Berkshire Hathaway buys Dominion Energy natural gas assets in $10B deal

Re:Berkshire Hathaway buys Dominion Energy natural gas asset... by wsetchell on Monday July 06, 2020 @03:52PM (#23752001)

To justify spending that money, they'd have to think they'd get better returns on their R&D than shareholders could get elsewhere (e.g. by just buying the S&P 500).

It is quite difficult to beat the S&P 500, and they're saying they don't have any ideas which can.

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Re:Berkshire Hathaway buys Dominion Energy natural gas asset... by jandrese on Monday July 06, 2020 @04:52PM (#23752626)

If the shareholders don't think the R&D is going to be profitable then they can sell their own shares. It doesn't seem like the company should be making that decision for them.

More to the point, if the company is seeing such great profits then their competitors should be undercutting them. If they don't have competitors then maybe they should be regulated more like a utility and give that money back to the customers. Stock buybacks usually end up being just a handout to the rich, which they don't need.

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Re:Berkshire Hathaway buys Dominion Energy natural gas asset... by tinalumfoil on Monday July 06, 2020 @05:23PM (#23752925)

> If the shareholders don't think the R&D is going to be profitable then they can sell their own shares

It's not that the companies aren't profitable, it's that past a certain point their money is more valuable as cash to their shareholders than anything the company could use it for.

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Re:Berkshire Hathaway buys Dominion Energy natural gas asset... by beervirus on Monday July 06, 2020 @09:20PM (#23754624)

But the company management is in a better position than the shareholders to know whether the company can engage in profitable R&D.

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Re:Berkshire Hathaway buys Dominion Energy natural gas asset... by francescopnpn on Monday July 06, 2020 @04:21PM (#23752293)

true and sad-reflective of the world's state (last 50y)

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