“Within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us,” Buffett wrote Feb. 27 in his annual letter to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. “Prices will remain far below bubble levels, of course, but for every seller or lender hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits.”
The worst housing decline since the Great Depression has left one in five U.S. mortgage holders owing more than their houses are worth. Record foreclosures last year flooded a real estate market already glutted - - - - >

Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc. delivered a 61 percent jump in net income because the value of its investments and derivatives rose sharply in 2009 after taking a beating the year before. But its businesses exposure to housing construction helped keep it from outperforming the S&P 500 for the first time since 2004.
Buffett used most of his letter, released Saturday, to reiterate the business basics that have made his company a juggernaut. But it did include a section about how corporations should manage risk. Buffett said CEOs and the boards that hired them should pay a steep price if their companies - - - - >

“Within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us,” Buffett wrote yesterday in his annual letter to the shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. “Prices will remain far below bubble levels, of course, but for every seller or lender hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits.”
The worst housing decline since the Great Depression has left one in five U.S. mortgage holders owing more than their houses are worth. Record foreclosures last year flooded a real estate market already glutted - - - - >

“Within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us,” Buffett wrote yesterday in his annual letter to the shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. “Prices will remain far below bubble levels, of course, but for every seller or lender hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits.”
The worst housing decline since the Great Depression has left one in five U.S. mortgage holders owing more than their houses are worth. Record foreclosures last year flooded a real estate market already glutted - - - - >

Buffett has more than $4.5 billion invested in Munich Re and Swiss Reinsurance Co., choosing to put Berkshires cash in two companies that account for more than a third of the global market instead of using the money to compete against them. Had Buffett, as Berkshires chairman and chief executive officer, directed a part of that capital to his own underwriters, he could have pushed down the price of coverage, analysts said.
“This is a move to increase that exposure without disrupting the pricing,” said Craig Fehr - - - - >

AIG property-casualty businesses, contributing more than a third of the companys revenue, posted sales increases in three straight quarters last year after plunging 23 percent following the companys near-death experience in September 2008. Life insurance and retirement-products sales, AIGs other main operations, rose for the first time since the bailout in the three months ended September 2009.
“There are clear signs that AIG has pulled out of what could have been a death spiral,” said David Havens, managing director in credit trading at Nomura Securities International Inc. - - - - >

Buffetts company sold 26 percent of its stake in Johnson & Johnson, 9 percent of its Procter & Gamble, and 34 percent of oil producer ConocoPhillips, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said yesterday in a regulatory filing. The stocks were the same ones Buffett sold a year earlier to fund investments in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric Co. at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Buffett later told shareholders he “very much liked” the Goldman Sachs and GE investments, while confessing he “would have - - - - >

Buffetts company sold 26 percent of its stake in Johnson & Johnson, 9 percent of its Procter & Gamble, and 34 percent of oil producer ConocoPhillips, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said yesterday in a regulatory filing. The stocks were the same ones Buffett sold a year earlier to fund investments in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric Co. at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Buffett later told shareholders he “very much liked” the Goldman Sachs and GE investments, while confessing he “would have - - - - >

Buffetts company sold 26 percent of its stake in Johnson & Johnson, 9 percent of its Procter & Gamble, and 34 percent of oil producer ConocoPhillips, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said yesterday in a regulatory filing. The stocks were the same ones Buffett sold a year earlier to fund investments in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric Co. at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Buffett later told shareholders he “very much liked” the Goldman Sachs and GE investments, while confessing he “would have - - - - >

Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc. completed the buyout yesterday after winning the approval of Burlington Northern investors. The deal, valued at $100 a share, allows Rose to hand out returns of nearly 300 percent, plus dividends, to investors who bought stock the day he was named CEO in 2000. The problem, he said, is that shareholders with that length of commitment are dwindling in number and influence.
“When I started as CEO 10 years ago, the typical investor had a time frame of three to five to seven - - - - >