Warren Watch: Buffett, Anka team up to sing NFL stars’ praises at the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Paul Anka talks with Warren Buffett before the meeting. Shareholders attended the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meeting at the CenturyLink Center Omaha on April 30, 2016.

Warren Buffett and Paul Anka continued their duet road tour, this time appearing in Canton, Ohio, where they crooned a custom-lyrics version of “My Way” during the induction ceremony for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Buffett, a football fan as well as chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., joined Anka with copies of the words in their hands, singing the praises of each inductee: kicker Morten Andersen, running back Terrell Davis, safety Kenny Easley, owner Jerry Jones, defensive end Jason Taylor, running back LaDainian Tomlinson and quarterback Kurt Warner.

“You play to win,” Buffett sang to Davis. “That’s football your way.”

Anka can take liberties with the tune because, after all, he wrote it for Frank Sinatra. He and Buffett delivered a version of the song in 2014 at a Fortune magazine “powerful women” conference, praising writer and editor Carol Loomis.

After the Hall of Fame event, Buffett joined other invitees at a party at the Glenmoor Country Club thrown by Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, which reportedly cost Jones between $10 million and $16 million. Buffett and Jones had met at a Super Bowl.

Justin Timberlake performed. Among the 1,000 other guests were singer Jon Bon Jovi, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, according to Texas Monthly magazine.

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Buffett and Gates
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Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, right and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, are interviewed by CNBC's Becky Quick, for the television show, Squawk Box at the Hilton Hotel, 1001 Cass St. in Omaha on Monday, May 4, 2015.
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Gates beats Buffett again

“Gates will never catch me now!” Buffett cried out at an Omaha Press Club show years ago.

But, of course, Bill Gates did overtake Buffett as the richest man in the world and has hung on to the title.

Now the co-founder of Microsoft has set another high-dollar mark by donating $5 billion worth of Microsoft shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

It was the largest gift that Gates, 61, has made since 2000. Although smaller than the $16 billion stock donation he made in 1999, the latest gift is still bigger than Buffett’s record, $3.17 billion, this year to the Gates Foundation and four Buffett family foundations.

Gates’ donations since 1994 have totaled about $35 billion, based on Microsoft’s stock values at the times of the gifts.

Buffett, Gates and Gates’ wife, Melinda, also created the Giving Pledge in 2010, a nonbinding commitment signed by 168 wealthy individuals or couples, so far, pledging to donate at least half of their money to charities.

Bloomberg calculated that Gates would be about $50 billion richer if he had kept all of his Microsoft shares, in addition to his current wealth of $86 billion. That’s $136 billion.

If Buffett had kept all of his shares, they would be worth $118 billion today.


Oracle talk in Indonesia
About 1,000 people — stock exchange directors, company executives, fund managers, investors and students — attended a briefing recently in Jakarta, Indonesia, titled “How to Become a Value Investor Like Warren Buffett.”

Buffett observer Robert Miles gave the two-hour presentation, sponsored by the Indonesia Stock Exchange, which tries to emphasize long-term investing over the rapid trading that is more common in some Asian markets.

Miles, a Florida resident, teaches a Buffett-focused course for the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s executive MBA program.

It was the Jakarta Stock Exchanges’ 40th anniversary. About a million of Indonesia’s 260 million people invest in the exchange’s companies, which have a total share value of about $426 billion.
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