Word: coke
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...time--Buffett once raised $210,000 at a charity auction for his 20-year-old wallet, with a stock tip inside--fell into disfavor in the late '90s. He was criticized for avoiding tech shares when they were soaring, and for clinging to big positions in stocks like Coke and Gillette after they had peaked and were driving down the market value of his company, Berkshire Hathaway...
...biggest impact, though, has come fairly recently. A good example is Wall Street earnings guidance, the issue on which Coke just got real. Some 95% of public companies still provide guidance. But in part because of Buffett's stand, the trickle of dissenters is growing. A cynic might note that this trickle consists mainly of companies that have struggled in recent years. Mickey D's, Ma Bell and Coke may simply be taking Mother's advice: If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all. But others are sure to fall in line. Buffett has long asserted that...
Stock options are another Buffett hot button. While that Sun Valley conference was under way last summer, Coke's board voted to begin treating the options it grants to executives and other employees as an expense that reduces reported earnings--which is how Buffett and increasingly others say they ought to be accounted for. Coke was just the third large company to make the change, preceded years earlier by Boeing and Winn-Dixie Stores. Since Coke made the move, about 150 others have piled on. The Financial Accounting Standards Board is widely expected to begin requiring such treatment of stock...
...issue inspires strategy in places where he holds no board seat or investment stake. Look again at the earnings-guidance issue. Daft sought out Buffett. McDonald's made its announcement after CEO Jim Cantalupo had turned to one of his advisers--Don Keough, a former long-time Coke executive and FOB (Friend of Buffett). Keough had adopted Buffett's view. On the question of expensing stock options, Cathleen Black, president of Hearst Magazines, who sits with Buffett on the Coke board, has broached the idea at IBM, another firm at which she serves as a director. Diller says he intends...
...takes to buy a single "A" share. Even the "Baby Berks," or "B" shares, which carry reduced voting rights and grant no say on the company's charitable giving, cost $2,065 apiece. Mimicking Buffett was much easier when he was buying common stocks like Coke, American Express, Gillette, Wells Fargo and Washington Post--his largest stock holdings today...