Berkshire Hathaway has a new fund manager to help oversee its $50-billion (U.S.) investment portfolio. Some of his favourite stock picks are DirecTV and W.R. Grace .
Berkshire Hathaway said Monday that Ted Weschler will join the company early in 2012 after he winds down his Peninsula Capital Advisors hedge fund. Weschler and Todd Combs, who was added to Berkshire last year, will each manage a portion of the equity portfolios of Berkshire's insurance subsidiaries.
"With Todd and Ted on board, Berkshire is well-positioned for successor investment management at the time Mr. Buffett is no longer CEO," Berkshire said in a statement Monday.
Weschler, 50, from Charlottesville, Va., paid $5.3-million over two years to win the annual charity auction to have dinner with the billionaire investing guru, according to a report by Fortune's Carol Loomis on Monday. Following the first meeting between the two in July 2010, the 81-year-old Buffett invited Weschler to the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting earlier this year.
With Weschler winding down his fund, he'll be dumping nearly $2-billion in long positions in several companies that follow the Buffett blueprint: unsexy companies that generate lots of cash, like Lubrizol , which Buffett purchased earlier this year. More than half of his fund's portfolio is split between satellite-television provider DirecTV and chemical company W.R. Grace, according to the fund's latest regulatory filing.
The rest of Weschler's portfolio as of June 30 is a collection of consumer-discretionary, financial and telecom companies. Dialysis-services provider DaVita represents 19 per cent of Peninsula Capital's portfolio. Liberty Media is nearly 12 per cent of the fund.
Media and marketing company Valassis Communications , Internet services provider Cogent Communications , voice and data communications company Cincinnati Bell , commercial lender WSFS Financial , and wireless-services provider FiberTower round out Weschler's fund.