No. of Recommendations: 11
I agree that Buffett likely set rational parameters to evaluate Abel's and Scott's minority shares and offered to repurchase them at a fair price, so I agree with RW's conclusion : BHE's valuation has dropped, almost by half, given the current regulatory uncertainties,
Bear in mind that there may be a simpler explanation. The parties may have agreed long ago on a valuation formula for the private shares, which would likely have had a heavy weighting to something like recent free cash flow or net earnings. (Pilot may be an example, though an unfortunate one) Since it is a utility, this is particularly likely, as all parties would expect owner earnings to have been fairly smooth. The recent weak spot for business results, lasting or not, would then have caused the formula to give a much lower price.
Personally I doubt even these very knowledgeable parties would have tried to handicap the future regulatory environment and use that to arrive at a specific lower price as a result.
Has anyone done the math with all the moving parts (including the BRK share exchange at current market prices) to come up with the implied valuation for the whole of BHE?
Jim
