CEO Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett's company has lined up an $8 billion loan to help pay for its $26.3 billion acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday that it signed the financing deal with JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo on Wednesday. Buffett has said Berkshire, which is based in Omaha, plans to borrow half of the $16 billion cash needed for the deal, and pay back the loan over three years. Berkshire has agreed to pay $100 a share in cash and stock for all the Burlington Northern shares it doesn't own. Berkshire ... Read Full Story

I thought I'd heard the ultimate structured settlement puffer fish story until now. Apparently some twit recently mischaracterized Symetra Life structured annuity as being provided by a "Berkshire Hathaway entity", One can only suppose that the purpose of such statement was to increase confidence over Symetra's ratings by shamelessly attempting to create the perception of the imprimatur of Warren Buffett. Symetra is of course owned by an investor group led by White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. As it clearly states on the Symetra Financial website "Originally a part of a Seattle-based Fortune 500 insurance company, on Aug. 2, 2004, the ... Read Full Story

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) are arranging an $8 billion loan for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRKA) to help finance the takeover of railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. The banks are providing a one-year loan with an interest rate 1 percentage point to 2 percentage points more than the London interbank offered rate. Three-month Libor, a borrowing benchmark, was set at 0.27 percent yesterday. Buffett is risking Berkshire’s AAA rating at Standard & Poor’s by taking on debt and drawing down cash holdings to finance the $26 billion acquisition of Burlington. JPMorgan… Read Full Story

BUFFETT BAGS ONE Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett has hinted for a while that he was on the prowl for big game. On Nov. 3 he bagged a trophy, laying out $26 billion for all the stock he didn't already own in Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the No. 2 railroad by market cap in the U.S. The deal, valuing BNSF at $34 billion, is the biggest in Berkshire's history and in Buffett's words amounts to "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States." The price represents roughly a 30% premium over BNSF's closing the day before, and Buffett will also assume ... Read Full Story

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett, perhaps the world's most admired investor, said on Thursday the financial panic that gripped the globe last year is a thing of the past, even as the U.S. economy's struggles persist. "The financial panic is behind us," the world's second-richest person said at Columbia University's business school. "Our economy was sputtering, still is sputtering some." Buffett, 79, nevertheless said there is greater opportunity for investments inside the United States than outside, noting that the U.S. economy is far larger than any other. Last month, preliminary government data showed the U.S. economy expanded in the third quarter, the first ... Read Full Story