Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Ted Weschler has dined with Warren Buffett at least three times at Piccolo Pete's in Omaha, the Wall Street Journal noted, and this month the Virginia resident starts his new job of deciding how to invest several billion dollars of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s money.
Weschler plans to continue living in Charlottesville, the home of the University of Virginia, but likely will visit Omaha on occasion to touch base with Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire, and with Todd Combs, who has been making some of Berkshire's investments since last spring.
Piccolo Pete's has great food, including beef stroganoff and the steaks and root beer floats that Buffett often recommends. But the city has other restaurants worth sampling, too. The World-Herald's Sarah Baker Hansen offers alternatives for Weschler's future evenings in Omaha:
The World-Herald just named the Grey Plume in midtown Omaha as its No. 1 reviewed restaurant in 2011, and it's truly great.
Other fine dining options include the Boiler Room in the Old Market, Dario's Brasserie in Dundee and Dixie Quick's Public House, which just moved across the river to Council Bluffs.
All are can't-miss stops for the visiting foodie.
For steaks, try the Drover, which has hidden under the radar of better-known Omaha steak joints for too long. Its whiskey steak is simply fantastic, and it's got the kind of old-school vibe that does our meat-loving city proud.
If you live in Nebraska, you probably love a Runza.
And if you've never been here, well, the locals will tell you to try one. With Runza restaurants all over the city, it's not hard to find one of the unique sandwiches: a yeast roll filled with a mixture of ground beef, seasonings and cabbage. For a bonus, try "frings," Runza's mixture of crispy onion rings and tasty crinkle fries.
Geico retiree is buying
Lou Simpson, who invested for Geico until retiring from the Berkshire auto insurance subsidiary in 2010, bought 200,000 shares of Chesapeake Energy, a $5 million-plus stake, the Peridot Capitalist reported.
The investment came a few months after investor Carl Icahn sold his Chesapeake shares, reporting about a 50 percent profit. The price of the shares dropped after Icahn's sale, and Simpson stepped in.
Simpson had to report the purchase under securities rules because he is a director of Chesapeake, making him an insider. The amount is more than the few thousand shares that many directors purchase to show their support for the companies they serve, the article pointed out.
Chesapeake's stock price is down because natural gas prices have declined and the company is spending on exploration and production.
Buffett on...guitar?
Xinhua news agency in China reports that Buffett plays the guitar and sings in a special video he made to be broadcast online as part of a celebration of Chinese New Year.
Wang Pingjiu, a producer for the broadcast, said, "We all know that Buffett is good at investment, but few knew he also did well in singing."
Omahans know about Buffett's willingness to belt out a tune, whether it's at festivities surrounding the Berkshire annual shareholders meeting, the Omaha Press Club show or the Rose Theater, where he once played — who else? — Daddy Warbucks.
The celebration, known as the Spring Festival Web Gala, also will feature pianist Robert Wells and actor Jackie Chan and include microblogs and micromovies. You can tune in on Jan. 23 to a condensed version, if your cable service carries China Central Television.
Reuters reported that the production is a "heavily scripted and censored five-hour extravaganza filled with rehearsed comedy skits and armies of dancers."
Xinhua's story makes sense if you remember Berkshire's investment in BYD, the Chinese auto and battery company. But could there be a translation problem with that "guitar" reference? Buffett's favorite stringed instrument is the four-string ukulele rather than the guitar, which usually has six strings.
Books' advice varies
TV commentator and investment strategist Joe Terranova's new book "Buy High, Sell Higher," holds that value investing is dead.
The idea of buying stock in a company with good future value and holding on — a style popularized by Buffett — doesn't work any more, he argues. Instead, the idea now is to pick stocks just before they are "poised for lift-off."
Terranova is chief market strategist for Virtus Investment Partners of Hartford, Conn.
If you have to pick investments, you could try Ted Williams' classic book, "The Science of Hitting," according to the Seeking Alpha website. The baseball legend's book taught Buffett a valuable lesson on investing, especially to wait for a "fat pitch."
While a baseball hitter has only three strikes and can't wait forever, an investor can be patient and wait a long time for a pitch that's most likely to produce a home run, in Buffett's oft-stated view.
Williams figured that a good hitter can hit a pitch that is over the plate three times better than a great hitter can hit a pitch that is in a tough spot.
The same goes for investing, Buffett has said. Since you can let thousands of "pitches" pass by every day without swinging — namely, the wide range of publicly traded stocks and other available investments — the chances of eventually finding an excellent pitch are better if you're patient.
Other advice from both Buffett and Williams: Look closely at what you're hitting, and when you decide to swing, don't hold back.
All steady at NetJets
Former Des Moines attorney Jordan Hansell, who succeeded David Sokol in April as chairman and CEO of Berkshire's NetJets private aircraft company, is taking "a steady, low-profile approach to continuing the business plan laid out by Sokol," the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported.
The company has continued to sell off excess aircraft and sign on new customers, but its recovery has been slower than hoped, the newspaper reported.
Europe, which makes up about a quarter of the company's business, is "a very difficult economic environment, on the level of what happened in 2008 in the U.S.," Hansell said. "It's going to be slow for some time."
NetJets, which is based in Columbus, ended a joint venture in the Middle East recently and is laying groundwork for a branch in China, pending government approval to operate, while its U.S. business "has bubbled along," he said.
The company has ordered $8 billion worth of new aircraft in the past 14 months and plans another big order or two soon, purchases that Hansell said are the result of long-range planning.
"We want to be a steady performer for Berkshire," he said. "We're focused on providing the safest option and highest level of service in the industry."
New insurer onboard
Berkshire malpractice insurer Medical Protective Co. completed its purchase of Princeton (N.J.) Insurance Co. for an undisclosed price from Medical Liability Mutual Insurance.
Princeton has about 100 employees and writes policies for more than 16,000 health professionals, generating about $140 million a year in premiums.
The Omaha World-Herald Co. is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com
twitter.com/buffettOWH
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
