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Warren Buffett says Republican tax cut 'delivered' $29bn to his company

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Warren Buffett on Saturday reported a record quarterly and annual profit for his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, thanks in part to a $29.1bn boost “delivered” by the Republican tax cut.

In his annual letter to shareholders, the billionaire investor wrote: “Berkshire’s gain in net worth during 2017 was $65.3bn.”

“But,” he added, “2017 was far from standard: a large portion of our gain did not come from anything we accomplished at Berkshire. “The $65bn gain is nonetheless real – rest assured of that. But only $36bn came from Berkshire’s operations. The remaining $29bn was delivered to us in December when Congress rewrote the US tax code.”

Buffett also lamented his inability to find big companies to buy, and said his goal was to make “one or more huge acquisitions” of non-insurance businesses to bolster results.

Finding things to buy at a “sensible purchase price” had become a challenge, he wrote, and a major reason Berkshire was awash with $116bn of low-yielding cash and government bonds.

Buffett blamed a “purchasing frenzy” binge by deal-hungry chief executives employing cheap debt. Berkshire typically pays all cash for acquisitions.


Source :- theguardian
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