief investment officer at Spectrum Asset Management Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, estimated. Warrants included in the deal are worth about $2.73 billion, based on Bank of America's share price of $7.65 as of 4:15 p.m. in New York trading, said Clay Struve, a partner with Chicago-based CSS LLC.

The 25 percent first-day return -- more than 9,000 percent on an annualized basis -- shows the premium Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan was willing to pay to attract Buffett as an investor. As Berkshire's CEO, Buffett has garnered a reputation as one of the world's best investors, with shareholder returns over the past decade that are more than double those of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

"I'm sure Warren cut a pretty good deal," said Linus Wilson, assistant professor of finance at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. "For Bank of America, you get the endorsement of Warren Buffett, and it's going to make it a lot easier if Bank of America wants to raise more capital from other investors."

Under the terms of the deal, Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire will invest $5 billion in Bank of America, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said today in a statement.

Preferred Dividend

In exchange, Berkshire will receive 50,000 perpetual preferred shares with a liquidation value of $100,000 each, according to the statement. The preferred shares pay a dividend of 6 percent per year, and are redeemable at any time by Bank of America at a 5 percent premium. The dividends are cumulative, meaning Bank of America would have to catch up if it skipped any payments.

Berkshire also will get warrants -- a type of options -- to buy 700 million common shares at a strike price of $7.14 each. Investors who value warrants weigh a company's stock price, share volatility and the expiration date.

The Bank of America warrants are good for 10 years, according to the statement. The bank's shares, which had declined 48 percent this year through yesterday, surged as much as 26 percent today.

"It's a package deal," said Jacoby, whose firm specializes in preferred shares. For Bank of America, deciding how much to pay Buffett was probably "a process of how much value do you feel you need to give away in order to change the mood of the market."

Bank of America's closing price yesterday was $6.99 a share.

Goldman Deal

When Buffett bought $5 billion of preferred stock in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2008, he received a 10 percent dividend and a 10 percent premium when the firm redeemed the stock. He also received warrants that gave him the right to purchase $5 billion of common stock at a strike price of $115 at any point within five years.

Those warrants were in the money when the deal was announced. Goldman Sachs disclosed the investment after the market closed on Sept. 23, 2008, with a share price of $125.05. The stock rallied 6.4 percent the next day to $133. Goldman redeemed the preferred shares in April, paying the 10 percent premium, or $500 million.

The warrants are no longer in the money, because the shares have fallen 35 percent this year to $108.62. Buffett said in May that he plans to hold the Goldman warrants, which expire in 2013, "very close to their expiration."

GE Stock

Berkshire also received a 10 percent dividend and a 10 percent premium when it agreed to buy $3 billion of perpetual preferred stock in General Electric Co. on Oct. 1, 2008. Buffett got warrants, which expire in 2013, to buy $3 billion of common shares at $22.25 per share, lower than the previous day's close of $25.50.

GE shares plunged 9.6 percent the day after the investment to $22.15. They have yet to reach a higher closing price in the almost three years since then, ending trading yesterday at $15.72.

In a 2009 interview, Buffett said the warrants in the GE and Goldman Sachs deals would allow him to profit if the stock surged.

"I wanted a possible kicker," he said, adding that he didn't know if Berkshire would make money by exercising the warrants in either company. "I think the odds are reasonably good we do them. Maybe we'll do it on one and not the other, but in the end I was satisfied with the preferred I was getting."

To contact the reporter on this story: Bradley Keoun in New York at [email protected]; Donal Griffin in New York at [email protected]; Michael J. Moore in New York at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer in New York at [email protected].

Sometimes "Regulations" and enforcing them are not enough. Every crook can figure a way to skirt the law.

SOMETIMES THERE MUST BE SCRUPLES!!!!!!!!!! :roll:
 
Buffet and the other billionaires will play by the rules they can get away with.


You're starting to get it.


Now given that knowledge, would further/additional regulations help to create competition, or only add to the number of rules that the "billionaires" play with, but the small guy can't afford to "play" with?
 
hypocritexposer said:
Buffet and the other billionaires will play by the rules they can get away with.


You're starting to get it.


Now given that knowledge, would further/additional regulations help to create competition, or only add to the number of rules that the "billionaires" play with, but the small guy can't afford to "play" with?

That depends on who is making the rules.

I do know that the USDA rules for slaughter houses drastically decreased the number of slaughter houses because of regulatory capture by the big guys. First policy makers ask the industries they are regulating how they should be regulated and then they do it. It is quite simple and quite stupid.

Without the rule of law, and good laws at that, we will all become subject to the corporations who make the rules and laws by default. We have ourselves to blame because we don't hold our policy makers accountable. The Texas jury for Tom Delay did try to hold him accountable. Give these decisions back to juries and the uncertainty of getting away with frauds will make less fraudsters. Keep it in the hands of federal judges who are part of the corruption and things will remain the same.

Tex
 

Latest posts

Top