I was recently reading about the 1992 Treasury-rigging scandal at Solomon Brothers when it was owned by BRK, which required WEB, Charlie, and Bob Denham to intervene. It's a great story. Anyway, I was curious if they ever made money on the investment. Here's what I was able to find:

Berkshire originally bought $700 million of Salomon preferred stock in 1987, and later purchased another $320 million. The preferred shares paid a steady $63 million every year in dividend income - about $500 million total. In 1997, after scandals at Salomon that almost brought it down, Travelers/Smith Barney bought Salomon in 1997, and then merged into Citibank, creating Citigroup. This turned Berkshire's stake into approximately $1.6 billion worth of value/stock. BRK finally exited the position in 2002.

CAGR ended up around 8%, roughly the same yield as a 10-year T-Bill at the time, with a lot more risk. Buffett famously referred to the tumultuous ride as a "scratch single" rather than a home run.

Historical note: Jamie Dimon ran Travelers/Smith Barney at the time it bought Salomon Brothers. He later became President of Citigroup, until he left in a disagreement with Sandy Weill over the promotion of Weill's daughter Jessica Bibliowicz. The rest is history.

abromber