Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - World media have been celebrating International Women’s Day for much of the week, with stories about the progress made by women in the past 100 years, particularly in politics and economically. But women are conspicuously small in numbers on Forbes latest list of the world’s rich. You have to move beyond the first 10 to find a woman, and most of those in the top 20 are from the same US family, the Waltons of Walmart fame. Birgit Rausing, whose money comes from Tetra Laval, is described by Forbes as “living quietly in Switzerland”. She is part of a very small group of wealthy women whose money has almost always been inherited, the magazine notes, while men who have made their fortunes do so in family businesses to a much smaller extent.
Warren Buffett, the world’s second richest man, is paying $26 billion through his Berkshire Hathaway company for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. The purchase price is 31.5 percent over the closing price of the company’s stock Monday 2 November. It is Buffett’s largest ever acquisition and will likely lead to the sale of some of his other holdings, US media are reporting. The deal is a departure from Berkshire Hathaway’s tradition of cash purchases. “Our country’s future prosperity depends on its having an efficient and well-maintained rail system,” Buffett says in a company press release. ,”Conversely, America must grow and prosper for railroads to do well.”
Links to other sites: Berkshire-Hathaway, Bloomberg, Reuters
Warren Buffett, IMD in Lausanne, 2008
The investment crowd loves Warren Buffett and in criticizing his own mistakes during the past year in his annual newsletter, published 28 February, he may be the rare head of a holding company who will be appreciated rather than reviled by his investors. The New York Times details his mea culpas, but also his anger at some parts of the business world, as his company, Berkshire Hathaway, “reported a 62 percent drop in net income for 2008 and posted negative results for only the second time since he took control in 1965. Warren Buffett’s letters to shareholders, including 2008, published 28 February.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The world’s largest re-insurance company, Swiss Re, lost CHF1 billion in 2008, unaudited figures published 5 February shows. Shares immediately nose-dived 17% in Zurich trading. Swiss Re released its figures early after its shares fell in recent days.
Markets around the world reacted positively to the news that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment firm is buying a $5 billion stake in Goldman Sachs.Reuters The deal gives him an “instant paper profit of $435 million,” reports Bloomberg.
Mega-investor Warren Buffett five years ago warned that financial derivatives were a “time bomb” waiting to go off and he ordered the insurance branch of his company, Berkshire Hathaway, to get out of the business, reports Reuters. The original story: BBC, March 2003, Buffett told Fortune magazine that such contracts were devised by “madmen.” Commentary, 16 September, Bloomberg
