Warren Buffet 2005

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s the food industry was struggling with weak sales and low inflation which caused waves of consolidation among some of the largest firms in the industry. In 1998 General Mills studied areas of potential growth and value creation for their company which lead to small acquisitions of other firms. Looking to further grow their company, in December 2000, management of General Mills made a recommendation to its shareholders that they authorize the creation of more shares of common stock and approve a proposal for the company to acquire Pillsbury Company, a producer of baked goods, from Diageo PLC.

The market responded favorably to the merger between Loblaw Companies Ltd and Shoppers Drug Mart. News of the agreement sent Shoppers shares to increase by approximately 27% on TSE before falling back to 13%, and Loblaws shares were up almost 9% (Globe and Mail, 2013). On the 15th of July 2013 the announcement was made public, and both companies shares price closed at an alltime high of $50.13 per share for Loblaws and $60.12 per share for Shoppers. During the rest of the same month, Shoppers shares price kept on risen, while Loblaws shares price maintained its usual price below the $50 standpoint (Appendix B).

A) What is the possible meaning of the changes in stock price for GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway on the day of the acquisition announcement?

Based on your own analysis, what do you think PacifiCorp was worth on its own before its acquisition by Berkshire?

A) What is the possible meaning of the changes in stock price for GEICO and Berkshire Hathaway on the day of the acquisition announcement?

CAPM results can be compared to the best expected rate of return that investor can possibly earn in other investments with similar risks, which is the cost of capital. Under the CAPM, the market portfolio is a well-diversified, efficient portfolio representing the non-diversifiable risk in the economy. Therefore, investments have similar risk if they have the same sensitivity to market risk, as measured by their beta with the market portfolio.

Investors hold diversified portfolios : One of the assumptions of CAPM model is that investors are holding only portfolios which are subjected to systematic risk , the unsystematic risk can be ignored , therefore the unsystematic risk has been ignored (Lakonishok & Shapiro , 1986)

According to the case, there are stock price changes for Berkshire Hathaway and Scottish Power plc on the day of the acquisition announcement. Also, the bid price for PacifiCorp is $9.4 billion. After knowing this announcement, Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares price went up and make them gained in market value $2.17 billion. In Berkshire and other investors’ point of view, After Berkshire takeover PacifiCorp, it might have a good development and future so that the stock price went up. Berkshire believed that PacifiCorp can have good earning returns in the future. The intrinsic value is more valuable than its cost so they are willing to pay $9.4 billion to acquire.

What were Buffett’s probable motives in the acquisition? What did Buffett’s offer say about his valuation of PacifiCorp, and how would it compare with valuations for other regulated utilities? Would Berkshire’s acquisition of PacifiCorp prove to be a success? How would Buffett define success?

For estimation of betas, the above equation was run for the period from Jan, 2003 to Dec, 2006. Based on the estimated betas we have divided the sample of 63 stocks into 10 portfolios each comprising of 6 stocks except portfolio no.1, 5 and 10 having seven stocks each. The first portfolio 1 has the 7 lowest beta stocks and the last portfolio 10 has the 7 highest beta stocks. The rationale for forming portfolios is to reduce measurement error in the betas.

According to the case, there are stock price changes for Berkshire Hathaway and Scottish Power plc on the day of the acquisition announcement. Also, the bid price for PacifiCorp is $9.4 billion. After knowing this announcement, Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares price went up and make them gained in market value $2.17 billion. In Berkshire and other investors’ point of view, After Berkshire takeover PacifiCorp, it might have a good development and future so that the stock price went up. Berkshire believed that PacifiCorp can have good earning returns in the future. The intrinsic value is more valuable than its cost so they are willing to pay $9.4 billion to acquire.

4. How should he implement your recommended option? What are the implications for P&G’s new post-O2005 organization? What support and/or resistance do you

Even though there are flaws in the CAPM for empirical study, the approach of the linearity of expected return and risk is readily relevant. As Fama & French (2004:20) stated “… Markowitz’s portfolio model … is nevertheless a theoretical tour de force.” It could be seen that the study of this paper may possibly justify Fama & French’s study that stated the CAPM is insufficient in interpreting the expected return with respect to risk. This is due to the failure of considering the other market factors that would affect the stock price.

After the deal was announced, the prices moved towards equilibrium. Our price went to £7.90 while the price of McPhee shares went to £6.32:

Richard Roll, and University and Auburn, University of Washington, and University of Chicago educated economist, began his career researching the effect of major events of stock prices. This experience likely helped him reach the two conclusions he makes in his 1977 “A Critique Of The Asset Pricing Theory’s Tests”, one of the earliest and most influential arguments against CAPM. In the paper, Roll makes two major claims: that CAPM is actually a redundant equation that just further proves the concept of mean-variance efficiency, and that it is impossible to conclusively prove CAPM. His first claim relates to mean-variance efficiency: the idea that mathematically one must be able to create a portfolio that offers the most return for a given amount of risk. Roll claims that all CAPM is doing is testing a portfolio’s mean variance efficiency, and not actually modeling out projected future returns. The second claim in the paper is that there is not enough data about market returns for CAPM to ever prove conclusive. Even if modern technologies could help alleviate some of the burden of testing market returns for publicly traded equities, there is still no way to account for the returns of less liquid markets, where there is less public information. This means it is impossible for