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Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation
Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation (Kaiser Aluminum) was a major American industrial company that was a significant common stock holding for Berkshire Hathaway in the late 1970s.
📝 The Investment
- Portfolio Concentration: Listed in the 1978 letter as a major holding with a position size of over $18 million.
- Position (1978): Berkshire held 1,066,934 shares with a cost of $18.1 million and a market value of $18.7 million.
- Context: Unlike many of Buffett's media and insurance holdings, Kaiser represented a more traditional capital-intensive industrial business. However, during the inflationary 1970s, many institutional investors had abandoned industrials, creating "bargain" pricing opportunities that fit Buffett's value-oriented criteria.
🔗 Connections
- Company: SAFECO Corporation (Portfolio peer)
- Source: 1978 Letter
📚 Historical Mentions & Citations (1)
Click a reference document below to expand and read the exact paragraph(s) containing this concept in the archive.
📜1978 LetterExcerpt Available▼
1978 LetterExcerpt Available
| No. of Shares | Company | Cost | Market |
| :--- | :--- | :---: | :---: |
| 246,450 | American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. | $ 6,082 | $ 8,626 |
| 1,294,308 | Government Employees Insurance Company Common Stock | 4,116 | 9,060 |
| 1,986,953 | Government Employees Insurance Company Convertible Preferred | 19,417 | 28,314 |
| 592,650 | Interpublic Group of Companies | 4,531 | 19,039 |
| 1,066,934 | Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation | 18,085 | 18,671 |
| 453,800 | Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Inc. | 7,534 | 10,267 |
| 953,750 | SAFECO Corporation | 23,867 | 26,467 |
| 934,300 | The Washington Post Company | 10,628 | 43,445 |
| | Total | $ 94,260 | $163,889 |
| | All other Holdings | 39,506 | 57,040 |
| | Total Equities | $133,766 | $220,929 |