Berkshire Hathaway just hired a new investment manager today,
Ted Weschler.
R. Ted Weschler, 49, has been a director of WSFS Financial Corporation
since 2009. His current term expires at the 2013 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
He also served as a director of WSFS Financial Corporation from 1992 to 2007.
He is the Managing Partner of Peninsula Capital Advisors, LLC which he formed in 1999.
Peninsula manages a pool of capital that, on behalf of its clients, makes substantial long-term investments
in publicly-traded companies possessing both strong prospects and outstanding management teams.
In 1989, Mr. Weschler was founding partner of Quad-C, a private equity firm.
Prior to that, he spent six years with W.R. Grace & Co. holding several positions, including Assistant to J. Peter Grace,
Assistant to the Vice Chairman, as well as several capacities within their Corporate Development Group.
Mr. Weschler received his B.S. in Economics with concentrations
in finance and accounting from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Below are some more facts about Ted Weschler that I compiled plus some quotes
from Carol Loomis from a Fortune Column today, Loomis is very close to Warren Buffett :
She usually is the one to break stories like this to the media.
Weschler started his fund 12 years after getting an undergraduate degree from Wharton, working for six years at W.R. Grace, and helping to start a Virginia private equity fund, Quad-C. While that fund worked its way toward buyouts, it held the cash of its partners, and Weschler invested it, doing well in the job. Deciding in 1999 to strike out on his own, he started Peninsula. The fund’s first 13F filing with the SEC, for yearend 2000 — Weschler had by then opened the fund twice to investments — shows it owned about $150 million of stocks.
Below is the 13F showing Ted
Ted Weschler's latest positions. It seems that he invests
in a wide vary of industrities, including media, tele-com, healthcare. This sould
be a good compliment to Todd Combs, who will likely focus on the financial
Side of Berkshire Hathaway's investment portfolio, which makes up close to 50%
of the stock holdings.
Peninsula Capital Advisors, LLC
June 30, 2011
<CAPTION>
COLUMN 1 COLUMN 2 COLUMN 3 COLUMN 4 COLUMN 5 COLUMN 6 COL 7 COLUMN 8
TITLE VALUE SHRS OR SH/ PUT/ INVESTMENT OTHR VOTING AUTHORITY
NAME OF ISSUER OF CLASS CUSIP (X$1000) PRN AMT PRN CALL DISCRETION MGRS SOLE SHARED NONE
<S> <C> <C> <C> <C> <C> <C> <C> <C> <C> <C> <C>
CINCINNATI BELL INC NEW COM 171871106 65,736 19,800,000 SH SHARED 1,2 19,800,000
COGENT COMMUNICATIONS GROUP INC COM NEW 19239V302 68,040 4,000,000 SH SHARED 1,2 4,000,000
DAVITA INC COM 23918K108 372,423 4,300,000 SH SHARED 1,2 4,300,000
DIRECTV COM CL A 25490A101 508,200 10,000,000 SH SHARED 1,2 10,000,000
FIBERTOWER CORP COM NEW 31567R209 8,196 6,830,000 SH SHARED 1,2 6,830,000
LIBERTY MEDIA CORP NEW CAP COM SER A 53071M302 231,525 2,700,000 SH SHARED 1,2 2,700,000
VALASSIS COMMUNICATIONS INC COM 918866104 151,500 5,000,000 SH SHARED 1,2 5,000,000
WSFS FINANCIAL COPR COM 929328102 59,475 1,500,000 SH SHARED 1,2 1,500,000
GRACE WR & CO DEL NEW COM 38388F108 491,234 10,765,600 SH SHARED 1,2 10,765,600
His latest filing, for the second quarter of 2011, gives his long position in stocks as almost $2 billion. (That amount would no doubt be higher, were it not that Weschler closed the fund to new money in the 2004-2005 period).
But that $2 billion in long positions only partly tells the story, because in true hedge-fund style, Weschler shorts stocks (positions that do not have to be reported in 13Fs) and also borrows money to leverage the fund’s capital.
