Kraft Foods and Heinz: What Buffett and connects Lemann – Neue Zürcher Zeitung

C. H. New York It is known that Warren Buffett has a penchant for junk food and would never give up hamburgers and his daily Coca-Cola. The 84-year-old had just recently stated that he likes the food was like a five year old. It is therefore not surprising that he (the approximately among American children very popular cheese noodles, and the jelly “Jell-O” produce “Macaroni & amp Cheese”) for its stake in Kraft Foods makes about business reasons beyond their own preference claims. This has the humorous chief of the evaluated in the stock market with approximately $ 348 billion conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway in any case explained with a wink in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday morning.

The fact that Buffett here but with the Brazilian private equity -Company 3G admits, is rather exceptional. America’s probably the most successful investor namely something against private equity firms. Only in February he ranted in his annual letter to investors about the industry: “In truth is a dirty word for many private equity investors; what love namely, any debts. And because debt is currently so cheap, they are willing to pay high prices for companies. Later they sell the company then, often to a purchaser, who also performs a debt-financed transaction. In the end, is the company a mundane goods. “Buffett’s aversion to private equity investors could be substantiated by some practical examples, in which the company again and again sold were finally torn from mountains of debt in depth, while the private equity firms well deserved to themselves dividends paid.

But by Jorge Paulo Lemann (75) Controlled Entities 3G is not comparable to a traditional private equity firm. The Harvard-educated and born as the son of Swiss immigrants in Brazil Lemann has worked about for years through mergers and acquisitions in the construction of the now world’s largest brewery group, AB InBev. However, while they also Lemann had strong recourse to loans and charged the company with mountains of debt. But he has always shown a long breath. Merciless was and Beer Group is trimmed via cost cutting on yield, which is why he is not only the largest but also the most profitable company in the beverage industry today

This is the Brazilian Billionaire Lemann as perfect partner for the American billionaire Buffett. Finally, Buffett had completed over decades continuously be conglomerate with new companies. As with AB InBev 3G Buffett has built about one of the, by revenues, the world’s largest insurance groups. One can only wonder what will make the duo from the newly emerged on Wednesday food company Kraft Heinz. On Wednesday, in any event, Buffett said: “I like power. And it will still be in thirty years as “

Hanna Henkel Twitter.