Street Capitalist: Event Driven Value Investments

Sorry for the weak posting these past two weeks. I’m on my spring break right now and am attending the SXSW Festival but I’ll be back soon with what I am hoping to be some good stock analysis posts.

For now though, check out this article from Bloomberg’s Elizabeth Stanton, she tries to figure out just what sort of companies Buffett may be attracted to right now for US acquisitions:

The chairman of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., who took a four-country tour of Europe last year in search of targets, told Bloomberg Television last week that he’s now most likely to pursue U.S. deals after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index sank to the lowest level since 1996 this month. While the credit crisis is preventing rival bidders from borrowing money, Buffett has $25.5 billion in cash to deploy.

The world’s most successful investor is seeking acquisitions after his company suffered the biggest annual drop in book value since he took control four decades ago. Sysco, North America’s largest distributor of food to restaurants; VF, the world’s biggest clothing maker; and Danaher, maker of Craftsman tools, are among 50 companies that meet his standards, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Stanton goes on to list a series of companies that Bloomberg found:

Aetna
Aflac
Agilent Technologies
Allergan
Anadarko Petroleum
Aon
Archer Daniels Midland
Baker Hughes
Becton Dickinson
Brown-Forman
Bunge
Cardinal Health
Carnival
Chubb
Computer Sciences
Covidien
Danaher
EOG Resources
General Dynamics
Halliburton
Hess
Illinois Tool Works
Intercontinental Exchange
Intuit
ITT
Kohl’s
Loews Corp.
Marathon Oil
McKesson
Newmont Mining
Noble Corp.
Noble Energy
Nucor
Precision Castparts
Raytheon
Reynolds American
Rockwell Collins
SAIC
Smith International
Southern Copper
Southwestern Energy
St. Jude Medical
Staples
Sysco
TJX
Union Pacific
VF
WellPoint
W.W. Grainger
Zimmer Holdings

It will be pretty interesting to see if he does indeed dip his toes into the public market again. Domestically he’s mainly completed private acquisitions, I think the Pritzker’s Marmon Holdings is the most recent one. The last time Berkshire acquired public US businesses was during 2000/2001 if my memory serves. These deals were Justin Industries and XTRA Corporation. Maybe these past acquisitions can give us a hint of what to expect from future acquisitions.