Berkshire Hathaway, Inc was a small textile company. Its chairman and CEO of the company is Warren Buffett, the world's third richest man. He invested his partnership in invests in Berkshire Hathaway at the price of $8.6 million (The Essential Buffett, p27). It took him over 35years to grow its book value from $19 per share to $37,987 per share with a rate of 24 percent compounded annually (The Essential Buffett, p44). Buffett started purchasing other businesses, which were primarily insurance companies, with profits from the declining original textile business. In 1985, the original textile business was shut down and Berkshire Hathaway started the insurance business.
Now, Berkshire Hathaway is primarily an insurance company, which holds 73 businesses. According to Robert G. Hagstrom, the company owns an investment portfolio that consists of a newspaper, a candy company, an ice cream/hamburger chain, several furniture stores, a carpet manufacture, a paint company, a building-products company, a company that private jets to businesses on a time-share basis, a jewelry store, an encyclopedia publisher, a vacuum cleaner business, a public utility, a couple of shoe companies, and a company that manufactures and distributes uniforms.
Over 217,000 employees work for the 73 businesses with the annual revenues of $98.539 billion in 2006 (Yahoo finance, 2007). However, only 19 employees work at home office located in Omaha. One of the companies that Berkshire Hathaway holds is GIECO (Government Employees Insurance Company). In 1994, GIECO was wholly owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Its market share was increased from 2.7 percent to 4.1 percent with additional $590 million in cash from operating earnings in spite of decline in in...
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...n offsets the negative return in 2002. The next three returns for investors of Berkshire Hathaway are 4.33%, .82%, and 24.11%. You can realize these returns in Exhibit 9.
Berkshire Hathaway is a company that consists of many investors and managers that contribute to its success. The Chairman and CEO of Berkshire is Warren Buffett, the man most famous for the company's success. Charlie Munger is next in line as the Vice President of Berkshire. Charlie is a good friend to Warren and is considered the one to teach Warren how to invest in quality companies, not just undervalued ones. Bill Gates is also one of the directors at Berkshire, he is the chairman of the board of directors at Microsoft Co. These are just a couple of the people who help Berkshire run effectively and efficiently. The main list of key managers of Berkshire Hathaway can be found in Exhibit 10.
Brian, a young business executive, started a small software company in his mid twenties. He would invest long hours developing his business, often working late into the nights. When the business became profitable, Brian incorporated and went public through a stock offering. Flood gates open and money poured in the company coffers and Brian grew exceedingly wealthy.
The founhder of the company, Godfrey Keebler, started with jus a small bakery in Philadelphia, PA in 1853. During the next two generations, local bakeries popped up around the country, including Strietmann, Hekman, Supreme and Bowman. With the introduction of cars and trucks (carrying the Keebler logo), bakery goods could be distributed beyond the neighborhood and regional distribution began.
The banking industry is under pressure in today’s business climate. Banks have been through big changes. There is opportunity, but there is also increasing competition. To be the preferred bank means changing “good enough” into a unique value proposition. And that means changing the way people have always done things, change on this level requires cutting edge technology. Change cannot be achieved with a simple directive or surface adjustment especially within the banking industry. It requires an innovative rethink of the entire system, in a strong partnership between bank leaders and their change agents. New systems and policies must support the strategy to be successful. The real test of a good strategy implementation plan is whether the people understand the strategy, are motivated and enabled to implement it, and actually start achieving its goals.
The CEO has also hired employees with good experience like CIO Dunst from Safeway, and for the supply chain management team, some technology experts from companies like PepsiCo, Dell and even Wal-Mart. This allows the company to be in line with the latest technologies available and demonstrates the future planning undertaken by the CEO.
John Pierpont Morgan is considered one of the founding fathers of the modern United States economy. He was an industrial genius that is accredited with the founding of many companies including General Electric and AT&T. However, Pierpont is looked upon as a saint and demon the same. He received a honorary degree from Harvard university that read: "Public citizen, patron of literature and art, prince among merchants, who by his skill, wisdom and courage, has twice in times of stress repelled a national danger of financial panic." But Robert LaFollette, the Wisconsin progressive, saw him as "a beefy, red-faced thick-necked financial bully, drunk with wealth and power." Despite conflicting opinion on his persona, his influence and character shaped the business world more so than any other person at the turn of the century. Morgan was a banker, railroad czar, industrialist, financier, philanthropist, yachtsman, and ladies' man. He was king to a handful of millionaire barons who controlled the country's wealth in an era of little government regulation.
Buffett did not want to be an astronaut or a fireman, he wanted to make money and from a young age, it was apparent that this was his goal. Buffett’s father was a stockbroker and
all companies that were traded on the stock exchanges as well as banking firms and
Net Income: The net income applicable common shares go from June 30th: $219,000,000 to September 30th: 290,000,000 to December 31st 2013: 2,001,000,000 to March 31st 2014: 480,000...
1994 is a sharp increase, but even if the growth rate for 1994 is not
To be the number one aerospace company in the world and among the premier industrial concerns in terms of quality, profitability and growth
For one of my selections for buying stock, I invested into Starbucks, this company has attracted me with their wonders of different coffees, and I knew many others were interested in the very popular coffee company. Starbucks all started in 1971 in Seattle, Washington. With three men, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel and Gordon Bowker, each of them put in one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars along with a barrowed five thousand from the bank to start up their small coffee shop in Pick Place Market, which is located in downtown Seattle. The name for this company was inspired by the character Starbuck from Moby Dick. This character was a coffee lover.
Citigroup Inc. was the largest company in the world in December, 2007. It had total assets of $2.2 trillion. Citigroup Inc. was formed on October 8, 1998 when Citicorp and the Traveler’s Group merged. By 2008, it was the world’s largest bank by revenues with over 358,000 staff and 200 million customer accounts in 100 countries. The Citicorp piece is a multinational banking corporation which operates in more than 100 countries. Travelers Group businesses include credit services, consumer finance, brokerage, and insurance (Wikipedia 2008).
Sergey Brin Co-Founder he shared responsibility for the company’s day-to-day operations with Larry Page and Eric Schmidt .
Right from the get-go, Jeff Immelt had an uphill battle taking over as CEO of GE. Several factors caused this to be a more difficult time than might otherwise have been. First, he assumed the role on September 7th, and of course a few days later, the United State was attacked. Immediately, he had to deal with GE casualties and donate cash and equipment towards the efforts at the World Trade Center. Second, Immelt came in on the heels of an economy that was cooling from the internet bubble a few years earlier. In September of 2000, the S&P 500 was over 1500, and a year later it was just above 1000. The attack on 9/11 further destabilized the weakened economy and sent investors scurrying for cover. According to the article by Christopher
It is known that corporations play a large part in making the world go around. Many times we read, hear or see stories on companies and why something was done a certain way. The film “The Corporation” has given a whole new insight to not only how businesses operate but what motivates them and their decisions that they make to keep their businesses thriving.