Warren Buffett wants to increase his stake in Posco, Asia’s most profitable steelmaker said after its chief executive officer Chung Joon-yang met the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Berkshire “holds about 3.9 million shares to 4 million shares of Posco and will increase the holding,” South Korea’s largest steelmaker said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire didn’t immediately respond to a message left with Buffett’s assistant, Debbie Bosanek, after 9:30pm local time.
“I should have bought more Posco shares when the stock price declined in the economic crisis last year,” the statement cited Buffett, 79, as saying.
Berkshire owns 3.95 million shares in Posco, bought for US$768 million, its Feb. 28, 2009, annual statement stated.
Buffett is showing a profit of more than US$1.3 billion on his Posco holding as the world economy rebounds from the worst recession since World War II. The Pohang-based steelmaker plans to raise output by 17 percent this year and will almost double capital spending to a record to invest in plants and a mine.
Posco shares rose 1 percent to 604,000 won (US$535) at 2:24pm in Seoul, outperforming a 0.2 percent loss in the benchmark Kospi index.
“The interest of an investment guru such as Buffett is of course positive to the shares,” said Kim Young-chan, a fund manager at Shinhan BNP Paribas Asset Management Co in Seoul, which manages the equivalent of US$28 billion in assets. “If we actually get data that Buffett increased Posco holdings, that should provide a short-term boost to the shares.”
World steel demand will surge 10 percent, Posco said last week when it announced a 77 percent jump in fourth-quarter profit. The company is planning US$30 billion of overseas expansions in India, Vietnam and Indonesia, and last week said it would buy a stake in an Australian iron ore mine to secure supplies of the steelmaking ingredient.
Buffett “positively welcomes and agrees” to Posco’s investment plans to increase raw material supplies and acquire companies to beef up its global marketing efforts, the statement said.
Buffett “hopes” to visit South Korea again in autumn this year if there’s an opportunity, Posco said. Buffett made a trip to the country in 2007.
Separately, Swiss Reinsurance Co, the world’s second-largest reinsurer, sold Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc a block of closed US individual life reinsurance business to cut risk and improve its capital position.
Swiss Re will use the additional 300 million Swiss francs (US$293 million) of capital generated for higher-margin life and health, property and casualty reinsurance, the Zurich-based reinsurer said on Monday.
The company received SF1.3 billion for ceding commission in return for the SF1.9 billion of life assets transferred to Berkshire, it said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS