Controversy over Charlie Munger's design for big dorm at UCSB

Charlie Munger's architectural design for a new, large dormitory at the University of California, Santa Barbara is getting attention after an architect on the school's Design Review Committee quit because he thinks it doesn't include enough natural light.

The 11-story, $1.5 billion building with 1.68 million square feet of space would house 4,536 undergraduates. It's meant to address a severe shortage of residential space at the school that has drawn threats of lawsuits.

Munger, who is interested in architecture as well as investing, is donating millions to help foot the bill on the condition he plays a big role in designing it.

The proposed building features groups of eight single bedrooms organized into suites. The bedrooms don't have windows but common areas do and there are lots of them.

It features amenities including a rooftop fitness center, recreation room, gastro pub, juice bar, "grab n go" market, landscaped courtyard, and, of course, surfboard storage.

Munger's concept is to increase the number of students the building can hold while still giving them some privacy and encouraging them to spend a lot of their time in the common areas for socializing and collaboration. 

(A UCSB presentation for a hearing in July includes many drawings and plans, along with technical details.)

The Santa Barbara Independent reports that architect Dennis McFadden, with 15 years on the review panel, resigned because the design is "unsupportable from my perspective as an architect, a parent, and a human being."

In a letter to the school, McFadden wrote there is a lot of evidence that interiors with "natural light, air, and views to nature improve both the physical and mental wellbeing of occupants. The Munger Hall design ignores this evidence and seems to take the position that it doesn’t matter."

McFadden argued that as the "'vision' of a single donor, the building is a social and psychological experiment with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of the undergraduates the university serves."

In an interview with Bloomberg, Munger defended his concept. "Everybody loves light and everybody prefers natural light. But it’s a game of tradeoffs. If you build a big square building, everything is conveniently near to everybody in the building. If you maximize the light, you get fewer people in the building."

Munger told Bloomberg the dorm is an "improved version" of a building housing graduate students at the University of Michigan that he helped design and pay for.

"I was just there last month. We picked students at random and they’re all crazy about it. We’re copying the existing building that’s a great success and we improved on it."

The project still faces additional reviews and approvals.

The school hopes to have it ready to open in the fall of 2025.

Cramer endorses Berkshire's stock for the long term

Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money" and creator of the new CNBC Investing Club, likes shares of Berkshire Hathaway for the long term.

In his "Lighting Round" on Tuesday, he told a caller, "You’re never going to go wrong buying the shares of Berkshire Hathaway, even after whatever happens to Mr. Buffett, because he’s got a great team. Huge cash flow, a lot of great brands, I want you to stay long that stock."

In the past, Cramer has "channeled" Buffett's advice to be greedy when others are fearful in a volatile market, called Buffett's sale of airline stocks an indictment of index funds, and favorably compared Buffett's investing skills with LeBron James's abilities on the basketball court.

Berkshire-backed electric car maker loses ground as it raises money

Shares of BYD fell 3.5% to $36.27 in today's U.S. trading after the Chinese electric car company moved to raise $1.8 billion by selling 50 million shares at a discount of up to 7.8% to their market price.

They're still up 108% from their 52-week low of $17.41 set in May.

As of the end of 2020, Berkshire owned 225 million of the company's U.S. shares, currently worth $8.2 billion.

It paid around $230 million for them in 2008.

Yesterday, the company reported a 27.5% drop in its third-quarter net profit.

On Wednesday, Nikkei reported BYD will raise the price of its EV batteries by at least 20% due to soaring costs for raw materials.  Nikkei notes the price of lithium has more than quadrupled in China over the past year.

Earlier in the week, BYD won approval from the Hong Kong stock exchange to spin off its semiconductor unit in mainland China.

The plan still needs to be approved by the stock exchange in Shenzhen and Chinese regulators.

BYD says the move will let investors "appraise the strategies, risks and returns of the businesses of BYD Semiconductor and the company separately and to invest directly in the relevant businesses independently."

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BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - Oct 29, 2021

Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly-traded U.S. stocks by market value, based on today's closing prices.

Holdings are as of June 30, 2021 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on August 16, 2021, except for Apple, Bank of America, and U.S. Bancorp, which also include shares held as of June 30, 2021 as disclosed in New England Asset Management’s 13F filing on August 16, 2021.

In addition to U.S. stocks, shares held as of December 31, 2020 of China's BYD, as listed in Buffett's 2020 letter to shareholders, are included. The price of those shares in U.S. trading is used to approximate the current market value of the position. The value of the stake as a percentage of the company's market value is fixed at what was listed as of December 31, 2020 in the letter.

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

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