Berkshire Hathaway Energy: One Of Warren's Four Jewels -- March 3, 2021

The four jewels, link at Barron's:

• insurance (Geico), of course
• Burlington Northern Santa Fe, probably valued at about $140 billion; pays a huge dividend
• Apple, probably worth about $120 billion
• Berkshire Hathaway Energy (which pays no dividend);
• would be the fifth largest utility in the US if it were independent, publicly traded

Nice article, but I liked this comments from Jay Jensen better:

Congratulations to Andrew Bary for his skillful analysis of the value of BHE. $54 billion is probably a very close estimate.

Buffet's annual letter gives us the numbers to see what we are getting for the stock's $580 billion market cap.

We have $290 billion of stocks ($280 plus Heinz Kraft) and $150 billion of cash/short term bonds ($440 billion).

If we add in the value of the Berkshire Hathaway Insurance companies at approximately $140 billion, that sum equals the entire market cap of Berkshire.

Stocks plus cash plus Berkshire insurance equals the entire market cap of the company.That means that Berkshire shareholders get BNSF ($130 billion), BHE ($54 billion), Marmon, and all the other operating companies completely for free

.The annual report was criticized because it was "tone deaf" to the COVID crisis and concerns about racial injustice.We may be getting BNSF, BHE, and Marmon for free, but with $150 billion in cash/short term bonds ... one wonders .... the recent Chevron acquisition was only around $4 billion if I recall correctly. 

Imagine. $150 in your billfold and you spent $4 on a trinket.

More on Chevron here, from TipRanks, March 1, 2021: a compelling oil play with a 5% dividend. This article is chockfull of data; it's a keeper. Archived.