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Strategies & Market Trends : Buffettology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cfimx who wrote (2112)	2/10/2000 5:35:00 PM
From: James Clarke	Respond to of 4691

Warren is mad enough to break radio silence. Press release out of Berkshire today: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FEBRUARY 10, 2000 Omaha, NE, February 10, 2000 -- Recently certain rumors have surfaced on the Internet regarding share repurchases and Mr. Buffett's health. While it has been a long standing Berkshire policy to not comment on rumors, we are making an exception with respect to these recent rumors. All rumors regarding share repurchases and Mr. Buffett's health are 100% false. We encourage shareholders and others who are interested in obtaining information about Berkshire to visit our Web site (berkshirehathaway.com) where all press releases are posted concurrent with their release to the media.

To: cfimx who wrote (2112)	2/12/2000 1:16:00 AM
From: cfimx	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 4691

I never really took the time to examine wpo. I don't think many people really do for some reason. But I think it makes sense to look now. The company has been actively repurchasing its own stock. wpo tendered for 500k B shares late last year and ended up retiring 666k @ $575 a share. In recent days the company announced it has a NEW open ended plan to buy back an additional 545k shares of B stock. That's over 5% of the total outstanding. As one might expect, the company manages its assets for the long term, the same 10 year out strategy that Berkshire deploys. The President, Mr. Spoon has a unique compensation package. He gets options at prices that are DOUBLE the price that wpo trades for on the date of grant. His last option grant was priced at $777. I did a back of the envelope on the various wpo businesses and got to $8 billion. The $8 billion places no value on washingtonpost.com, newsweek.com, and some Internet investments in some classified joint ventures. Keep an eye on the New York Times Portal which is coming public. This is a comparable, but wp.com, I think is MORE valuable. WPO also has a hidden Internet gem called Brassring that is capitalized inside WPO at about $300 million now. It has $100 million in revenue, 50% of which is Internet sourced. This will go public. When it does, it could easily, easily command a billion $ plus valuation. WPO owns 42% of this venture. Brassring is NOT in my calculation. So my back of the envelope says $800 a share. Then add $100 a share for the Internet assets wpo owns. That's only $1 Billion. wpo has an overfunded pension plan. And its cable systems act as an ISP to its customers already, and will be able to provide the same digital services that @home and roadrunner do. The company sees itself as substantially undervalued too. It is trying to buy a ton of stock back here in the $500 to $600 range. I like wpo here. <g>