The Wall Street Journal - 24.02.2020

(Barry) #1

© 2020 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, February 24, 2020 |B1


2019 was a $10 billion invest-
ment in Occidental Petroleum
Corp.’s bid to acquire Ana-
darko Petroleum Corp.
Some of Berkshire’s 60-odd
subsidiaries completed acqui-
sitions, but those deals tend to
be small. Berkshire spent $1.7
billion on bolt-on acquisitions
in 2019, the company said, up
from $1 billion the prior year.
“I think there’s more capac-
ity for buybacks,” said James
Shanahan, senior equity-re-
search analyst at Edward
Jones. “It’s no doubt that the
significant outstanding cash
balances have been an extraor-
dinary drag on earnings.”
The Omaha, Neb., conglom-
erate reported net earnings of
$29.2 billion, or $17,909 a
Class A share equivalent, up
PleaseturntopageB9

companies.
Berkshire increased its buy-
backs in the fourth quarter to
$2.2 billion, bringing its total
repurchases for the year to $5
billion, the company said. That
still barely dented the com-
pany’s huge pile of cash, which
totaled $128 billion as of Dec.
31, the company said Saturday,
slightly down from a record
$128.2 billion at the end of the
third quarter.
In his letter, Mr. Buffett la-
mented the difficulty of find-
ing attractively priced acquisi-
tion targets that are big
enough to move the needle for
Berkshire.
“The opportunities to make
major acquisitions possessing
our required attributes are
rare,” he said.
Berkshire’s biggest deal in

lie Munger, die.
“Your company is 100% pre-
pared for our departure,” Mr.
Buffett said.
He also said that at Berk-
shire’s annual meeting in May
shareholders will be able to
ask questions of Messrs. Jain
and Abel. That is a change
from previous meetings, when
any comments by Berkshire
leaders besides Messrs. Buffett
and Munger have been rare.
“I’m so excited for that. I
think it’s an absolutely terrific
idea,” said Thomas Russo,
partner at Gardner Russo &
Gardner, a longtime holder of
Berkshire shares. He said it
would be helpful for share-
holders to hear more directly
from Messrs. Jain and Abel
about overseeing the day-to-
day operations of Berkshire’s

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BUSINESS & FINANCE


HEALTH
Insurer-owned clinics
pose new competition
to physicians
and hospitals. B3

SMALL BUSINESS
Startups look to wrap
their brand identity
with sustainable
packaging. B6

President Trump plans to
push American shale gas when
he visits India this week. So far,
U.S. gas exports have proven
to be a tough sell globally.
U.S. companies have strug-
gled to line up foreign buyers
willing to sign long-term deals
for liquefied natural gas as the
world is experiencing a glut of
the fuel.
Global buyers including India
have instead turned to an in-
creasingly liquid spot market
for cheaper LNG, threatening
the future of more than two
dozen additional natural-gas ex-
port facilities proposed in the
U.S., which need sizable ad-
vance commitments from buy-
ers to secure the billions needed
for the projects to go forward.
The U.S. has quickly become
the world’s third-largest sup-
plier of liquefied natural gas,
thanks to the bonanza of fuel
unlocked by the fracking boom.
But American companies have
struggled in recent years to
sell more than spot cargoes
amid competition from rivals
in Qatar, Russia and Australia.
From 2011 through 2015,
U.S. suppliers struck 37 long-
term sales deals with foreign
buyers for a combined 67 mil-
lion tons of gas a year, accord-
ing to S&P Global Platts. Much
of that total reflected deals to
line up customers by early U.S.
PleaseturntopageB2


BYCOLLINEATON


Natural-Gas Exporters Struggle


Glut makes it harder


for companies to


lock up long-term deals


with foreign buyers


Notes: 2019 export data are though November; China stopped importing U.S. LNG in early 2019.
Sources: Energy Department (exports); FactSet (futures prices)

Cumulative U.S.exportsofliquefiednatural
gas,bycountry,inbillioncubicfeet

200

400

600

2016 ’17 ’18 ’19

China

South
Korea

Mexico

Japan

India

Natural-gasfuturesprices


0

1

2

3

$4 per million BTUs

2017 ’18 ’19 ’20

TotalU.S.liquefiednaturalgasexports,
inbillioncubicfeet

2016 ’17 ’18 ’19

0

50

100

150

200

dollar figures. The firm owns
roughly $1 billion in Argentine
bonds in mutual funds, accord-
ing to data from Morningstar.
Mutual funds managed by Pa-
cific Investment Management
Co. control about $1.4 billion of
the country’s bonds, according
to the Morningstar data.
In some cases, money manag-
ers are using their clout to
squeeze better terms out of de-
faulters. When Ukraine failed to
pay debts in 2015, Franklin Tem-
pleton Investments was the
country’s largest private credi-
PleaseturntopageB2

historically steered negotiations
for bondholders in large sover-
eign-debt defaults such as Rus-
sia in the 1990s, Greece in 2012
and Argentina’s last restructur-
ing, which dragged from 2001 to


  1. But bond mutual funds
    have grown sharply since the
    2009 financial crisis, and they
    often now find themselves own-
    ing the lion’s share of bonds
    when governments fail to pay.
    Fidelity manages about $325
    billion through bond mutual
    funds, and individual invest-
    ments that are small fractions of
    overall assets can add up to big


Paul Singer, who won a $2.4 bil-
lion judgment against the South
American country and once de-
tained an Argentine navy ship.
“There was an investment
fund that had no attitude of dia-
logue or predisposition but of
intransigence,” Axel Kicillof, gov-
ernor of Buenos Aires province,
said, referring to Fidelity at a
news conference this month.
Once viewed as hands-off, big
money managers are becoming
a force to be reckoned with
when governments try to force
restructurings on bondholders.
Banks and hedge funds have

iar with the matter said.
Argentine federal and munic-
ipal governments are preparing
to restructure more than $100
billion of debt. Mr. Van Duzer
took a firm line with the prov-
ince to show Fidelity, one of the
largest holders of the bonds,
wouldn’t be steamrolled in fu-
ture negotiations, they said.
Buenos Aires made the payment
in early February.
Fidelity’s tough negotiating
drew the type of criticism from
Argentine officials previously re-
served for vulture investors like
Elliott Management Corp. owner

Argentina’s new adversary in
the bond market is no highflying
hedge fund. It is Fidelity Invest-
ments
.
Nate Van Duzer is a Mormon
Church bishop and former West
Pointer who handles “special
situations” for the Boston mu-
tual-fund giant. This month, he
won a standoff with Argentina’s
Buenos Aires province by call-
ing the municipality’s bluff
when it said it didn’t have
enough money to make a $250
million payment, people famil-


Intuit Inc. is nearing a deal
to buy personal-finance portal
Credit Karma Inc. for about
$7 billion in cash and stock, in
a move that would push the
bookkeeping-software com-
pany further into consumer fi-
nance, according to people fa-
miliar with the matter.
The maker of TurboTax
could announce a deal to buy
privately held Credit Karma as
soon as Monday, assuming
talks don’t fall apart, the peo-
ple said.
Credit Karma was valued at
$4 billion in a private share
sale about two years ago.
The deal would mark In-
tuit’s largest acquisition by far
in its 37-year history and the
first sizable transaction under
Chief Executive Sasan Goo-
darzi, who took over a little
more than a year ago.
Credit Karma offers its cus-
tomers free access to their
credit scores and borrowing
history, alerts to possible data
breaches, credit monitoring
and tax preparation and filing.
Customers in turn receive
offers from other companies
for credit cards and loans tai-
lored to their credit history,
and Credit Karma earns
money when customers use
those products.
Adding the startup to its
stable would give Intuit a
stronger foothold in the bur-
geoning realm of online per-
sonal finance.
Besides TurboTax, the on-
line software that millions of
people use to file their taxes,
Intuit’s offerings include the
QuickBooks bookkeeping soft-
ware used by businesses and
Mint, an online budgeting
platform that also pitches in-
dividuals financial products.
Intuit has a market value of
$77 billion.
Under the deal being dis-
cussed, Credit Karma would
operate as a stand-alone unit
with its CEO, Kenneth Lin, re-
maining in charge, one of the
people said.
Joining forces could allow
Credit Karma and Intuit to
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BYCARALOMBARDO
ANDDANACIMILLUCA

Intuit


Circles


Credit


Karma


Warren Buffett sought to
reassure investors about Berk-
shire Hathaway Inc.’s long-
term future following an un-
derwhelming year for the
conglomerate’s performance.
The 89-year-old Mr. Buffett,
Berkshire’s chairman and chief
executive, is renowned for his
long-term success as a stock
investor and deal maker. But
in recent years, Berkshire’s
stock performance has failed
to beat the market.
Berkshire’s stock rose 11%
in 2019 compared with a 31.5%
total return in the S&P 500,
including dividends—Berk-
shire’s biggest underperfor-
mance since 2009.
Mr. Buffett has long said
that investors should focus on
companies’ long-term perfor-
mance and ignore shorter-
term fluctuations in the stock
market.
Some investors have agi-
tated for Berkshire to spend
more of its massive cash pile
buying back shares or paying a
dividend. They have also asked
to hear more from Ajit Jain
and Greg Abel, the two Berk-
shire vice chairmen who are
leading contenders to succeed
Mr. Buffett as CEO.
In his annual letter to
shareholders released Satur-
day, Mr. Buffett mostly skirted
the issue of Berkshire’s under-
performance relative to the
broader market. But he said
shareholders shouldn’t be
worried about the future of
Berkshire after he or his 96-
year-old business partner,
Berkshire Vice Chairman Char-

BYNICOLEFRIEDMAN

Berkshire Stock Underperforms S&P


In 2018, Frank Krasovec
took on a $1 million personal
line of credit from PlainsCapi-
tal Bank. A few months later,
he went on a business trip.
When he returned, $450,000
was missing.
Mr. Krasovec, chairman of
Dash Brands Ltd., which owns
Domino’s Pizza Inc. franchises
in China, said he soon learned
that someone had hijacked his
email and asked his assistant
to wire the money to a Hong
Kong account.
Fraudsters are stealing bil-
lions of dollars each year
through this type of scam,
which combines sophisticated
hacking with wire transfers,


an old-fashioned but efficient
way to move money overseas.
Banks and law-enforcement
officials are struggling to curb
the problem, while victims like
Mr. Krasovec say they are
finding it nearly impossible to
get their money back.
Years ago, lenders only had
to worry about real-life bank
robbers. Now, the wire-trans-
fer scam puts them in a tough
position. Customers expect
them to move money quickly
for legitimate transactions,
while also guarding against
hackers that have infiltrated
clients.
The largest banks are most
likely to be conduits for the
wire-transfer scams, according
PleaseturntopageB9

BYRACHELLOUISEENSIGN


Hackers Aid Rise in


Wire-Transfer Scams


INSIDE


BYMATTWIRZ


Fidelity Is Argentina’s New Nemesis on Bonds


Warren Buffett, seen last year, says investors should focus on companies’ long-term performances.

SCOTT MORGAN/REUTERS
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