Munger: "The phone is not ringing off the hook" with calls for capital

Charlie Munger says that unlike the financial crisis of 2008 with Goldman Sachs and General Electric, we shouldn't expect Berkshire Hathaway to give any troubled companies multi-billion dollar cash infusions (at hefty interest rates, of course) amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Munger tells The Wall Street Journal that's mostly because no one is asking. "Everybody's just frozen. And the phone is not ringing off the hook. Everybody's just frozen in the position they're in."

For example, "Take the airlines. They don't know what the hell's doing. They're all negotiating with the government, but they're not calling Warren. They're frozen. They've never seen anything like it. Their playbook does not have this as a possibility."

And Munger says he and Buffett are being very cautious when it comes to buying businesses outright.

"Well, I would say basically we're like the captain of a ship when the worst typhoon that's ever happened comes. We just want to get through the typhoon, and we'd rather come out of it with a whole lot of liquidity. We're not playing, 'Oh goody, goody, everything's going to hell, let's plunge 100% of the reserves [into buying businesses].'"

But he adds that staying on the "safe side" doesn't rule out being "pretty aggressive" about seizing an opportunity if one presents itself.

In the article, Munger is not quoted saying anything about whether Berkshire was buying, or is buying, stocks amid Wall Street's dramatic sell-off.

Buffett and his portfolio managers could easily be picking up billions of dollars of equities without putting too big a dent in Berkshire's $128 billion in cash.

We may hear about that at Berkshire's online-only annual meeting in two weeks or when the company files its end-of-Q1 stock portfolio snapshot in mid-May. 

Occidental pays dividend in common stock to save cash

Berkshire did pick up some stock this week when Occidental Petroleum used its common shares, instead of cash, to pay the Q1 dividend on last year's $10 billion loan.

Occidental wanted Berkshire's money to help pay for its ultimately-successful $37 billion bid for Anadarko Petroleum.

The loan, in the form of Berkshire's purchase of preferred shares, carries an 8% annual dividend, so Occidental should have paid $200 million.

The collapse of oil prices, however, has the debt-laden oil company scrambling to conserve cash.

So Berkshire accepted around 17 million shares worth about $235 million at today's close, getting a premium over the scheduled $200 million cash payment.

Next month, shareholders will get their first opportunity to pass judgment on the Anadarko deal when they vote to authorize warrants that were part of the Berkshire investment. They'll also be asked to approve new shares that could be used to pay future dividends to Berkshire.

Carl Icahn and other critics have complained the company gave up too much for the Buffett investment.

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BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS 

Berkshire's top stock holdings by market value, based on today's closing prices. The number of shares held is as of December 31, 2019, as disclosed in the company's February 14 13F SEC filing, except for Bank of New York, which is as of April 8, 2020.

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

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-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch