© 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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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

2017. 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

PleaseturntopageB4

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