1.
Feature
Story
/ Warren Edward Buffett -
TVI's
PERSON OF THE WEEK •
•Warren Edward Buffett
was born on August 30, 1930, in
Omaha, Nebraska. He is known as
one of the world's greatest stock
market investors, of the 20th and
21st Century and is the largest
shareholder and CEO of Berkshire
Hathaway. With an estimated net
worth of around U.S.$62 billion,
he was ranked by Forbes as the
richest person in the world as of
February 11, 2008.
•
•
Since
a very young age, he displayed a
keen interest and extraordinary
talent in numbers and at the mere
age of 11, he started buying
shares in the stock market.
Buffet brought three shares of
Cities Service at $38 for himself
and his older sister. The shares
rebounded to $40 after falling to
almost $27 and that was the time
he sold them. However, after some
time, the value rose to $200. He
learnt one of the most important
lessons of investment through
this experience - Patience is a
Virtue.
•
• Buffet is noted for
his adherence to the
value-investing philosophy and
for his personal frugality
despite his immense wealth.
-
CONTINUED•
TVI Magazine is not responsible for the
content of external InterNet sites Continued02 • 1960 - Buffet had
seven partnerships operating the entire
year.
•
1960 - Buffet asks one of
his partners, a doctor, to find ten other
doctors who will be willing to invest
$10,000 each into his partnership.
Eventually, eleven doctors agreed to
invest $10,000 each into his partnerships:
Buffett Associates, Buffett Fund, Dacee,
Emdee, Glenoff, Mo-Buff, and
Underwood.
•
1961 - Buffet revealed that
Sanborn Map Company accounted for 35% of
the partnerships' assets and that he
earned a spot on the board of Sanborn.
• Buffet
explained that in 1958, Sanborn sold at
$45 per share when the value of the
Sanborn investment portfolio was $65 per
share. This meant buyers valued Sanborn at
"minus $20" per share, and buyers were
unwilling to pay more than 70 cents on the
dollar for an investment portfolio with a
map business thrown in for nothing.
•
1962 - Buffet's partnership
had in excess of $7,178,500 out of which
$1,025,000 belonged to Buffett. •
• • • • Merges all
partnerships into one.
• Buffet
discovered a textile manufacturing firm,
Berkshire Hathaway. Buffet's partnerships
began purchasing shares at $7.60 per
share.
•
1965 - Buffet's partnerships
begin to purchase Berkshire shares
aggressively. Takes control of Berkshire
Hathaway and names a new President (Ken
Chace) to run the company.
• When Buffet's partnerships began
aggressively purchasing Berkshire they
paid $14.86 per share while the company
had working capital (current assets minus
current liabilities) of $19 per share,
this did not include the value of fixed
assets (factory and equipment).
•
1966- • Buffet closes
the partnership to new money.
• Buffet wrote
in his letter "unless it appears that
circumstances have changed (under some
conditions added capital would improve
results) or unless new partners can bring
some asset to the partnership other than
simply capital, I intend to admit no
additional partners to BPL."
• In a second
letter, Buffett announced his first
investment in a private business &emdash;
Hochschild, Kohn and Co, a privately owned
Baltimore department store.
•
1967 - Berkshire pays out
its first and only dividend of 10
cents.
•
1969 - Buffet liquidates the
partnership and transferred their assets
to his partners. Among the assets paid out
were shares of Berkshire Hathaway.
•
1970- Present -
Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Omaha - Chairman,
CEO.
• As chairman
of Berkshire Hathaway, began writing his
now-famous annual letters to
shareholders.
•
1973 - Berkshire begins to
acquire stocks in the Washington Post
Company. Buffet became close friends with
Katharine Graham, who controlled the
company and its flagship newspaper, and
became a member of its board of
directors.
•
1974 - The SEC opens a
formal investigation into Warren Buffet
and one of Berkshire's mergers.
•
1977 - Berkshire indirectly
purchases the Buffalo Evening News for
$32.5 million. Anti-trust charges
brought.
•
1977 - Warren and Susan
Buffet began living separately, though
they remained married until her death in
July 2004.
•
1979 - Berkshire acquires
stocks in ABC. With the stock trading at
$290 per share, Buffett's net worth neared
$140 million. However, he lived solely on
his salary of $50,000 per year.
• The year
ended at $1310 in share trading sending
his net worth to $620 million, placing him
on the Forbes 400 for the first time.
•
1988 - Buys stock in
Coca-Cola for $1.02 billion. It would turn
out to be one of Berkshire's most
lucrative investments, and one which he
still holds.
•
1990 - Scandals involving
Greenberg and Gutfreund appear.
•
1999 - Buffet is named the
top money manager of the 20th century in a
survey by the Carson Group, ahead of Peter
Lynch and John Templeton.
•
2002 - Buffet enters in $11
billion worth of forward contracts to
deliver US dollars against other
currencies. By April 2006, his total gain
on these contracts was over $2
billion.
•
2004 - His wife, Susan,
passes away.
•2006 - Buffet announces
to give away 80% of his total fortune to
five foundations, in annual gifts of
stock, starting in July 2006. The largest
contribution going to the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation
• Auctioned
his 2001 Lincoln Town Car on eBay to raise
money for Girls Inc.
• Sponsored a
bridge match for the Buffett Cup. In this
event, modeled on the Ryder Cup in golf
(and held immediately before it and in the
same city), a team of twelve bridge
players from the United States took on
twelve Europeans.
• Worked with
Christopher Webber on an animated series
with DiC Entertainment's chief Andy
Heyward. According to information
presented by Buffett at the Berkshire
Hathaway annual meeting on May 6, 2006,
the series was to feature Buffett and
Munger in roles and the series would teach
children healthy financial habits for
life.
• On his 76th
birthday, in 2006, he marries his longtime
companion, Astrid Menks, who had lived
with him since his wife's departure.
•
2007 - Buffet announces he
is looking for a younger successor to run
his business. Lou Simpson was chosen by
Buffet for the role, though he is only six
years younger!
•
2008 - Forbes announces
Buffet as the richest man in the world -
dethroning Bill Gates, who held the title
for thirteen years.
•
2008 - Warren Buffet travels
to Europe in a private jet. The world's
richest man with a fortune of 63 billion
dollars wants to invest in German
privately-owned companies reports Munich's
Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
CENTER
PAGE
-
Remarks
of FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin at CTIA
Wireless
2008••
And, as of May 2007, approximately 82
percent of the U.S. population lived in an
area of the country covered by at least
one of these mobile broadband
networks.
• •
• In addition, as of December
31, 2006, there were 22 million mobile
wireless devices capable of accessing the
Internet at broadband speeds in use in the
United States, up from only three million
the year before.
• •
• We've also seen the
introduction of innovative new products
during the past year, such as the iPhone,
which is truly a handheld mobile computer.
The iPhone can seamlessly connect to any
Wi-Fi hot spot for Internet access
service. And almost two million iPhones
have been activated on AT&T's network.
-- CLICK
FOR MORE RFid Story
• •
Importantly, competition in the
wireless industry has also led to lower
prices, higher usage and adoption rates,
and technological innovation. And many of
you in this room have been instrumental in
bringing the benefits of competition to
American consumers. Your contributions to
improving wireless services for the
American consumer have not gone
unnoticed. •
• The FCC has an important
role to play in this mobile revolution as
well.
• •
During my tenure as Chairman, the
FCC has made vast amounts of spectrum
available for the next generation of
innovative wireless services. Since 2006,
we have more than doubled the amount of
spectrum previously made available for
mobile wireless services.
• •
Most recently, the Commission
auctioned spectrum in the 700 MHz band.
The sheer size of the 700 MHz Auction is a
harbinger of the benefits to come. The
Auction was the largest in FCC history and
raised a record $19.592 billion in total
bids.
• •
Even in a difficult economic
climate, revenues raised in this auction
easily exceeded congressional estimates of
about $10 billion &endash; nearly doubling
the amount Congress had anticipated would
be raised. CLICK
FOR MORE RF-ID STORY
• •
• The Auction drew
wide-ranging interest from a number of new
players. A bidder other than a nationwide
incumbent won a license in every
market. •
• At the same time, we also
must ensure that our regulations continue
to protect consumers in this new, more
mobile world. Indeed, in some ways the
wireless industry is a victim of its own
success. Because with increased success
often comes increased expectations.
• •
Today, to your credit, wireless is
no longer seen as a luxury, but as a vital
means of everyday communication. And the
public has growing expectations of how
they will be able to use wireless to meet
their everyday needs. For example, E911
ensures that when someone dials 911 during
an emergency, public safety can easily and
reliably find them. To achieve that goal,
we need to ensure that our enhanced 911
rules provide meaningful automatic
location information that permits first
responders to reliably find them.
• •
We all know that people are relying
on cell phones for more and more of their
calls, including calls to 911. CTIA
estimates that since the 1996
Telecommunications Act, 911 calls placed
annually from wireless phones have
increased six fold (from 55,000 to
290,000). The advances in wireless
technology allow people to call for help
more quickly and from more remote places
than ever before. We need to make sure
that our location accuracy requirements
keep apace with these changes so that
consumers can take advantage of all the
opportunities wireless technology has to
offer.
• •
I believe this is an opportunity
for the wireless industry and a harbinger
of even more success. In the end, I am
confident the wireless industry will rise
to the occasion and I look forward to
working with you and my fellow
commissioners on this critical public
safety issue.
• •
Thank you for your time today. I
truly appreciate the invitation to be
here. CLICK
FOR MORE VERIZON'S CEO IVAN
SEIDENBERG 4.
Related
StoriesLobbyist, Eddie
Frittz of Kentucky Roast FCC Chairman
Martin, Then Jabs At
Cable
•
•
It was reported by Ted Hearns of
Multichannel Industry News in December
2007, -- only someone like - Washington
D.C.'s super lobbyist Eddie Fritts gets to
take a few cost-free shots at Federal
Communications Commission chairman Kevin
Martin, who, as the cable industry knows
all too well, isn't afraid of playing by
north Jersey mob rules when shown up in
public.
•
•Fritts -- former boss of the
National Association of Broadcasters now
running his own firm -- gave it his best
shot Wednesday night at a roast in
Martin's honor attended by 1,500 lawyers,
lobbyists, and others who routinely seek
favors from the national media regulator.
The evening is officially known as the
annual FCC Chairman's Dinner, organized by
the Federal Communications Bar Association
to raise money for charitable
causes. •
•Martin got to return fire later
&endash; but instead of putting Fritts in
his place, Martin at times opted to poke
fun at cable and other industries within
his regulatory
orbit.
•
•In his trademark Mississippi
drawl, Fritts reeled off a bunch of
one-liners, including a few aimed at
Martin's youthful
appearance.
•
•"I've known Kevin since he was
25 years old and looking 12 years old.
Let's be honest, Kevin looks so young even
Mark Foley would throw him back," Fritts
said, referring to the disgraced House
Republican from Florida who had to resign
over scandalous text messages exchanged
with young
boys.
•
•Pausing between cracks to let
the crowd settle down in the giant
ballroom of the Washington Hilton, Fritts
also reminded everyone of Martin's ongoing
"war" with the cable industry. He
collected more groans than laughs by
linking Sen. Larry Craig's (R-Idaho)
airport bathroom arrest to Martin's demand
that cable had met the so-called 70/70
test in federal
law.
•
•"You know, a lot of people
think 70/70 gives Kevin a mandate on a la
carte. Not true. The only one is
Washington who has a mandate is Larry
Craig," Fritts
said.
•
•Fritts referred to the recent
news that Energy and Commerce Committee
chairman Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) is
investigating Martin's management of the
agency. Martin got word in a letter from
Dingell &endash; a missive famously known
in Washington telecom circles as a
"Dingell-gram."
•
•"I spoke to Kevin on Monday and
asked if he had recently received a
Dingell-gram," Fritts began. "He said,
`Yes.' I asked if it hurt and he
responded, 'Yes.' And he also recommended
that all men over age 50 get a
Dingell-gram at least once a
year." •
•When it was Martin's turn, he
started off with a little humility about
his defeat to the cable industry last
Tuesday on the matter of how big cable had
grown.
•
•"I recognize that I've brought
some of my recent problems on myself --
for example, my cable choice proposal, you
know, the one where cable gets to choose
to do whatever I say. That may not have
been my best idea," Martin
quipped.
•
•At one point, Martin asked all
cable lobbyists in the room to raise their
hands. "I want to start out by apologizing
that we had to remove the knives from your
table," he
said.
•
•Martin suggested that cable
opened its checkbook to defeat his
anti-cable
initiatives.
•
•"I don't know how much money
the cable industry has spent but I do know
that if our country goes into a recession,
it won't be my fault," he
said.
•
•Martin also used Comcast
chairman and CEO Brian Roberts as a foil
in a gag about people who complain that
Martin laced one of his public statements
with the
F-word.
•
•"But not everyone was so
critical," Martin said. "Brian Roberts
called and suggested I do my own show on
leased access channels. I told him that's
way too expensive. Then I thought, `Maybe,
I can fix that," Martin said, referring to
last Tuesday's ruling to slash leased
access rates by
70%.
•
•Martin cracked that he would
call his program the "That 70/70 Show" and
his first episode "Cooking the
Numbers."
•
•Martin concluded with a wacky
top 10 list of predictions for the
upcoming 700 MHz spectrum
auction.
•
•Following the auction, he said:
AT&T will say the auction results
prove that network neutrality is not
necessary. Google will say the outcome
proves network neutrality is necessary.
NAB will say the auction shows that the
XM-Sirius merger should not be
approved.
•
•Posted by Ted Hearn on December
7, 2007 | Comments
(0)CLICK
FOR MORE RELATED STORY - Michael Powell,
former Chairman of the
FCC.•
5.
NBS100 Review WiFi / Land-lines NBS100
TeleComunication Study - Regulatory
Frequency Seizure
•
Andrew Carnegie (November
25, 1835 -- August 11, 1919) was a
Scottish-born American businessman, a
major philanthropist, and the founder of
the Carnegie Steel Company which later
became U.S. Steel. He is known for having
built one of the most powerful and
influential corporations in United States
history, and, later in his life, giving
away most of his riches to fund the
establishment of many libraries, schools,
and universities in Scotland, America and
worldwide. CLICK
FOR MORE WALL STREET - 1902
STORY
