The motor home maker also said that it “has not received sufficient information to deem the offer as credible.” The company also noted:

The “offer” described in the letter is highly conditional, requiring, among other things, due diligence and further negotiation. The Company advises that no offer has been made to shareholders and that they need not take any action at this time in response to North Street’s letter.

For its quarter ended in February, Winnebago reported a net loss of $912,000, blaming “increased discounts and continued aggressive pricing strategies” for the shortfall. Shares have not priced above $20 since early 2008, as the US recession battered sales and margins and the economic recovery has been slow. High gas prices don’t help either.

Winnebago’s shares are up, but the company’s lukewarm response to the offer is capping the enthusiasm. Shares are trading up about 5.4% at $8.97 in a 52-week range of $6.02-$12.40.

GSV Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: GSVC) owns Facebook shares and has for some time at what may be as much as a 50% profit.  The closed-end BDC has also raised capital on more than one occasion each time the stock popped up. Shares were at $19 earlier this week and the stock closed at $16.10 on Thursday.

Firsthand Technology Value Fund (NASDAQ: SVVC) was at $30.00 earlier in the week and it is already under $27.00 against a 52-week range of $14.12 to $46.50.  This one recently raised  $127.7 million via a secondary offering and it plans to invest the cash in portfolio companies.

The one ETF we would be watching is Global X Social Media Index ETF (NASDAQ: SOCL), but only AFTER the Facebook IPO for a few days.  This ETF will ultimately include Facebook with likely a max of 10% weighting at the onset of the inclusion date.  Keep in mind that it does not own Facebook shares before the IPO.

Zynga, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA) has still been trading as a busted IPO but it and Facebook have very deep revenue ties due to the social gaming.  Here is where you can spend real life money on virtual farm animals!

As a reminder, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) owns (with affiliates) over 65 million shares and it is selling more than 28 million shares.  Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) also owns 32.7 million shares, but those are of the Class B shares.

Tree Top Industries, Inc. (OTCBB:TTII.OB) rallied on news that it owned no less than $100,000 worth of Facebook shares.  The company calls itself a mini conglomerate based on Teledyne’s business model.  Oh boy!

Facebook is the new F-word on Wall Street.  Starting next week and the week after that, the financial media is going to have to find something new and hot to talk about all day long.

JON C. OGG

News came on Thursday morning that Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) (NYSE: BRK-A) has reached a deal with Media General, Inc. (NYSE: MEG) to buy all of Media General’s newspapers outside of the Tampa paper.  Buffett is joining a sector that has wrecked many private equity firms looking for deals over the last decade in printed news.  The price tag is listed as $142 million in cash, but Berkshire Hathaway will simultaneously issue a $400 million term loan and a $45 million revolving credit line.

Today’s news is likely to bring a focus on other newspaper outfits around the nation.  Some companies with high concentrations in newspapers are Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI), Daily Journal Corp. (NASDAQ: DJCO), A. H. Belo Corporation (NYSE: BLC), Lee Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: LEE).

Berkshire Hathaway also owns 1.7 million shares of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO), although Warren Buffett does not hold a board seat any longer.  Does it beg the question, “Does this increase or decrease the value of The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT)?”…

Media General will also issue Berkshire Hathaway ‘penny warrants’ for approximately 4.6 million Class A shares and that will give Buffett the right to buy 19.9% of Media General’s existing shares outstanding. Berkshire Hathaway also has the option to nominate a director to Media General’s board of directors.

The newspaper sale includes websites and mobile applications and these outfits have commercial printing businesses as well.  These include 63 daily and weekly titles in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama.

Dare we say Buffett is back to his paper route he had as a teenager?  Mr. Buffett said, “In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper.  The many locales served by the newspapers we are acquiring fall firmly in this mold and we are delighted they have found a permanent home with Berkshire Hathaway.”

The move will allow Media General to focus on the broadcast television business, which accounted for some 77% of its 2011 platform cash flow in 2011.

Media General closed at $3.14 on Wednesday and its 52-week range is $1.14 to $6.84.  Its shares are indicated up about 40% around $4.75 in early indications.  With this newspaper and media outfit up so much, it may be safe to expect that other newspaper outfits could be worth more money than their battered shares indicate.

JON C. OGG

GSV said that this will raise $97.5 million in gross proceeds. As for the use of proceeds this was said to be ” to invest in portfolio companies in accordance with its investment objective and strategies, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.”

Citigroup was acting as the sole book-running manager for the share offering; and co-managers are listed as Ladenburg Thalmann, Lazard Capital Markets, National Securities, Aegis Capital, Maxim Group, and CICC HK Securities.  These underwriters have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 900,000 shares of common stock to cover overallotments.

GSV has sold shares before.  It sold 6.9 million shares in early 2012 and it sold 1.9 million shares last September.  Raising capital to buy more shares is probably an acceptable move for a business development company, but the company might want to consider that it is going to get a reputation for selling more stock each time its shares rise.  That would not be very popular for the investing community because they can wake up and find their shares down 5% to 10% overnight.

As a reminder, GSV is a company which owns shares of Facebook, Twitter, and other companies which are soon to come public.  This was even listed as one of the ways to play the Facebook IPO.  Shares are down 8.2% at $16.73 after closing at $18.23 on Thursday.  The 52-week trading range is $9.75 to $20.89.

JON C. OGG

Loeb and Third Point are demanding the material for the following reasons:

1. To investigate wrongdoing or possible mismanagement by Yahoo!’s management and/or any member(s) or committee(s) of its Board of Directors (the “Board”) in connection with the hiring of Scott Thompson as the Chief Executive Officer of the Company and his appointment to the Board;
2. To investigate wrongdoing or possible mismanagement by Yahoo!’s management and/or any member(s) or committee(s) of its Board in connection with the appointment of Peter Liguori, John Hayes, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Jr. and Fred Amoroso to the Yahoo! board rather than the nominees proposed by Third Point;
3. To investigate wrongdoing or possible mismanagement by Yahoo!’s management and/or any member(s) or committee(s) of its Board in connection with the statements by Yahoo! on the afternoon of May 3 that the false filings about Mr. Thompson’s educational background were “inadvertent.”
4. To determine whether Scott Thompson, Patti Hart, Peter Liguori, John Hayes, Maynard Webb, Jr., Fred Amoroso, and Thomas McInerney are suitable to serve as directors of Yahoo!;
5. To facilitate communications with other stockholders concerning the matters identified in paragraphs 1 through 4 above, in connection with a proxy contest to replace the current board of directors with nominees proposed by Third Point.

That Thompson does not have the degree he claims to have from Stonehill College has been established. What Loeb is using as leverage here is that in a federal filing of the announcement of Thompson’s hiring Yahoo included Thompson’s misstatement (lie?) about his academic history. Telling the federal government something that is not true on an official filing is a big deal, and Loeb has chosen to jump on it.

The filing also calls into question the competence of Yahoo’s board, which should have checked Thompson’s claims on his résumé. Third Point’s letter cites several academics all of whom suggest that Thompson should be replaced if he did in fact lie on his résumé. Warren Buffett has also weighed in, saying that “it doesn’t sound like an inadvertent error” to him.

The letter from Third Point lists 15 categories of documents that the firm wants Yahoo to provide. Yahoo has not yet responded to Third Point’s letter.

The letter from Third Point is available here.

Paul Ausick

When Team Buffett adds to a position, it is often in the new or relatively new positions already in the Buffett portfolio.  24/7 Wall St. has taken a look at the recent additional stake or new stake positions to see which shares that Mr. Buffett and his team of portfolio managers has likely added to along with some color and logic behind the move.

CVS Caremark Corporation (NYSE: CVS) was a larger position as of the end of 2011 at 7.106 million shares after having been a new holding in a recent quarter.  This was worth about $280 million at the start of 2012 and it is up more than 10% since then and the market cap here is $58 billion.

Da Vita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) was previously listed as a new position of 2.684 million shares worth $203 million at the end of 2011 but that position is worth about 12% more.  This is the leader as a kidney dialysis provider.  If the health trends remain then this one is right up Buffett’s alley.

DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) was most recently listed as a larger position which was listed as 20.348 million shares worth $870 million at the end of 2011.  In a prior report we had it as a new position of 4.249 million shares one quarter earlier.  The share price alone is up over 13% from the value at the end of 2011.

Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG) is one of the stocks which we think Team Buffett would have liked to own much more of.  The rapid rise in the value of the dollar store trends as a secular theme was even noticed at Berkshire.  This was the same size at the end of 2011 at 4.497 million shares but this was a new position and a larger position and it seems that the price just appreciated too fast for Buffett and friends to add many shares.  Perhaps they participated in the most recent secondary offering, but that might not appear based on the cut-off dates.

General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE: GD) was most recently a larger stake of 3.877 million shares worth $257 million after being listed as a new position just one quarter earlier before of 3.064 million shares.  These shares are hardly higher than the end of 2011, so perhaps Buffett and team have added to the stake on weakness.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) was a larger of 11.495 million shares worth $278 million at the end of 2011; this was a new position of 9.333 million shares last quarter.  Shares are up 16% so far in 2012, so Buffett’s stake here may have grown in size and in value.

International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) is one that Buffett already hinted at owning more of, but perhaps that is due to IBM’s share float shrinking from its buybacks.  The most recent filing showed some 63.905 million shares worth some $11.75 billion now after having been a new position with an average cost of about $170 per share.  Buffett’s bet has been worth more than a 10% unrealized gain ($1 billion or so) on what is now one of his largest positions.

Liberty Media Corporation (NASDAQ: LMCA) was a new position of 1.7 million shares worth some $132.7 million.  If Buffett is involved much here, it is under his new portfolio managers. Shares are up about 6% this year so far but it is unknown what the real goal or strategy is here when you consider the DirecTV angle.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) was most recently listed as a larger position of 2.865 million shares worth $291 million at the end of 2011.  This was listed as 2.291 million shares in the previous quarter.  The company has a near-duopoly and market strength and history that it seems just like a Buffett dream.  He likes banks, but owning the toll road providers for the theme of consumers using less cash and more card swipes in the years ahead.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is almost certainly a larger stake.  The reason for believing that is that Wells Fargo seems to be a position which grows in size infinitely and it was raised during the prior filing period to more than 383 million shares.  As of Friday’s closing bell, that stake (assuming no share count growth at all) would be worth a shopping $12.65 billion.

It is unlikely that Buffett would have added to each and every position.  He just doesn’t do that and his new team may be more interested in adding on other new targeted stocks on the books.

Again, here is the FULL BUFFETT STOCK HOLDINGS.

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JON C. OGG

Liberty owns roughly 40% of the company if it were to convert its notes into shares and this dates back to the peak of the market selling panic.  SIRIUS XM’s CEO Mel Karmazin has been fighting the loss of control and John Malone wanted control.  This was also going to be an interesting case for precedent as Liberty was trying to take control without a majority of ownership.

The news should be good news for SIRIUS XM holders at least in theory.  This will prevent the instant conversion of convertible notes into common shares which could have been distributed as a dividend or a spin-off by Liberty to its existing shareholders.  Ultimately, that will keep millions and millions of shares from magically appearing on the market that might have been sold by many Liberty holders.

Keep in mind that this is a decision from the FCC.  There may be other efforts taken by Liberty and John Malone to still take ‘de facto control’ of the company.

Today’s news had no real impact on the stock so we would call it perhaps not such a big event.  SIRIUS XM shares closed down 2.2% at $2.16 for an unofficial closing bell price.  There were some 87.8 million shares traded today against an average of almost 52 million shares.

JON C. OGG

Prostate cancer and the issue of Buffett’s successor are likely first.  Will this cause shareholders to call for a more focused disclosure over who will take over as CEO? Even if so, every Berkshire Hathaway investor knows that Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffett and Warren Buffett is Berkshire Hathaway.  Our take: Buffett is likely to divulge his successor only when it is on his terms or when the decision must be announced.

The second issue is The Buffett Rule.  Most of the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders are not exactly middle class.  They are usually the one-percenters, at least they are for the A-Shares with that super-high share price.  Warren Buffett was met with a cold stare from the audience before when he defended Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and it will be interesting to see how the audience reacts to any notion of paying higher taxes and their chief capitalist calling for Obama and Washington D.C. to increase the tax burden on the wealthy.

Read Also: Buffett’s Full Investment Holdings

While this may seem like a sideshow, the investments in International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) almost have to be a topic to bring up.  For years Mr. Buffett has shied away from technology.  A $10 billion bet or thereabouts has only grown in value and we all know that Buffett said he would never invest in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) because his close ties with Bill Gates would be construed as possessing knowledge that is too close to the situation.

It will be interesting to see if Buffett addresses relatively new positions such as DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) and Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG).  DaVita is the king of kidney dialysis and if that is not a captive market then no other market is captive.  Dollar General is one we have referred to over and over as benefitting from the secular trend of dollar stores as these stores are reaching up to grab customers from traditional retailers.

We would also expect to hear a little bit more about the investing decisions and input from Berkshire’s two new portfolio managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs.

With extremely large stakes in Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) and with those positions now being up near highs again, it will be interesting to see if Buffett addresses these core holdings as keys to the core holdings with higher dividends.

Berkshire Hathaway’s A-shares closed on Thursday at $121,800 against a 52-week range of $98,952.00 to $123,578.00; and the B-shares closed at $81.26 against a 52-week range of $65.35 to $82.47.

JON C. OGG

So you have some of the negative cases against public private equity shops.  So why is the IPO for Carlyle being considered a win or at worst a mixed bag?  The reduced pricing was deemed to be aiming very low at the offering price because other private equity IPOs have seen the value of their interests (share equivalents) drop after coming public.

The 30.5 million common unit offering priced at $22.00 per unit and that is shy of the $23.00 to $25.00 originally projected.  This While it depends upon which valuation metric you use, Carlyle was thought to be valued at as much as half of rival private equity shop The Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) despite a $6.5 billion market valuation for the rival.  Those valuation comparisons may need some caveats but the idea was to get the shares out at a price that was attractive to Carlyle partners AND attractive to investors.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (NYSE: KKR) and Apollo Global Management, LLC (NYSE: APO) are both relatively new as publicly traded private equity shops worth $3.07 billion and $1.55 billion, respectively.

The last amended filing showed that if the 30.5 million common units were sold without relation to the overallotment option that some 304,500,000 common units would be outstanding if all outstanding Carlyle Holdings partnership units held by existing owners were exchanged for newly issued common units on a one-for-one basis.  We will wait for a new filing to see exactly what the share count is in the coming weeks but that at least offers a read into the full value of the company.

Now Carlyle has to join the ranks of other public companies and open up its books each quarter.  Shares have fluctuated between slightly positive and slightly negative so far on the debut and some 8 million shares having traded with a last print of $22.08 at the 11:30 AM time stamp.

JON C. OGG

Original estimates in the media were put at roughly $80 million for the last of four versions of ‘The Scream’ that was still in private hands.  This auction fetched almost 50% higher than the expectation, although there was speculation that the $80 million price was an understatement.

In recent weeks we had noticed that Sotheby’s stock price had recovered from $36.50 to above $39.00 but that is still shy of the $40+ high in March and still well under the 52-week high of $48.90.  The luxury art market does have price-sensitivity when it comes to the economy and sellers and buyers were reluctant to trade at the end of 2011 when it looked as though Europe might take the global growth story away from the U.S. economy.  That makes it interesting that Sotheby’s is down 2.6% at $38.08 on a day where the market is down only about 0.2%.

The business of ultra high-end collectibles and art is a tricky one and it is a business which many outfits want a piece of.  We have noted earlier this year how the baseball collectible world had two of the famous T206 Honus Wagner tobacco card for sale and how the 100-year old card is now worth millions of dollars in the higher grades.  Another sale has recently taken place with a reported sale of more than $1 million.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) sells art, baseball cards, and other high-end items.  It has had large sales before, but generally the ultra-high priced items are reserved for specialty auction houses or consignment houses.  Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) even has collectors envy because it recently launched a store site for selling sports collectibles.  Again, neither is ever likely to become the venue for the highest priced collectibles but it is obvious that both have noticed the importance of these markets.

This is the world of extreme alternative investing.  The price of participating has just gone up.

Sotheby’s is hard to invest in for any one event and for any single quarter.  The take here is that if a record has been set at a premium of 50% higher than the estimate of two months ago, this may drive other art collectors to consider releasing some of their prized collection pieces if they think the premium is this high.  That is going to be good for Sotheby’s if that turns out to be the case.

JON C. OGG