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Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brooks Jackson who wrote (10340)	9/20/1999 8:49:00 AM
From: Benny Baga	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20297

(I don't have a live link), but this is what I found..... Call Him E-Buffett: Famed Investor Dips Toe in High Tech --- Berkshire's Leader, in Spite Of Past Internet Doubts, Takes Stake in First Data ---- By Joseph B. Cahill Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal Is Warren Buffett feeling smarter? As part of his aw-shucks approach to investing, the Omaha, Neb., investor has long said he doesn't buy stock in companies he doesn't understand, and that has left him on the sidelines during the incredible boom in technology stocks. Mr. Buffett has at times ridiculed the Internet investment boom. At the 1998 meeting of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Mr. Buffett's company, he jokingly suggested that business schools ought to teach the principles of valuing companies by asking students, "Here's the stock of any Internet company. What's it worth? And anybody who gave an answer flunks." Maybe palling around with Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., is easing Mr. Buffett's technology fears. A recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing shows that more than a year ago, Berkshire invested in First Data Corp. That company is the dominant provider of back-office processing to credit-card issuers, a mundane business, but it also is a leading maker of online payment systems for electronic commerce, one of the industries Mr. Buffett has avoided. According to the 13F filing, Berkshire bought three million shares of First Data, Atlanta, in the second quarter of 1998. Under a special arrangement with the SEC, the closely watched filings disclosing Berkshire's holdings are kept confidential for a year. And Berkshire's annual report only discloses the names of its largest holdings. Today, the First Data investment would be valued at about $130 million. Because of the delay in releasing the filings to the public, it isn't known if Mr. Buffett has increased, reduced or eliminated the First Data stake. First Data shares rose 56.25 cents to $44.625 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday. Berkshire's investment portfolio is weighted toward old-line companies with widely known brand names and entrenched market positions, such as CocaCola Co., Gillette Co. and Walt Disney Co. Some of those stocks, notably Coca-Cola and Gillette, came under pressure last year. Mr. Buffett ruefully acknowledged in his annual letter to shareholders that his equity investments "did not perform nearly as well as the S&P 500" in 1998. Whether the First Data investment means Mr. Buffett has decided to boost returns by joining the Internet party can only be guessed at. He doesn't comment beyond SEC filings and the Berkshire annual report. Unlike such Internet highfliers as eBay Inc. and Priceline.com, which have built towering stock market valuations on the promise of future profits, First Data has big revenue and earnings today. The company posted net income of $465.7 million, or $1.04 per diluted share.