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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N) on Friday said second-quarter profit fell 40 percent, as declining stock prices depressed the value of his derivative contracts. Operating profit nevertheless soared 73 percent, helped by the takeover of railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp, improvement in insurance underwriting results, and a turnaround in performance at the NetJets corporate plane unit. Net income fell to $1.97 billion, or $1,195 per Class A share, from $3.3 billion, or $2.123, a year earlier. Excluding investments, operating profit rose to $3.07 billion, or $1,866 per share, from $1.78 billion, or...

Moody's stock (MCO) is getting slammed this morning on the shocking news that the SEC has hit it with a "Wells Notice" that could lead to the SEC's preventing the company from acting as a rating agency. How did the market learn about the Wells Notice? Because Moody's was apparently forced to disclose it in its latest SEC filing. (The company tried to hide the news deep in the 10Q, even burying it within a broader paragraph, but investors found it). So here's our question: If the Wells Notice is material enough for Moody's to have to disclose it in...

Hawker Beechcraft announced Monday that fractional ownership company NetJets has canceled a "significant" number of aircraft it had on order. The cancellations will reduce Hawker Beechcraft's backlog by $2.6 billion and represent 90 percent of the aircraft that NetJets has on order with Hawker Beechcraft. The planes were to have been delivered over several years beginning in 2011. So far this year, NetJets has canceled 12 aircraft it had on order and deferred delivery of all jets it was scheduled to receive this year and next until the end of 2010. Hawker Beechcraft has said that NetJets wasn't expected to...

Demand for private jets is way down and NetJets will lay off almost 500 pilots as a result -- almost 20% of its staff of 3,000 pilots. because of a decrease in demand. NetJets is a unit of investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway

It seems my previous article has garnered a bit of criticism from someone I hold in rather high regard, indicating that perhaps I have been less than clear in my criticism. Let me be clear: There is nothing wrong with making a lot of money, and leveraging your wealth into making even more money! It doesn't surprise me that those with lots of money get "special dispensation" in the form of conversations with Treasury Secretaries and other members of the government. The "little people" - that is you and I - will never get that sort of treatment, simply because...

The attack on Warren Buffett continues. The latest to jump on the pile is Karl Denninger. He makes the charge that Buffett may have taken advantage of taxpayers, when buying his stake in Goldman Sachs: ...was he really just making a bet? The evidence says otherwise; Warren's statements both at the time and later one made clear that he had every expectation, and perhaps even inside information, that the government would not allow these firms to fail. That is, he didn't make a bet - he jumped in front of the taxpayer, a form of legal "front running", to garner...

February 3, 2006: The DOJ indicted ex-AIG honcho Maurice Greenberg's former execs in a probe of complex reinsurance deals. General Re, a crown jewel in the portfolio of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway had three of its senior execs indicted. Christian Milton, former head of AIG's massive reinsurance operations, indicted on 13 counts of aiding and abetting securities fraud; former General Re CEO Ronald Ferguson, former CFO Elizabeth Monrad and Robert Graham, assistant general counsel. "The scheme was designed to mislead analysts and the investing public," said an assistant US attorney. Federal prosecutors said AIG paid General Re $5.2M — via...

Moody’s downgrades Berkshire Hathaway By Justin Baer in New York Published: April 9 2009 00:41 | Last updated: April 9 2009 00:41 Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway lost its triple-A grade from Moody’s Investors Service, the very ratings firm in which the billionaire holds a 20 per cent stake. The downgrade, which follows Fitch Ratings’ one-notch cut last month, comes as Berkshire seeks to rebound from its worst year since the “Sage of Omaha” took control of the former textiles maker in 1965. Moody’s dropped Berkshire two notches, to double-A2. “Today’s rating actions reflect the impact on Berkshire’s key businesses of...

<p>WASHINGTON - At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute at least $1 million each to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups, to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up during the last three decades.</p>

FAIRFIELD, Conn. — Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is buying $3 billion worth of General Electric preferred shares, even as the diversified conglomerate is preparing to sell at least $12 billion worth of common stock to the public. GE says Berkshire Hathaway will buy $3 billion of perpetual preferred stock in a private offering. Such stock carries a dividend of 10 percent and is callable, at a 10 percent premium, after three years. Berkshire also received warrants to buy $3 billion worth of common shares at $22.25 each over five years. GE says that the Berkshire funds will boost its capital...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) on Tuesday said it will receive a $5 billion investment from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N), a vote of confidence for the Wall Street bank from perhaps the world's best-known investor. Berkshire will buy $5 billion of perpetual preferred stock that carries a 10 percent dividend. It also will receive warrants to buy $5 billion of common stock at $115 per share, exercisable within five years. Goldman also said it plans to sell at least $2.5 billion of common stock. It announced the offerings after earlier this week announcing...

March 28, 2005 .....investigators on three continents are examining Buffet's Berkshire insurance affiliates .......the company is in the unfamiliar position of having to defend its integrity. Berkshire insurance affiliates are involved in what investigators describe as possible financial manipulation at insurance giants like AIG and Zurich Financial Services Group. Investigators are trying to determine the extent of senior executives who oversaw insurance operations that sold products at the core of international regulatory scrutiny. The broad investigation into the insurance industry has already brought down top executives including Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chief executive of AIG.........regulators are looking at a...

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is reaching into its deep pockets to give a steadying hand to Constellation Energy Group Inc. and, at the same time, grab a bargain. Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. said Thursday it will buy Baltimore-based Constellation for $4.7 billion and give it an immediate $1 billion infusion after shares of the nation's largest wholesale power seller plummeted and liquidity concerns had analysts worried it would go out of business. "Obviously we're in unprecedented times," MidAmerican President and CEO Gregory Abel said. "Liquidity and solvency issues are a top priority for many companies. We don't have...

Buffett's Insurance Bust Ruthie Ackerman, 02.29.08, 9:30 PM ET All good things must come to an end -- even billionaire investor Warren Buffett's success in the insurance business. On Friday in Buffett's eagerly awaited annual letter to shareholders, he acknowledged 2007 was a good year, thanks to Berkshire Hathaway's stable insurance operations in a disaster-free 12 months, but he's not expecting a repeat. "That party is over,” he wrote. “It is a certainty that insurance-industry profit margins, including ours, will fall significantly in 2008. Prices are down, and exposures inexorably rise.” He predicted that even with another catastrophe-free year, the...

When Warren Buffett so much as scratches his nose, the investment world sits up and takes notice. So the Buffettologists will be all over the latest acquisition by the world’s smartest investor. While his rivals were still digesting their sprouts, Mr Buffett announced on the evening of Christmas Day that Berkshire Hathaway was paying $4.5 billion (£2.25 billion) for majority control of Marmon Holdings, an industrial conglomerate owned by the Pritzker family of Chicago. Outside his insurance company investments, this is Mr Buffett’s biggest deal yet. Given Berkshire’s investment preferences, there were few surprises in the deal. Marmon’s products are...

Mutual funds that have been longtime Berkshire Hathaway investors are decamping. Warren Buffett draws as many gee-whiz headlines as ever these days. But the Berkshire Hathaway (nyse: BRKA) mystique may be wearing thin among longtime devotees who know the company best--several solid mutual funds that have held its stock for ages. One is the sterling Sequoia Fund, bound in a tight relationship with Buffett for four decades. Since the start of 2005 Sequoia has unloaded $650 million of Berkshire shares, shrinking their weight in Sequoia's portfolio from 35% to 26%. Wallace Weitz shares a hometown with Buffett and runs Weitz...

Billionaire Warren Buffett's holding company bought nearly 2.8 million shares of Dow Jones & Co. earlier this year before Rupert Murdoch sealed his deal to buy The Wall Street Journal's publisher. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. filed its quarterly summary of its $61.1 billion portfolio of US stocks with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The filing did not state how much Berkshire paid for the Dow Jones shares. Berkshire bought the Dow Jones shares sometime in April, May or June, so it could have paid as little as $34 a share. Berkshire held 2.78 million shares of Dow Jones...

Help is not on the way to Darfur, Berkshire shareholders say. NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Here's hoping that Warren Buffett isn't with us as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. for much longer, or at least that he has a change of heart. The world will be better off. Nearly a year after Buffett pledged to give $37 billion of his personal wealth to charity, the 76-year-old and his shareholder flock at Berkshire (BRKA109,150.00, -25.00, 0.0%) shot down a series of do-gooder proposals that would have required the company to spare some profits in the name of social responsibility, and...

Mr. Buffett also defended his charitable contribution to organizations that support women's reproductive rights, such as Planned Parenthood. "Men set the rules for a lot of years, and I think it's wonderful that women can make reproductive choices," Mr. Buffett replied, as shareholders applauded and cheered. "I think it's a terrific organization," Mr. Buffett added, referring to Planned Parenthood. "I really think it's too bad that for millenia, women not only in the U.S. but all over the world, have had involuntary bearing of babies."

Excerpt - SEATTLE - Warren Buffett, the world's second richest man, is starting this year to give much of his wealth to charity, with the bulk of over $40 million in Berkshire Hathaway stock going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a letter dated Monday, Buffett, who is chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., tells Bill and Melinda Gates that the first annual donation would go to the foundation this year. It's expected to total about $1.5 billion. Up until now, all the money given away by the Gates Foundation has come from Bill and Melinda Gates. The money...