Berkshire Buys Lubrizol

So Berkshire has announced its latest acquisition—Lubrizol (LZ).

In its latest 10-K, Lubrizol describes its primary business—lubricant additives (primarily for engine and driveline lubricants):

“We believe we are the market leader in lubricant additives, and we intend to remain the leader by continuing to invest in this business. Our Lubrizol Additives segment’s growth strategy is to continue to optimize our product mix while closely aligning production capacity with product demand. Challenging market forces and conditions continue to influence the Lubrizol Additives segment. A key factor is the low long-term global growth rate for this market, which we believe is in the range of approximately 1% to 2% per year.”

Pre-tax operating income in 2010 was $1B, on $5.4B in revenues—both records for the company. At an estimated purchase price of $9.7B (which assumes $0.7 net long-term debt), Berkshire is paying 10x pre-tax OI. And almost 4x shareholder equity.

Lubrizol’s gross profit percentage for 2010 was 33.1%, which also appears to be an all-time high. (2008 marked the five year low, at 22.3%; 2006 saw 24.6%.)

Lubrizol has earned very good returns on shareholder capital (excluding special items) in recent years. Its average return on shareholder equity for 2010 was 34.4%, also an all-time high.

I will not extend the theme, but the drift is clear: this purchase price is not a bargain for Berkshire, given Lubrizol’s results over the last five years. Any margin of safety then must lie solely in expected (and highly likely, one would presume) future performance. At minimum, I would think, Berkshire must expect revenues and margins to remain close to their 2010 performance, for at least the majority of the next decade.

Berkshire was not willing to offer LZ shareholders the option of Berkshire stock (as in the Burlington deal), so that should indicate Buffett’s thoughts on each’s relative value.

Longer term, LZ’s future revenues and earnings may face risks—if, e.g., 1) improved engine design increases drain intervals, 2) new vehicle purchases slow and stagnant, or 3) input costs (particularly petroleum) increase faster than expected.

Clearly, I’m missing some important piece of this puzzle.

Disclosure: I hold shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

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Why Did Berkshire Stop Selling Moody’s?

[Warren Buffett recently entertained CNBC and its viewers in what now seems to have become an annual three hour session (transcript here).  Amid the inopportune interruptions and political meanderings, some interesting things emerged.  For one, the central reason why Berkshire has stopped selling Moody’s…]

“BECKY:  That’s one of many questions that have come in, but we also have questions that have come in about Moody’s. Achit in Arizona writes in, “In your FCIC interview, you spoke of the inherent advantages of a duopoly that Moody’s and S&P share. Why does Berkshire continue to reduce its interest in Moody’s? Is there too much headline risk” for you?

BUFFETT: Well, I think that duopoly is in somewhat more danger than it was simply because people are mad at the ratings agencies and the ratings agencies totally missed what was going on in the mortgage market and that was a huge, huge miss. I don’t think they were, you know–I think they were just wrong, like a lot of people were wrong about in thinking that housing prices couldn’t go down a lot, but they were rating agencies and they’ve gotten a lot of criticism for it and their business model is sensational when it’s a duopoly. I mean, I have no bargaining power. I’m going to see Moody’s in the week or I think or something about our ratings.

BECKY: Mm-hmm.

BUFFETT: And you know, I dress up and do everything I can to, you know, talk about my balance sheet. But they–they’re God in the ratings field and Standard & Poor’s, and I need their ratings. And if they tell me the bill is X, I pay that, and if they tell me the bill is X plus 10 percent, I pay that. You know, if Coca-Cola charges too much, you know, you may think about drinking Pepsi Cola, but in the rating agency business, you need those two. And if that–either people get so upset with them or whatever it may be, or Congress gets upset, that could disappear. It won’t disappear from natural reasons. I mean, it is a natural duopoly, just like–it’s a little different than Freddie and Fannie were, but they also had some specific advantage. Sometimes you find situations where you get a natural–well, you used to have that in the newspaper business. You had a natural monopoly in big cities. It wasn’t–it wasn’t illegal, it just worked out that way.

BECKY: Mm-hmm.

BUFFETT : And that’s what happened in ratings agencies. But it’s not as bullet-proof as it was. Although, I will say that…

BECKY: Does that explain why you’ve been selling?

BUFFETT: Well, we haven’t sold that aggressively.

BECKY: Mm-hmm.

BUFFETT: I mean, if you look at it during the course of 2010, we sold a very small amount of the–it looked to me that that threat was receding to some degree. But it’s different than it was five years ago…” [Emphasis added.]

[A couple years ago, I suggested that Moody’s Structured Products Group (SPG) would find it difficult to match past peak revenues ($873m in 2007).  In their latest 10-K, 2010 revenues from the Structured Finance Group appear down 5% v. 2009, to $291m.

In the meantime though, revenues from their Corporate Finance Group have held strong, and increased 38% YOY in 2010, to $564m.  Income before tax (for the whole company) was $714m in 2010, compared to $730m in 2008.  Despite a substantial revenue decline in their largest business line from 2008 to 2010, income before tax (for the company as a whole) has held relatively steady, even with a tarnished reputation.  So Berkshire will hold.]

Disclosure: none.