General Electric

In addition, we own positions in non-traded securities of Dow Chemical, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Swiss Re and Wrigley with an aggregate cost of $21.1 billion and a carrying value of $26.0 billion. We purchased these five positions in the last 18 months. Setting aside the significant equity potential they provide us, these holdings deliver us an aggregate of $2.1 billion annually in dividends and interest. Finally, we owned 76,777,029 shares (22.5%) of BNSF at yearend, which we then carried at $85.78 per share, but which have subsequently been melded into our purchase of the entire company.

WARREN BUFFETT: We have an unusual situation at Berkshire that most of the people at the top, virtually all of them, are doing what they want to do. I mean, they like running their businesses. That’s what they came in expecting to do. And that’s what they’re doing, and we’re letting them do it the way they like to do it. And so we don’t have 50 people that all think they’re on some pyramid to get to the top. And Irving would like me to name — he’s talked to me about it. He would like to me name who it would be. But that could change in the future. It could create some possible — Well, we saw it at General Electric, I mean, when Jeff Immelt got appointed from among three, the other two left. And I don’t really see any advantage in having some crowned prince around. But Irving will keep writing me, I can promise you that. (Laughter) And of course, you see that dramatically, in the case of some companies that have a government guarantee for part of their money and then sell other money — and then sell other bonds — that aren’t guaranteed. I mean, just the other day, as I remember, I may be wrong on this, but I think Goldman Sachs sold something with a 400 basis point spread that wasn’t guaranteed. Whereas their guaranteed paper would be hundreds of basis points underneath that. General Electric sold something earlier this year that wasn’t guaranteed. And the spread between the guaranteed and the un-guaranteed was huge. We don’t have anything guaranteed to sell, so we are not in that favored class in any way. And we can’t become a bank holding company. So as long as the situation goes on, we have to figure out ways that we adjust. We only really use borrowed money — we use it in our utility business. But other utilities are not in this favored class. I mean, the utility industry generally. So our utility borrows money quite well, compared to most utilities. MidAmerican’s credit is regarded as very good.