For the second time, authorities are alleging that someone profited from insider information related to the 2013 acquisition of H.J. Heinz Co. by Berkshire and the Brazilian investment company 3G Partners.
According to a Bloomberg story by Christian Berthelsen, Todd David Alpert of Kingston, Pennsylvania, a security guard for an unidentified Heinz board member, received an email in 2013 for the board member spelling out terms of the impending $28 billion acquisition.
Alpert called his broker and bought stock options, and after the sale was announced publicly, sold the investment at a profit of $44,000, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a civil complaint filed in Manhattan. The SEC said Alpert, now unemployed, asserted his right against self-incrimination. His attorney did not return a call from Bloomberg seeking comment.
The SEC said the Heinz director had been on the board of directors several years. That would rule out Buffett and two Berkshire executives, Greg Abel and Tracy Britt Cool, who were elected to the board in June 2013.
Alperts duties included printing emailed documents for the board member, including a letter about the Heinz sale that was marked confidential. In July 2015, he told his employer what he had done.
In 2013, brothers Michel and Rodrigo Terpins received a tip about the Heinz deal and placed an investment order that netted a $1.8 million profit for them after the sale was announced. They ended up paying $4.8 million to settle an SEC complaint stemming from the transaction.
At the time, the SEC said that before the public announcement, 122 people knew about the upcoming sale.
Buffetts advice for most people to invest in low-cost index funds is generating more comment, including an essay by Michael Edesess on MarketWatch about wealthy people who dont take that advice.
In his 2016 letter to Berkshire shareholders, Buffett said most of his friends of modest means followed his suggestion that they invest in low-cost mutual funds that mirror the Standard & Poors index of 500 U.S. stocks.
I believe, however, that none of the mega-rich individuals, institutions or pension funds has followed that same advice when Ive given it to them. Instead, these investors politely thank me for my thoughts and depart to listen to the siren song of a high-fee manager or, in the case of many institutions, to seek out another breed of hyper-helper called a consultant.
Overseers of money in pension funds and charities and people rich enough to hire expert money managers should follow Buffetts advice, but they wont, Edesess wrote.
In many aspects of life, indeed, wealth does command top-grade products or services. For that reason, the financial elites wealthy individuals, pension funds, college endowments and the like have great trouble meekly signing up for a financial product or service that is available as well to people investing only a few thousand dollars.
Buffett said on CBS Radios Dan Patrick Show last week that Creighton basketball and Nebraska football satisfy his love for big-time sports, although he also likes to watch his friend LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Im a huge, huge, huge admirer of LeBron, not just basketball but for what the guys done with his life, Buffett said. He is one classy individual.
If he lived in a city with a pro sports team, Buffett said, he might have tried to buy the local team. He cited his service as an occasional water boy for the Washington Redskins of the NFL when he lived in Washington during his fathers time as a congressman from Nebraska.
As for Creighton and Nebraska, he said, You really identify with those teams.
But owning a pro sports team, or some venture outside Berkshire Hathaway, wouldnt fit his plan, said Buffett, 86.
I want to have a very simple estate, he said. I dont want to have a lot of interests in a whole lot of things.
More European runners will be wearing Brooks shoes if Jim Weber has his way.
Weber heads Brooks Sports, a part of Berkshire since 2005. Joachim Hofer wrote for the Handelsblatt newspaper in Dsseldorf, Germany, that Weber was at the European Championships, where Brooks was an official sponsor.
One competitor after another ran past him wearing the shoes of his competitors Adidas and Nike, a sign of the challenge ahead for Brooks.
The company wants to win customers with the help of retailers who will install an electronic analysis system that measures runners movements and recommends the proper shoes Brooks models, no doubt.
Brooks concentrates on running, Weber said, so nothing distracts us from our one and only objective. We want to be the first choice for runners. Its all about the fit and performance of our shoes.
The label has a ways to go, according to Klaus Jost, a German retail consultant, ranking 31st among suppliers to giant sports retailer Intersport.
Nothing like entering a big market to boost sales.
Like, Berkshires Fruit of the Loom licensed Oban Fashions, a subsidiary of Rupa & Co. of India, to make and sell its innerwear and outerwear to the 1.25 billion people in that country.
Oban holds an exclusive license to manufacture, distribute, advertise and sell clothing for boys, girls, women and men in India. Fruit of the Loom, based in Bowling Green, Ohio, will supply the brand name and technology.
Rupa Chairman P R Agarwala said Oban will pay sales royalties but not a one-time payment for the license.
Oban also owns a license in India for French Connection, a United Kingdom brand.
Warren Buffett and his daughter, Susie Buffett, havent said what they talked about with Barack Obama when they had lunch in Omaha with the former president last week, but here are five whimsical guesses of things they might have discussed:
1. Obama joining Berkshire Hathaway Inc.s board of directors, tapping into his experience working with groups of people and managing big budgets. But hes probably through with elections, even by friendly stockholders.
2. Warren Buffetts experiences as chief executive of Berkshire, as they might apply to a former chief executive looking for work.
3. Locating the Obama Presidential Library on an Omaha streetcar line, the Missouri riverfront or both.
4. How great private jets are.
5. Obama setting up his shadow presidency with Buffett serving as ... oh, never mind.
The Omaha World-Herald isowned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
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5 guesses on what Obama, Buffetts may have discussed last weekend in Omaha - Omaha World-Herald