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.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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