Buffett Makes $5.1B Bid in Power Industry

[h25b]

Just the other day you stated you don't do NJ sell-offs. Which is it? Get your story straight. I never asked you to do anything! I could care less what you do, it won't affect the outcome either way. You are insignificant to us and when have I threatened anyone as being a SCAB. You are a DIPSH!T!

I take the threat collectively as I work for an operator that frequently gets sell-offs. Our particular aircraft hasn't seemed to draw any of that business.

You might not have personally used the scab threat, but your union seems to be going down that road. Don't they speak for you ??? Talk about needing to get stories straight...

 

[Live4flyng]

I take the threat collectively as I work for an operator that frequently gets sell-offs. Our particular aircraft hasn't seemed to draw any of that business.

You might not have personally used the scab threat, but your union seems to be going down that road. Don't they speak for you ??? Talk about needing to get stories straight...

Our Union hasn't called anyone a SCAB, we haven't gone on strike. So you collectively do sell-offs for NJ. I'm glad we finally got that straight.

 

[h25b]

Our Union hasn't called anyone a SCAB, we haven't gone on strike. So you collectively do sell-offs for NJ. I'm glad we finally got that straight.

Did I say they have officially labeled anyone a scab ??? Nope. I said that is what they are threatening to do. Historically, I have never responded well to threats. Which is why if asked, I'll gladly fly a NetJets sell-off... Mostly just for spite. Since your speaking collectively, well I believe the charter community collectively thinks the union is out of its mind and will respond in the same manner...

Anything else I can straighten out for you please, don't hesitate to ask.

 

[Live4flyng]

Historically, I have never responded well to threats. Which is why if asked, I'll gladly fly a NetJets sell-off... Mostly just for spite.

Then why do you continue to respond? Again, I could care less if you "gladly" fly sell-offs, knock yourself out Mr. Professionalism. The more chartered airplanes our owners have to ride on, the faster we get paid. Owners hate charted airplanes!

 

[dsptchrnja]

Not WB/BH expert, but I remember reading he has averaged near a 20% return since he started his investments. That is 2 to 2.5 times greater than the market average. I worked for this Kirk K. guy, the one who made the offer to buy all the GM stock, he could not make his ROI in the airline busines so he sold his airline, one airplane at a time. When that happens you go backward in senority, like one month you can hold DC-8 F/O, the next month you are a L-188 F/O due to displacement.

This just came up in another post from which I am copying from: NetJets International Interview

When BH purchased and invested in NJ's they asked that it return 7%/yr back to them, on par with the other BH companies. BTW this has yet to be realized in any year to date. Last year was the closest, I think it came in at 4% or something close to that.

 

[Live4flyng]

This just came up in another post from which I am copying from: NetJets International Interview

When BH purchased and invested in NJ's they asked that it return 7%/yr back to them, on par with the other BH companies. BTW this has yet to be realized in any year to date. Last year was the closest, I think it came in at 4% or something close to that.

Please Dispatcher, spare us already. Where you seated at the table when the deal was inked by Buffett and Santulli? You "think" it came to 4% or "something"? Open your eyes dude, earnings tripled in 1 year while the company grew!

 

[dsptchrnja]

That is why mutual funds are a joke and nobody should ever invest in them.. I have plenty of friends on Wall Street and if you knew how devious and crooked these people were who touched your money were you wouldnt drop another dime into a mutual fund.... Warren operates Berk Hathaway essentially like a large mutual fund.always switching around companies , buying and selling them.. Buy Berk B stock instead of mutual funds

Don't know much about Wall Street but I do know that it is WB's style to keep companies around long term. Not sure which companies you were referring to that he is always buying and selling, you may be aware of some others that are not mainstream. Consider the quote below as you you think about WB's relationship to RTS.

"You should be fully aware of one attitude Charlie and I share that hurts our financial performance: Regardless of price, we have no interest at all in selling any good businesses that Berkshire owns. We are also very reluctant to sell sub-par businesses as long as we expect them to generate at least some cash and as long as we feel good about their managers and labor relations."
-Warren Buffet

 

[dsptchrnja]

Please Dispatcher, spare us already. Where you seated at the table when the deal was inked by Buffett and Santulli? You "think" it came to 4% or "something"? Open your eyes dude, earnings tripled in 1 year while the company grew!

Argue with the CEO of NetJets, not me. That is who I got the info from.

 

[Live4flyng]

You brought it up. Once again, you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[dsptchrnja]

You brought it up. Once again, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Again, do you have any information to the contrary?

I'm at odds at why this simple piece of information offends you so much. I have yet to even interject an opinion.

 

[dsptchrnja]

Please Dispatcher, spare us already. Where you seated at the table when the deal was inked by Buffett and Santulli? You "think" it came to 4% or "something"? Open your eyes dude, earnings tripled in 1 year while the company grew!

Actually last year they doubled (NJA only) - but we were talking about ROI.

I regress. Doubled to about 35 mil. last year. This year, after the first quarter we were not even in the black. Pilots payroll this year is over $100 mil. And the union is asking for double pay?

 

[Live4flyng]

Again, do you have any information to the contrary?

I'm at odds at why this simple piece of information offends you so much. I have yet to even interject an opinion.

SHOW ME IN WRITING and I will eat crow. PDF the letter that states NJ must return a 7% ROI to Berkshire Hathaway. I am not offended, just get tired of listening to people stating things that aren't fact. I'm from Missouri, SHOW ME! Your opinions are not fact.

Fact: I have read in the BRK annual report stating that earnings last year almost tripled from the previous year. I don't recall reading anything about a required 7% return. Even if your opinion mattered, that requirement would have been exceeded by far. $191 million return on a $725 million dollar investment is much higher than 7%. Plug that into UltraNav and tell us what you come up with before you put me on ignore.

Do you really think Berkshire Hathaway wants to sell the Cash Cow we call Netjets? Do you think they would let it go for $725 million? I don't.

 

[Live4flyng]

This year, after the first quarter we were not even in the black. Pilots payroll this year is over $100 mil. And the union is asking for double pay?

Are you trying to tell us that in the first quarter of this year things are so bad that we are losing money compared to last year? What has changed? Oh, that's right the core fleet was sold off. What else has changed?

I want you to say this outloud Dispatcher; 3.5 billion dollars last year. That is THREE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS last year that this whole operation brought in for Berkshire Hathaway. $100 million is 2.8% of total revenue. $200 million is 5.7% of total revenue. You think the Union is out of control by asking for such a pittance? If this operation is shutdown, will you think 5.7% of total revenue was that big of a deal?

 

[FamilyGuy]

Are you trying to tell us that in the first quarter of this year things are so bad that we are losing money compared to last year? What has changed? Oh, that's right the core fleet was sold off. What else has changed?

I want you to say this outloud Dispatcher; 3.5 billion dollars last year. That is THREE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS last year that this whole operation brought in for Berkshire Hathaway. $100 million is 2.8% of total revenue. $200 million is 5.7% of total revenue. You think the Union is out of control by asking for such a pittance? If this operation is shutdown, will you think 5.7% of total revenue was that big of a deal?

Fact: I have read in the BRK annual report stating that earnings last year almost tripled from the previous year. I don't recall reading anything about a required 7% return. Even if your opinion mattered, that requirement would have been exceeded by far. $191 million return on a $725 million dollar investment is much higher than 7%. Plug that into UltraNav and tell us what you come up with before you put me on ignore.

If you really have read Berkshire's annual report then you would realize that the numbers you are quoting include NetJets AND Flight Safety.

 

[dsptchrnja]

SHOW ME IN WRITING and I will eat crow. PDF the letter that states NJ must return a 7% ROI to Berkshire Hathaway. I am not offended, just get tired of listening to people stating things that aren't fact. I'm from Missouri, SHOW ME! Your opinions are not fact.

Fact: I have read in the BRK annual report stating that earnings last year almost tripled from the previous year. I don't recall reading anything about a required 7% return. Even if your opinion mattered, that requirement would have been exceeded by far. $191 million return on a $725 million dollar investment is much higher than 7%. Plug that into UltraNav and tell us what you come up with before you put me on ignore..

If repeating what I was told from the CEO makes me opinionated, than so be it I guess. Here is Mr. Schlesinger's phone extension: 3634. Call him and tell him you want to know what percent BH wants from NetJets each year, and if we have ever met that expectation, then ask him for his PDF file.

Do you really think Berkshire Hathaway wants to sell the Cash Cow we call Netjets? Do you think they would let it go for $725 million?...

No, I don't. I think it was H25B that made that statement.

 

[dsptchrnja]

Are you trying to tell us that in the first quarter of this year things are so bad that we are losing money compared to last year? What has changed? Oh, that's right the core fleet was sold off. What else has changed?

Demand increased to the point the company had to increase sell-offs because we didn't have the a/c to support it. It's the only company that I know of that looses money during sharp increases in demand.

I want you to say this outloud Dispatcher; 3.5 billion dollars last year. That is THREE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS last year that this whole operation brought in for Berkshire Hathaway. $100 million is 2.8% of total revenue. $200 million is 5.7% of total revenue. You think the Union is out of control by asking for such a pittance? If this operation is shutdown, will you think 5.7% of total revenue was that big of a deal?

The only thing that matters to the Union, the company and the NMB when they draw up your new contract is what is affordable, not revenue dollars.

 

[Live4flyng]

If you really have read Berkshire's annual report then you would realize that the numbers you are quoting include NetJets AND Flight Safety.

Read it. 90% of that was from NETJETS. We will never know the exact numbers because they will never be shown. So, like Dispatcher I have to assume the profit came from NJ since the Flight Services were never profitable in the past. Prove me wrong.

 

[FamilyGuy]

Read it. 90% of that was from NETJETS. We will never know the exact numbers because they will never be shown. So, like Dispatcher I have to assume the profit came from NJ since the Flight Services were never profitable in the past. Prove me wrong.

Flight Safety never profitable in the past?????

God, you make it soooo easy to embarrass you sometimes....I hope your negotiators are better than this.....

Straight from the BRK 2003 Annual report, page 19:

In flight services, FlightSafety, our training operation, experienced a drop in “normal” operating earnings from $183 million to $150 million. (The abnormals: In 2002 we had a $60 million pre-tax gain from the sale of a partnership interest to Boeing, and in 2003 we recognized a $37 million loss stemming from the premature obsolescence of simulators.) The corporate aviation business has slowed significantly in the past few years, and this fact has hurt FlightSafety’s results. The company continues, however, to be far and away the leader in its field. Its simulators have an original cost of $1.2 billion, which is more than triple the cost of those operated by our closest competitor.
NetJets, our fractional-ownership operation lost $41 million pre-tax in 2003.
​

 

[FamilyGuy]

Read it. 90% of that was from NETJETS. We will never know the exact numbers because they will never be shown. So, like Dispatcher I have to assume the profit came from NJ since the Flight Services were never profitable in the past. Prove me wrong.

Hey, this is fun....how about we look at 2002?

From page 49 of the BRK 2002 annual report:
Operating Profit before taxes (in Millions)
Operating Businesses:............... 2002........ 2001......... 2000
Flight services ................................................. 225............ 186 ............213

And from Page 61 of the same BRK 2002 annual report:

Flight services
​

​

This segment includes FlightSafety, a leading provider of high technology training to operators of aircraft and ships and NetJets, the world's leading provider of fractional ownership programs for general aviation aircraft. FlightSafety's worldwide clients include corporations, the military and government agencies. Revenues in 2002 from flight services increased $274 million (10.7%) over 2001 due to increases in flight operations and aircraft sales at NetJets. Total revenues from FlightSafety in 2002 were relatively unchanged as compared to 2001 as a decline in training and product revenues was offset by a one-time gain of $60 million from the disposition of its interest in a joint venture training operation with Boeing. Excluding the aforementioned gain, pre-tax earnings from flight services in 2002 decreased $21 million from 2001 due to a slowdown in business aviation activity. NetJet's pre-tax earnings in 2002 were relatively unchanged from 2001 as each year’s results reflect losses related to expansion into Europe somewhat offset by small profits from its domestic operations.

Pretty easy to see that in the Flight Services segment, Flight Safety is the money maker and NetJets is the money loser...... Need any more examples?​

 

[Live4flyng]

You forgot 2004' Mr. Family Guy

Flight service revenues increased $813 million (33%) over 2003. Over 90% of the revenue increase resulted from the NetJets business where flight operations revenue increased just under $400 million and revenues from aircraft sales increased about $360 million. The increase in flight operations revenue was primarily due to higher usage, a larger percentage of hours being on larger aircraft and a slight rate increase. Sales of fractional aircraft increased due to an approximately 10% increase in aircraft sold and a higher percentage of sales being large cabin aircraft which carry a higher sales price.

Pre-tax earnings of flight services businesses totaled $191 million in 2004, an increase of $119 million as compared to 2003.

33% increase in Revenue

62% increase in Profit

Not too shabby. You are right, this is fun.