Salient to Investors:
- Few businesses are large enough to merit Warren Buffett’s attention. Berkshire Hathaway spent a third of the total from a year earlier on equities in half1 2014, while sales of stock more than doubled. Buffett dislikes paying a dividend and rarely buys back shares.
- David Rolfe at Wedgewood Partners said Buffett’s list of ‘fat-pitch’ companies is not large and Warren – the best market timer he ever saw – won’t spend for the sake of spending.
- John Fox at Fenimore Asset Mgmt said it is more difficult, across the board, to find cheap assets.
- Preqin Ltd said private-equity firms were sitting on a record $1.16 trillion of capital as of July.
- David Fann at TorreyCove Capital Partners said private equity has record levels of capital to spend.
- PitchBook Data said transactions of more than $250 million were valued at 10.2 x EBITDA in Q1 2014 versus 9.8 x EBITDA in the prior period. Bain & Co. say a reasonable LBO price is under 8 x EBITDA.
Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-04/buffett-waits-on-fat-pitch-as-cash-hoard-tops-50-billion.html
Click here to receive free and immediate email alerts of the latest forecasts.