May 2, 2008 11:49PM
By Liz Claman
Hey gang,
Today was pure, unadulterated, capitalistic insanity! But of course I mean that in a GOOD way… Our day began at 9am Omaha time as the Fox Biz crew and I headed straight to Berkshire-owned Borsheim’s Jewelry store. We had a huge set-up in the store so we could broadcast our entire afternoon show live from the first “official” BRK Shareholder event. Okay, can I just say? You can spot these people from a mile away! Everyone looks like they’re at the circus—big grins on their faces and money to spend, only here it’s not on popcorn and cotton candy… at Borsheim’s, it’s 5 million dollar diamond rings and diamond encrusted Cartier watches. And why not? Their BRK shares have made many of the 30,000 people descending on Omaha rich. Those who got in early, say, in the ’70’s and early ’80’s? Well, let’s just say if they wanted to, the Malibu beach house or Aspen ski condo could be theirs in the blink of an eye.
So we got to Borsheim’s and presented viewers with a most unusual experience. 30,000 people will be lured through the doors this weekend and as Mario Gabelli of GAMCO and a longtime BRK shareholder put it, “Warren Buffett’s the only CEO who manages to MAKE money at his annual meetings! The rest of us LOSE money putting our shareholder meetings on!” Gabelli was just one of our many stellar guests whom we interviewed as thousands of people passed by our set-up in the store. We also had a fascinating and exclusive interview with John Freund of Citigroup. Freund is Buffett’s longtime broker. He’s the guy who gets the call in the middle of the night from Buffett saying, “Hey John, call London and buy me a million shares of Company X.” Freund talked about how he “disguises” the Buffett trades so as to not tip off the markets. Berkshire’s stock portfolio today is worth about $75 billion. John has made just about all those trades and buys.
Joe Moglia, CEO of TD Ameritrade stopped by too. He’s a Buffett pal and plays cards with Warren on occasion. He told us, “Warren’s pretty good at bridge but he gets nervous playing poker. He doesn’t want to lose money.”
Author and shareholder Andy Kilpatrick hung out with us too. His book on Buffett weighs 11 pounds (”10 1/2 without the case, Liz”) It’s got some 1400 pages of Buffett stories and quotes, along with 500 pages of photos. If there’s something you need to know about the world’s richest man, it’s probably in Andy’s book.
After the show, we stopped in Omaha’s Old Market area. I love Omaha because they were smart enough to keep all the old brick warehouses and lofts from the 1800’s instead of razing them for condos… amazing buildings that truly reflect the pioneer spirit of the time when Omaha was the Wild West. The streets in this area are still ancient brick, and you can still see 100 year old signs painted on the sides of many of the old brick structures. It’s just got that “Here Come the Brides” feel to it…and yet, there are chic boutiques and the restaurants are as good as any in New York.
Okay so tomorrow, crew call is for 4:30am. Oy! Why? Well, because our crack Fox Business field producer Michele Nunes says we have to! Actually, we need to be on the scene of the Qwest Center arena where the meeting is being held to go through security and get ready for the masses. We’ll be there following Warren Buffett around and will have an interview with him. You MUST cancel your Saturday night plans to see our 7pm ET special, “Weekend With Warren.” I’ll be hosting it live from the Nebraska Furniture Mart where all the shareholders go after the day-long meeting. We’ll show you that interview with Warren, plus talk to the Mayor of Omaha, and the CEOs of BRK businesses See’s Candies and NetJets.
But before that, I’ll be blogging from the meeting, letting you know what Buffett says about anything and everything.
Even if you don’t own Berkshire Hathaway stock, it’s always fascinating to hear what the World’s Greatest Investor has to say, so log on throughout the day to www.foxbusiness.com!
Gotta get some sleep before the 19-hour day we face tomorrow.
Talk to you in the morning!
—Liz
May 2, 2008 10:16AM
By Liz Claman
Well, well, well. At a time when most CEOs are dreading their own annual shareholder meetings (remember our Liz McDonald reporting that security guards were checking Citi shareholders’ bags for fruit in case they’d try to throw it at the meeting?!!), Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) is throwing his massive, annual party under the big-top in Omaha, Nebraska. The wonderful Fox Business crew of 9 including me landed in Omaha yesterday, along with some 30 thousand BRK shareholders for Buffett’s capitalist fest he throws every year.
The first thing you notice the minute you get into town are people walking around with huge shareholder passes shaped like beach balls around their necks. The theme this year involves the “beach party” idea because there are barbecues all over town for the shareholders. I and the crew find this beach idea hilarious because right now we’re enduring thunderstorms and serious rain. No worries though, we’ve got our sunny disposition! Fox Business will be LIVE LIVE LIVE all weekend long, starting at 2pm ET today. I’ll be live at BRK-owned Borsheim’s Jewelry… one crazy-huge store with diamonds and gold and you-name-it-they-have-it jewelry inventory. Our guests include Buffett’s broker of 3 decades, John Freund. He’s extremely private for obvious reasons but will give you the story today on Fox Business about what it’s like to make all of Buffett’s trades. Can you imagine getting a call in the middle of the night from Warren Buffett? “Hi John, please buy 12 million shares of…..” We’re thrilled John will be joining us.
Andy Kilpatrick wrote a huge 11 pound biography of Buffett so he’ll be there, along with BRK shareholders Bill Scargle and Mario Gabelli of GAMCO, not to mention the CEO of Borsheim’s. Susan Jacques started decades ago there as a $4 dollar an hour sales associate and today runs the place.
And folks, remember, hop on www.foxbusiness.com tomorrow beginning at 9am. I’ll be live blogging from the annual meeting, letting you know the very latest news and what WArren and his co-hort Charlie Munger are saying.
Then, tune in to Fox Business at 7pm ET Saturday night for a LIVE wrap-up from the BRK-owned Nebraska Furniture Mart that includes an interview with Warren Buffett himself, along with the CEO of BRK-owned See’s chocolates (Buffett inhales the fudge and peanut brittle during the meeting), the CEO of NetJets, and Bob Batt, one of the big “machers” over at the Nebraska Furniture Mart.
Gang, I can’t tell you how interesting the next 3 days are going to be, culminating MONDAY MORNING, LIVE ON FOX BUSINESS, AN HOUR-LONG SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH WARREN BUFFETT… and…. you never know just who might show up to join him…I’m tellin’ ya, you’ll get it all on Fox Business!
–Liz
March 13, 2008 5:32PM
By Liz Claman
Lee Scott talks the talk AND walks the walk. I talked to him today, live in Santa Barbara at the Wall Street Journal’s first-ever ECOnomics conference. He’s a low-key guy who doesn’t make bold, dramatic statements. He tells it like it is — and when it comes to going green, he’s calmly, but firmly, telling anyone who asks that, “We’re doing it. If it’s good for our customers, we’ll do it.” So he’s finding ways to turn the world’s largest retailer into a better corporate citizen when it comes to the environment.
Among Wal-Mart’s commitments:
–get customers to recycle their plastic bags
–get customers to buy Wal-Mart’s 99 cent reusable grocery bags
–putting compact fluorescent bulbs in all store lighting displays
–improving battery efficiency in warehouse forklifts
–aiming for zero-waste
Now, I asked him to be honest on one particular point: Was he always on board with becoming more environmentally friendly? Or did he have to come around to it? He said it was a process but now he’s come around and he feels history will judge Wal-Mart by how it helps cut down on waste and emissions. I held up one of the energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs we had bought at a Wal-Mart on our way to the conference and asked, “Do you have these in YOUR house?” No hesitation. “I do. It was one of my personal sustainability resolutions and now I’ve got them in my home.”
When a company like Wal-Mart takes the lead, others follow, or get lost in the shuffle.
So folks, today we finished out our first day at the ECOconference. Tomorrow, lots more live from Bacara, one of the most beautiful resorts in the nation. It’s been a busy, crazy day for our fabulous Fox Business crew who worked all night to set up our operations. Lance and Pete, my photographers, ran all over the place with me so we could bring unique shots to you, our viewers. Hope you like it, we’ll be back at it again tomorrow.
–Liz
March 13, 2008 10:48AM
By Liz Claman
Good morning from Santa Barbara where the sun is rising over blue skies and a cobalt Pacific ocean. We’re going to be live all day from the Wall Street Journal’s first-ever ECOnomics conference which brings together CEO’s, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to discuss how to make money by going ‘green’: reducing carbon emissions, recycling and figuring out ways to create sustainable energy.
General Electric’s CEO Jeff Immelt was last night’s keynote speaker. He made some bold and dramatic statements to the group of 300. Among them:
“I’m not an environmentalist. I’m a capitalist and a businessman but I believe i can drive earnings and make money by working to create clean energy, water and environmental solutions….”
“We decided on our own to see if we could follow the Kyoto Protocol (emission reduction efforts)…I *thought* we’d lose money doing it, but we *made* money.”
“Don’t put your heads in the sand and be stupid about this. You better start (becoming more green) today.”
“Our lighting business is our worst business. The only thing that makes it interesting today is new energy standards.”
The crowd interrupted several times with big applause. He was a hit.
So gang, this morning at 11am ET, 8am Pacific, my first guest will be a guy you’d *think* wouldn’t want to be at a conference like this one. Red Cavaney, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute will be FIRST on FOX Business. With oil at 110$ a barrel, he knows he has some ’splainin’ to do but he’s a good sport and we’re so happy he’ll join us.
Also today, Lee Scott, CEO of WalMart, Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical, James Rogers of Duke Energy, and the Green Poster Child, actor Ed Begley Jr. All will be with me live on FOX Business.
So keep us on all day to hear some pretty fascinating talk about the future of our world and how businesses want to fit it.
–See ya at the beach!
Liz
March 12, 2008 5:26PM
By Liz Claman
Hey gang,
JetBlue (JBLU) has gotten us to the West Coast safe and sound — and we’re already at Bacara, the spectacular, oceanside resort in Santa Barbara that will be the site of the Wall Street Journal’s very first ECO-nomics Conference. The conference will bring together company leaders ranging from Dow Chemical to Wal-Mart to G.E. to Cypress Semiconductor and beyond to talk about green initiatives, innovation and profit — all of it stemming from alternative energy and environmentally-friendly ideas. (By the way, the plane was full of New Yorkers riveted to their JetBlue mini-television screens, with just about everyone watching the build-up to NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s resignation. We were somewhere above Colorado when, literally just as Spitzer was about to say, “…and so I will resign…,” the pilot interrupted everyone’s audio to tell us our flight elevation and current temperature. Half the plane started moaning, “Hey! We wanna HEAR this!” Typical New Yorkers, right?)
Well, now we’re turning our attention to what is expected to be one of the most important and interesting CEO conferences we’ve covered in a long time. Fox Business jumped at the chance to come cover this because there truly seems to be a historic sea-change when it comes to how massive, publicly-traded companies view the environment and their role in creating products that help— or at least don’t hurt– the planet.
Starting tomorrow, I’ll be live from the beach, talking to CEOs and leaders in the field of “Green.” We’ll be talking to actor Ed Begley Jr. who woke up one day in 1970 and decided that he was going to change the way he lived… and change the impact his living would have on the environment. As recently as 5 years ago, perhaps some of the same CEOs attending this conference might have called him a kook. Now? They all want to get his ideas. Whether you think global warming is real or simply hype, you should know that many CEOs whose companies you might own in your own portfolio are now believers and ready to jump on the bandwagon.
We’ll find out why starting tomorrow so keep Fox Business on.
–Liz
March 11, 2008 9:36PM
By Liz Claman
Listen, I’m from California. I was the kid putting the brick in the toilet tank at age 7 with my dad who used to tell us, “Don’t take fresh water for granted. Don’t take electricity flowing from the flip of a switch for granted.” So for me, conserving and protecting the environment has always been ingrained. However, for Wall Street, being environmentally sound has, in the past, often been met with everything from skepticism to outright scorn. But now??? The green concept for many companies has become a steam train that’s laid down its tracks and is ready to roll… without the black smoke coming out of its stack.
It’s 9:20pm ET Tuesday night and I’ve just finished packing to head with the FOX Business crew to Southern California. We’ve got the Wall Street Journal to thank for the location of what is expected to be a most memorable assignment: The ECO:nomics Executive Conference at Bacara Resort in picturesque Santa Barbara. The Journal has organized this gathering of C-Suite (that’s Wall Street talk for top executives…i.e., CEO’s, CIO’s, CFO’s etc.) leaders who are working hard to change the way their companies operate when it comes to ‘green’ efforts: curbing global-warming emissions, creating more environmentally sound products and making a new, more focused effort to become more energy-efficient.
What makes this new and different is that the companies participating are not necessarily the ones you’d think of first for sporting the big green “G”: Dow Chemical (DOW), WalMart (WMT), Cypress Semiconductor (CY), General Motors (GM). But inside their offices, plants and assembly lines they’re now the ones pushing to be at the forefront of creating environmental capital. They’ve all found ways of making a huge ‘green’ effort pay off for their bottom lines.
So gang, I’ll be live starting Thursday through Friday on both my show with David Asman (2-5pm ET) and throughout the day on other FOX Business shows, giving you all the angles of how these companies are now deciding that being ‘green’ can bring in the green. You’ll hear from the CEO’s themselves, along with the people at the forefront of the green effort.
I’ll send some of that California sunshine your way as soon as I get there. Stay tuned, I’ll be blogging from Bacara resort the whole time. See ya on the other end!
P.S. And WAIT til you see our live location. My producer Michele Nunes had our FOX Business L.A. bureau guys scope out the location and let’s just put it this way: we’re talking serious California Dreamin’. Don’t miss it!
February 20, 2008 12:48PM
By FOXBusiness.com
The Labor Department reported a jump in consumer prices and core inflation today. Click here to read the story.
As food prices have been rising, FoxBusiness.com wants to know if you’ve noticed a higher bill at the grocery check-out line? Have you tried to scale back your shopping list?
February 18, 2008 3:12PM
By FOXBusiness.com
You have to travel back a couple decades to find the last president with a solid business background: Herbert Hoover. But is it necessary to run the country? Click here to read the story.
Today, economic concerns have taken center stage during the race to the Oval Office. We at FOXBusiness.com want to know what you think. In times of economic uncertainty, does the country need a candidate with business credentials? Why or why not?
February 15, 2008 11:54AM
By FOXBusiness.com
Best Buy (BBY) lowered its 2008 profit forecast Friday, citing a weak fourth quarter and a shaky economy. Click here to read the full story.
With the ‘R’ word making frequent visits on the op-ed pages and news headlines, we at FOXBusiness.com want to know if you have or plan to cut back on electronic spending. And, when it’s time to tighten the purse strings, where do you cut back? Weigh in.
February 5, 2008 12:57PM
By FOXBusiness.com
Polls are open in 24 states as more than half the country votes their choice for presidential nominee on this Super Tuesday. The issue in the driver seat for most voters is the economy, according to a recent FOX News poll.
We at the FOX Business Network want to know which presidential hopeful YOU believe has what it takes to remedy an ailing economy? And, why do you pick him or her? It’s your money, your country and your vote. Here’s your chance to speak up.
Click here to read the latest from FOXNews.com’s Super Tuesday coverage.
