Watchlist Weekly: The Best of the Week Ending October 4, 2025
Berkshire buys part of Oxy; Mental walking; First Brands bankruptcy; AI accounting; BRK history.
In Case You Missed It: Old Dominion and Saia Update
Berkshire buys Oxy (sort of)
It’s official. Straight from the BRK press release. Berkshire will buy Occidental’s chemical business, OxyChem, for $9.8 billion in cash. This is a great deal for Berkshire. It acquires a new operating subsidiary (likely to be “merged” or at least reported with Lubrizol), Oxy pays down debt, and Berkshire’s 28% ownership of Oxy gets a boost. Notably, the press release quotes Greg Abel, not Warren Buffett. Buffett has no doubt handed most of the reins to Greg at this point, as his official start date as CEO is only a quarter away.
Thinking is mental walking
This is a great reminder of how all of human knowledge is connected. “By the way” means next to the way; “Of course” means of the path. This made me think of the mind palace memory technique, where you visualize yourself walking through a room or series of rooms. It makes sense that the brain would use similar channels when thinking as when in physical motion—why not? The neural pathways are already there.
First Brands Bankruptcy & Debt Accounting (WSJ)
What an interesting saga. A private company used factoring to gain access to leverage. The company was opaque in its disclosures, and there is missing collateral. It just goes to show how intelligence is not correlated to the number of digits after the dollar sign.
AI’s $4 Trillion Accounting Puzzle (Economist)
The focus is currently on the buildout of AI data centers. But there are important assumptions being made about their economic lives, which will impact profitability. I suspect this will become a more important issue in the coming years as investors look to assess the impact of such high levels of capex spending.
This week in Berkshire History
October 1, 2018: Berkshire’s National Indemnity Company acquires Medical Liability Mutual Insurance Company, a writer of medical professional liability insurance, for $2.5 billion.
October 3, 2017: Berkshire acquires a 38.6% interest in Pilot Flying J and agrees to acquire an additional 41.4% (bringing the total to 80%) in 2023. It finalized the purchase in January 2024, making Pilot a wholly owned subsidiary.
That’s it for this week. Hit reply and let me know what you think. What have you been reading that’s worth sharing? Let me know in the comments.
Stay Rational!
Adam
