It's feeding time for billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
The Oracle of Omaha is gobbling up assets on the cheap while many in the investment world are retreating or frozen with fear.
"When people are scared, he wants to be buying, and when they are greedy he will sell back to you," said Andy Kilpatrick, a stockbroker in Birmingham,
Buffett has taken a particular interest of late in the severely beaten-down telecom and energy sectors.
On Thursday, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. gave troubled energy company Williams Cos. a $900 million loan. The collateral: Substantially all of Williams' oil and gas interests at Barrett Resources, which Williams acquired last year in a deal valued at about $2.6 billion.
Earlier in the week Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. agreed to buy struggling Dynegy Inc.'s 16,600-mile Northern Natural Gas Pipeline for $928 million in cash. Analysts said Dynegy prized the pipeline as a moneymaker for the future, but the company's financial problems forced the sale.
That was the second pipeline acquisition by Buffett this year. MidAmerican bought Williams' Kern River Gas Transmission Co. for $450 million in March.
In the telecom sector, where overcapacity from the 90s boom has laid waste to dozens of companies and forced several to seek bankruptcy protection, Buffett invested $100 million last month in struggling fiber-optic cable company Level 3 Communications Inc. of Broomfield, Colo. The transaction, made in conjunction with a $400 million investment by two other investors, immediately boosted Level 3 stock more than 50 percent on the day of the announcement.
There also were rumors that Buffett was interested in the bonds of struggling telecommunications company Qwest . It's just that not everyone can afford to buy Berkshire's Class A stock, which was trading in the $70,500-per-share range on Friday.
Analysts warned of the risk of trying to shadow Buffett's latest moves
und der Berkshire Hathaway steigt wieder nach Verlusten zuvor |
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