Friday 28 September 2012

How Did Warren Buffett Acquire Berkshire Hathaway

If you are anxious to learn how to invest like the multimillionaire Warren Buffett, it is important to first flick through some investments made by the man, in his beginning years of investment. After a thorough review, your information on the subject will then be sound enough to buy stocks like Warren Buffett.

One of the earliest and most talked about investment made by him was in the company named Berkshire Hathaway that is situated in Omaha, Nebraska in the U.S.A. The company is involved in the business of cotton mill and cotton spinning. In May 2012, the class A shares of Berkshire became the highest priced shares in the New York Stock Exchange.

This company is a gigantic merger of two companies namely Hathaway Manufacturing Company and Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates Inc. that took place in the 1950s. The reason for this merger was a depression in the textile business after the World War I. The investor Seabury Stanton of Hathaway contributed some more money to help it out of the hard time. As a result, soon the company came into its boom period, where he decided to shake hands with Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates Inc.

Warren Buffett made his appearance in the early 1960s, by buying the stocks of the much bigger Berkshire Hathaway. Although, when Warren looks back to what he has earned in the last almost half the century of his investment, he calls it a poor investment decision as he could have earned multiple folds of returns if he would have invested the same in an insurance company.

However, he learned a lot about investing after he acquired Berkshire Hathaway. He started by buying stocks of the company in 1962. Here, the reason of investment was Warren Buffett’s intrinsic value concept. He believed that the sale price of the stock was lower than its intrinsic value. Moreover, he had followed a trend in the share prices of the business after every shutdown of the mill of the company.

Within a year, he and his associate investors became the largest shareholder of the company. As a result, Warren showed more interest in the company and continued to buy its stocks. However, it soon came to notice that the textile business was losing its charm in the market. Therefore, Jack Stanton, who took the leadership from his father, offered to verbally buy the stocks held by Warren Buffett at a low price of $11 ½. Warren agreed to the offer, but when the written agreement was sent, it quoted the share price at $11 3/8. This made Warren angry, after that, he decided to purchase more of the company’s shares to become a holding owner. Therefore, he bought 49% of the shares, fired Stanton with the power of his vote, became the Chairman, and introduced Ken Chace as its President.

The scenario had worsened as he was holding a company that was near to close down. However, Warren handed the spinning business operations to Chace and focused upon improving the financial structure of the company.

The reason behind such a decision was that Warren had estimated that the intrinsic value of shares had fallen below the share price, and the profitability was reduced to the minimum point. He could have saved the mills from closing down by opting for the debts, but he opposed taking debt for running a business. Conclusively, just two mills were left running with 2300 employees working for the company. Both the experts managed to stabilize the company at this point, and the share price elevated by $ 3 since Warren had bought its shares.

Berkshire survived many ups and downs during its running. But Warren Buffett’s intrinsic value principle aided to recover from its worst time and begin to generate good revenues later on. Warren initiated to step ahead in diversifying this business, and he opted for the insurance business. Berkshire bought equity stakes of the Government Employees Insurance Company, in the 1970s. This investment became the source of financing for Berkshire in the form of great returns over the amount capitalized.

This made Berkshire the investment vehicle for Warren, as he started making investments in other businesses. The textile business aspect was soon understood to be endangered by the foreign market competition and huge costs it will have to bear to improve the structure. Hence, in 1985, the last textile mill operations also were shut down.

The unprofitable business was put to an end, because Warren had foreseen that textile business was in loss and that Berkshire does not stand a chance in the future. This was the reason why he introduced Berkshire Hathaway into the insurance market. The insurance business has a great deal of profits as there are huge premiums charged against a situation that might or might not take place. Hence, the company became an investment legend thereon.

At present, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is controlling many subsidiary companies. It has shown a growth rate of 20.3% in its last 44 years. Warren Buffett is its Chairman and CEO. In the span of ten years from 2000-2010, the company’s stocks gave a return of 76% to its investors. It is quoted to be the eighth largest public company in the globe.

If you would like to learn more about who is Warren Buffett? Be sure to click on this link because it provides a bio of his personal achievements.

Also, if you would like to learn how to invest like Warren Buffett by reading Warren Buffett Book, this link takes you to a comprehensive site that teaches his investing approach through 10 hours of free YouTube videos. All the videos are in a systematic order so it makes the learning easy for a beginning investor.


Acknowledge By Daryn Weatherman

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Glass Companies Feature New Products for Architectural Designs

A number of glass companies traveled to Las Vegas last week to take part in GlassBuild America. While the show primarily targets glazing companies, exhibitors reported that they were also seeing a few architects walking the show, and were featuring products that can be specified for both interior and exterior applications.

Chris Dolan, director of commercial glass products for Guardian Industries, said the company was featuring its partnerships with two advanced glazing companies, Soladigm Electrochromic Glazing and Pythagoras Solar. One of the featured products was the electrochromic Sunguard EC, which it is marketing with Soladigm, as well as Guardian’s PVGU photovoltaic glass, marketed with Pythagroas Solar.

“There is tremendous interest in buildings that approach net zero,” said Dolan. “Architects are looking for products like these … [as they] make more options available.”

Guardian was also featuring switchable privacy glass, which goes from opaque to clear. The product can also be produced with colorful interlayers and is ideal for applications such as board rooms, as well as hotels and restaurants.

Imagery in glass continues to be popular, and Todd Danciak, director of marketing with AGC Glass Company North America, said the company’s Krystal Images decorative glass products were receiving a lot of interest, “especially because of the clarity of the pictures we’re able to display,” he said.Decorative wasn’t the only feature in the company’s booth.

“We’re introducing a new triple silver coating that’s coming to the market the first quarter of 2013,” said Danciak.

PPG was also busy with a number of new products for architectural glazing. Glenn Miner, director, construction, flat glass, said they were announcing the new Solarban 67, a solar control low-E product that will be available for commercial shipments in the first quarter of next year. Miner says it has a neutral appearance for both transmittance and reflective colors.

Also on the decorative side, Walker Glass featured six new designs in its Nuances line of acid-etched glass. Danik Dancause said before narrowing it down to the final six, the company started with 600 designs.“We asked architects and designers which ones they liked,” he explained of the study completed to select the new options.

“We found that lines/classic designs are what [architects and designers] are looking for,” he said. These styles also include the company’s first double-sided pattern, which Dancause said renders somewhat of a 3-dimensional effect and also received a lot of attention.


Check out also for Daryn Weatherman, Leading the Glass & Glazing Industry with St Charles Glass & Glazing

Friday 21 September 2012

Glass & Glazing Contractors in the US: Market Research Report

IBISWorld’s Glass & Glazing Contractors market research report provides the latest industry statistics and industry trends, allowing you to identify the products and customers driving revenue growth and profitability. The industry report identifies the leading companies and offers strategic industry analysis of the key factors influencing the market.

Industry Analysis & Industry Trends

A clearer outlook Having made it through the recession, glass and glazing contractors now have a recovery to look forward to. Both the residential and nonresidential building markets are forecast to grow over the coming years, and demand for glass and glazing services will consequently follow. Demand from institutional buildings like hospitals and educational facilities will continue to be solid, while the renewed demand from the residential sector will significantly benefit the industry’s many small-contractors, which were hard-hit by the housing slump.

Industry Report – Starting a New Business Chapter

This industry has a low capital intensity and a high degree of labor intensity. The majority of industry participants confines their operations to supplying a mobile repair and installation service and requires specially equipped vehicles for transporting glass sheets and rudimentary storage/workshop space. The large scale glazing operators often undertake in-house fabrication and typically have a higher level of sunken capital than the bulk of industry participants.

What is the Glass & Glazing Contractors Industry?

Companies in this industry primarily select cut and install glass panels for large windows, glass doors, skylights and sunroom additions in all types of buildings. The glasswork performed includes new work, additions, alterations, maintenance and repairs. This industry does not include the installation, tinting and repair of automotive glass.


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Tuesday 11 September 2012

Daryn Weatherman Leading the Glass & Glazing Industry with St Charles Glass & Glazing

Daryn Weatherman is the owner of St. Charles Glass and Weatherman Racing, both located in Wentzville, Missouri. There are quite a few important things that people should know about Daryn Weatherman. Read on to find out some information about Weatherman and his company.

Daryn Weatherman is a great businessman and one of the reasons Weatherman is a great business man is because he cares about his business. Weatherman runs both of his businesses with pride and integrity. He runs his business in a very respectful way and this is why he has been in business for quite some time. He he is dedicated to building his business, and that is why St. Charles Glass has been in business for more than 10 years.

Daryn Weatherman is very successful, and it is because he built his business from the ground up and he did it with hard work. Daryn Weatherman started St. Charles Glass with just 4 employees and today he has more than 100 employees working for him, and the company is very diverse.

Weatherman not only cares about his businesses but he is also a family man. He cares about his family. Weatherman cares about his family so much that he actually helped launch his sons’ racing careers, and that is one of the reasons why he started a motor sports website. He has also helped his boys build an online presence.

Weatherman also cares about the community. Caring about the community has played a major role in Weatherman’s success and this is why St. Charles Glass is a leader in the glass industry. Daryn Weatherman provides quality customer service to his customers and he makes sure that he provides only the best products and services to his customers and the community. Weatherman cares about not only the community but about the entire country, and for this reason he tries to use products that were made in the USA.

St. Charles Glass can provide people with a free quote, which is good news for people. Whether it is commercial glass, auto glass or for a residence, St. Charles Glass has people covered. The company’s auto glass technicians have over 30 years of experience while the workers who perform commercial glass services have over 20 years experience. The residential glass technicians also have many years experience. All of this is great news to people because it means that St. Charles Glass has the experience needed to provide them with excellent services and products.

People are more than welcome to visit Daryn Weatherman’s shop and ask staff any questions they may have. The staff at St. Charles Glass are more than happy to help people in anyway they can. If anybody needs glass work done, then the first place they should contact is St. Charles Glass. The company is the best in the industry and it is no secret why.

To find out more information about the services that Daryn Weatherman‘s company offers, feel free to contact them via their website, the phone or simply drop by the office.

Monday 10 September 2012

Charlotte Motor Speedway News

In all of NASCAR, there is nothing like Talladega Superspeedway, a mammoth 2.66-mile track with 33 degrees of banking in the corners. NASCAR founder Big Bill France was the man who made Talladega a reality, with the first race run in 1969 marked by a boycott of the sport’s top drivers, who found the tires unsafe for 200 mph laps. Back in April 1987, before NASCAR adopted power-robbing restrictor plates to bring speeds under control, Bill Elliott qualified at Talladega at an astonishing 212.809 mph, a speed never equaled since. Talladega has always produced more than its share of upset, upstart race winners, from Richard Brickhouse to James Hylton, Lennie Pond, Ron Bouchard, Phil Parsons, Jimmie Spencer and Brad Keselowski in 2009. How unpredictable is Talladega? Just three active racers have multiple victories here, all Hendrick Motorsports teammates: Jeff Gordon (6), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (5) and Mark Martin (2). In fact, given the nature of “The Big One,” the large, multi-car accidents that so often happen at Talladega, handicapping the field here is rather difficult. In the last two years, however, two men have established themselves as the men to beat at plate tracks: Kevin Harvick and Jamie McMurray. Harvick finished first and second at the two Talladega races last year, as well as winning his second straight Budweiser Shootout and the July race at Daytona International Speedway. McMurray won the 2010 Daytona 500 and was second to Harvick here last spring. Stay away from Roush Fenway Racing teammates Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth. David Ragan, on the other hand, has three finishes of sixth or better in his last six Talladega starts. Although he has one Talladega victory, Kyle Busch’s average finish is 23.33 here.
CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY — Another track with a colorful history, CMS was built in 1960 by Bruton Smith and former NASCAR superstar Curtis Turner. But the track went bankrupt the following year, and Smith lost ownership, staying away until he was recruited by subsequent owners in the mid-1970s. CMS, a 1.5-mile quad oval layout, is notable for some of the innovations it brought to NASCAR. It was the first superspeedway to install a multi-million-dollar Musco lighting system, which allowed nighttime race. The first race under the lights at CMS was the 1992 All-Star race, where Davey Allison won the race while he literally was unconscious, having been knocked out in a last-lap crash with Kyle Petty. In addition, CMS was the first NASCAR track to build permanent condominiums trackside, and this year the track will install the world’s largest video screen on the backstretch. From 2003 to 2005, Jimmie Johnson won five of six races at CMS, which is located just two miles away from Hendrick Motorsports. But while Johnson is still one of the favorites whenever the Cup Series rolls into CMS, he has won only since the track was resurfaced in 2006. Johnson’s teammates Jeff Gordon (5 victories) and Mark Martin (4 victories) are good here, as is Kasey Kahne, who has three points race victories at CMS, as well as a victory in the Sprint All-Star Race. Bobby Labonte loves this place, too, having won twice and posted 12 top-five finishes here. And Jeff Burton is a three-time winner at CMS. Fantasy players should stay away from Kevin Harvick, who despite an All-Star victory, has a 20.05 average finish here. Even worse is Juan Pablo Montoya, whose average result at CMS is a disheartening 27.63.
Daryn Weatherman Takes on Business of Racing with Weatherman Motorsports

Friday 7 September 2012

TRENDS IN GLASS AND GLAZING

As a security professional, justifying a budget for a product that may never be needed is a constant bugbear. So, when you find a solution that will deliver safety as well as save you money, you know you’re onto a good thing.

As surprising as it may sound, we are talking about safety window film. Known for its ability to hold glass together in the event of breakage, its safety benefits are non-negotiable. But despite being considered a reliable solution to secure glass in a building, it is often seen as a hefty expenditure to prevent a problem that may never happen.

However, what if you could also get the benefits of solar protection film, including reduced energy bills and decreased carbon emissions, in the same product?

Solar protection safety film is a proposition that does just that, and suddenly turns a business expense into a cost saving opportunity. First, let’s get back to basics. We all know that broken glass poses a major threat to safety. Not just for occupants of the building, but sometimes even for general passers-by.

For example, in a bomb blast, flying broken glass causes 90 per cent of injuries, rather than the actual explosion itself. We have all seen the damage caused by the riots that took place in London recently, which resulted in hundreds of buildings being smashed and looted.

Not only does safety window film make the process of breaking and entering a lot more difficult, it significantly reduces the risks of being injured. Whether it is the result of a riot, bomb blast or just a genuine accident, the danger of broken glass (and sometimes flying broken glass) can pose a very grave risk of injury and even fatality. Without a doubt, it’s a risk that needs to be addressed. Like standard safety film, solar protection safety film works by holding the pieces of glass together when a window is smashed, preventing it from breaking into dangerous shards and causing injury.

By keeping the glass shards together as one pane, it also gives windows a certain degree of flexibility. This means that in event of a blast, rather than the glass breaking and blowing inwards, the film will flex, keeping all the fragments together and within the window frame. The safety benefits of solar protection safety film speak for themselves. The real surprise is in the additional advantages and cost savings found in the solar properties of the product.

All you have to do is think about getting into your car on a hot summer’s day to know that standard glass doesn’t block heat. The same applies to a building. Un-filmed windows allow the area around them to heat up quickly, increasing the internal temperature dramatically and making it very difficult to control.

Most facilities managers address this issue by ramping up the air conditioning, which is a very easy short-term solution, but a long-term headache. Air conditioning is expensive to run and unkind to our environment. On average, a building using air conditioning to cool its rooms can increase its carbon emissions by 100 per cent.

Worse still, air conditioning units normally create cold spots, forcing people to either open windows or even turn on the heating to try and stay warm, creating a self-defeating cycle of heating and cooling. When you take into account the fact that most of the energy used in air conditioning goes to waste, you begin to understand what a massive drain on resources it is for a business. Solar protection safety film prevents up to 80 per cent of heat from entering the building in the first place. This creates a stable and consistent climate throughout the entire building and typically reduces temperatures by between five and ten degrees. This not only helps to improve staff comfort and productivity, but more importantly, it can cut a building’s cooling load by as much as 30 per cent. In many cases solar protection safety film can have such a dramatic effect on reducing a building’s carbon footprint that it can become carbon neutral within one year of installation.

Obviously, any reduction in the reliance on air conditioning has a significant impact on energy bills, helping to contribute towards return on investment (ROI). But when you take into account that solar protection safety film can also improve a business’s green credentials, the case for installation becomes even more compelling.
So there you have it, the benefits are as clear as the film itself. Although we don’t like to consider the risks, the unfortunate truth is that riots are becoming more and more prevalent and terrorism is a constant threat to our buildings. With high profile events such as the London Olympics 2012 approaching us, there is a very real cause for concern.

Justifying costs at a time when budgets have been cut will continue to be an obstacle for security professionals. However, any investment that can slash energy bills and carbon emissions, at the same time as securing a building and keeping occupants and the general public safe, is a no brainer.
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