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MiG jets designer Rostislav Belyakov dies aged 94

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 02 Maret 2014 | 00.48

MOSCOW — The maker of MiG fighter jets says that its chief designer Rostislav Belyakov has died. He was 94.

The company said in a statement that Belyakov died Friday in Moscow following an unspecified illness.

Belyakov became the MiG chief designer in 1969, succeeding the firm's founder, Artyom Mikoyan, and led the development of a family of MiG fighters, including MiG-23, MiG-25, Mig-29 and their versions, which have been the backbone of Soviet and then Russian air force.

Belyakov joined the MiG company as a young engineer in 1941 and quickly rose through the ranks to become a deputy chief designer in 1957.

He was showered with state awards and honors, but his name was unknown to the public until the Soviet collapse.


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Economic data up, but weather stalling recovery

A slew of economic data released yesterday pointed to a recovery that is still struggling to take off, experts said.

"The numbers we had today show a continuation of a recovery, although it's subpar and it's anemic," said Christine Armstrong, senior vice president at Morgan Stanley.

The Commerce Department said the economy grew at 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, revised down from its previous estimate of 3.2 percent. Also yesterday, the National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index inched up 0.1 to 95 last month, while the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 81.6 in February, up 0.4 from January.

"We continue to be in an environment of recovery and modest growth," said James Abate, chief investment officer at Centre Asset Management.

Many economists have blamed subpar economic data on poor weather across the country, and say the GPD will temporarily dip because of the cold and snow.

"Due to Mother Nature, quarter one is not going to be anything worth writing home about," said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, in a research note. "The rebound ... and all of that pent-up demand won't show up until the second quarter.

Earlier this week, Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Federal Reserve, said data have been difficult to interpret because of the weather.

Herald wire services contributed to this report.


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Slots parlor to spin ahead

Penn National Gaming is moving quickly on plans to build a slots parlor at a Plainville racetrack now that it has been awarded a state license, despite the possibility of a ballot question this fall to repeal the casino law.

"We're not going to slow down our construction process with this threat out there and we're going to fight for the right outcome," Tim Wilmott, Penn National's chief executive, said. "We have a lot of experience in political battles with gaming in other parts of the United States and we feel confident we're going to get the right outcome."

The state Gaming Commission voted unanimously yesterday to award the state's sole slots parlor license to Penn National, and company officials said they would begin construction planning next week at Plainridge Racecourse with a goal of opening next spring. Company officials celebrated the awarding of the license with workers at the track yesterday.

But a group working to strike down the casino law, Repeal the Casino Deal, is petitioning the Supreme Judicial Court to get on the November ballot over the objection of Attorney General Martha Coakley, who argues the question would violate the implied contractual rights of license applicants. The SJC is expected to hear the case in May.

John Ribeiro, chairman of Repeal the Casino Deal, said he is confident the question will get on the ballot in November and that voters will turn against gambling.

"The casino industry's empty promises may have bamboozled the governor, Legislature, Gaming Commission and a handful of struggling cities, but convincing voters across the state that any of this amounts to 'destination resort casinos' is vastly different," Ribeiro said.

Wilmott said the company's most recent election battles involved ballot measures in Ohio. The fights there involved an intense campaign with fliers, direct mail, television, radio and newspaper ads, said Eric Schippers, Penn National's vice president for public affairs.

Penn's ad blitz worked in both 2008 and in 2009, said Rick Lertzman, who was on the losing end of the measure in 2008.

"We've had a lot of interaction with Penn in the past," said Lertzman, chairman of Quest Gaming, which operates rival gaming facilities in Ohio. "We've had a lot of conflict with Penn in the past."

No date has been set for groundbreaking at Plainridge, but Penn National is promising to create 1,000 construction jobs as well as 500 permanent jobs. The facility will have 1,250 slot machines, and will help preserve roughly 100 harness racing jobs at the track.


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Wilmington tops for buying home

Considering buying a home in Massachusetts but unsure where to look? How does Wilmington, Franklin or Reading strike you?

They're the top three of the 20 best places to own a home in the Bay State, according to consumer finance website NerdWallet, which based its recommendations on U.S. Census data for the 77 communities with more than 15,000 residents. The website chose that as the cutoff because not all of the data for smaller communities were available and even when it was, the smaller the population, the greater the possibility that the data could be skewed, said Jaime Ortiz, senior analyst for strategy.

For each municipality, NerdWallet looked at three main criteria: whether homes were available, how affordable it was to live there, and whether the area was growing — a signal of a robust economy, Ortiz said.

"A lot of these places — 13 of the top 20 — were clustered around Boston," she said. "That definitely tells me they benefit from their proximity to Boston, including its jobs, its universities, its arts and entertainment."

Wilmington also had a homeownership rate of 89.8 percent — the highest in the state — as well as monthly costs that took up only 27 percent of the median monthly household income.

Franklin had a homeownership rate of 79.3 percent and monthly costs that took up 29.2 percent of the median monthly household income, while Reading's 
homeownership rate was 82.2 percent and monthly costs were 30.9 percent.

NerdWallet's other top places were, in order, Burlington, Hudson, Wakefield, Randolph, Lexington, Methuen, Longmeadow, Winchester, Braintree, Saugus, Abington, Danvers, Dedham, Milton, Somerset, Wellesley and Milford.


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Mass. awards urban farming grants

BOSTON — Massachusetts has launched a new $200,000 pilot project to encourage farming in cities across the state.

Grants have been awarded this week to food-growing projects in Boston, Everett, Lawrence, Lowell, Somerville, Springfield and Worcester.

The program is designed to increase access to fresh, nutritious food for people in cities and to come up with farming methods that other cities can copy and benefit from.

Municipalities, nonprofit organizations and other government entities are eligible to apply for grants ranging from $5,000 to $40,000. Preference goes to projects that have multiple partners and additional funding sources.

The project hopes to find solutions for problems such as finding suitable land, and working limited space, sunlight, and nutrient-poor soils. It also will try to help solve high startup costs, restrictive zoning issues and the farmers' lack of agricultural and business experience.


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Colored lobster rope could be safer for whales

ROCKPORT, Maine — Preventing endangered northern right whales from becoming entangled in lobster gear could be as simple as changing the color of rope, a whale researcher says.

If the whales can see the fishing gear more clearly, then they are better able to avoid it, said Scott Kraus, a leading researcher on northern right whales.

"We know they can see the ropes. We thought by making them more visible they might be like traffic cones" by steering whales away from danger, Kraus said at the Maine Fishermen's Forum, an annual fishing industry event that draws together fishermen, regulators, researchers and other industry officials.

North Atlantic right whales, whose large eyes are adapted to the low light of the ocean, may be more sensitive to certain colors, the New England Aquarium scientist said.

Kraus and other researchers set out three years ago to determine whether the whales respond to some colors more than others. Intercepting feeding whales in Cape Cod Bay, off the shore of Massachusetts, they placed in the water lengths of colored PVC pipe, representing pieces of rope that attach traps to buoys.

When the whales approached, the scientists measured the distance from the whales' eyes at the moment when they reacted to the suspended "rope."

Not all colors evoked the same reaction.

On average, the scientists discovered that right whales were most likely to respond to orange or red, and they were less likely to react to green and black, Kraus said. The researchers also tallied how many times the right whales bumped into the PVC pipes, and found that orange and red yielded fewer, he said.

Although the whales see their ocean world in black-and-white, it makes sense that they can differentiate orange from other colors since the clouds of zooplankton upon which they feed are orange in color, said Michael Moore, director of the marine mammal center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

The research was long overdue, Moore said, because fishing gear entanglements are common.

More than 80 percent of right whales show evidence of having been entangled in some type of fishing gear and the whales acquire a new entanglement scar once every three years on average, he said.

"The problem of entanglement of large whales, right whales, in fixed fishing gear is huge. It doesn't seem that way to an individual fisherman. From the whale's perspective it's a daily occurrence," he said.

It's a big problem for North Atlantic right whales because there are so few of them. Experts estimate there are only about 450 of the whales, which grow up to 55 feet long and weigh up to 70 tons.

More research needs to be done, said Kraus, who intends to publish his preliminary findings sometime in the next six months.

But based on those early results, he is working with Brooks Trap Mill and Hyliner Rope to manufacture experimental red ropes that are being tested by Maine lobstermen for durability and handling.

Some lobstermen are skeptical the ropes will make a difference.

"No lobsterman is going to use red rope," said Ryan Post, a fourth generation lobsterman who fishes off Metinic Island. "We've tried them in the past, and they faded pink."

___

Associated Press writer David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.


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Sports continues to move forward at MIT conference

For the eighth straight year, the' most forward-thinking minds in sports flocked to the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference to discuss and share big ideas with professors, professionals, and peers. Academics, league and team executives, analysts, bloggers and enthusiasts all rubbed elbows, soaked in data-rich panel programming and took a peek into the future of sports.The MLB, NFL, NHL, MLS, English Premier League, NASCAR, and NBA were all represented by officials and panelists at the conference, which, overall, boasted 2,000 attendees, hailing from over 180 academic institutions, over 80 pro teams, and over 300 sports industry organizations.

There were there to talk about what works and doesn't work in sports, what makes certain players successful and other not, the tools used to evaluate those successes and failures, and the growing understanding that new stats and "old school" values work in concert, not conflict.

Basketball is where the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference made its bones, and while baseball, football, soccer and hockey all have healthy presences, the NBA still most strongly flavors the event.

Celtics Director of Basketball Analytics David Sparks discussed the evolution of the conference, and its appeal.

"This year, I've really enjoyed just getting to see other people who are doing sort of my parallel job," Sparks said. "So it's just nice to meet everybody. And see faces; a lot of people's names I've heard. It's nice to put names on faces. So, for me, so far that's been the main appeal."

All the different walks of the sports world were represented at SAP's panel: "The Inflection Point in Sports: How Big Data and Analytics are Changing The Game." SAP vice president Frank Wheeler was joined by NBA Vice President of Information Technology Ken DeGennaro, MLB executive Oscar Fernandez, who oversees application development and business intelligence for pro baseball, Washington Redskins Vice President of Technology Asheesh Kinra, and former tennis pro and current analyst Mary Joe Fernandez.

The panel showcased multiple SAP-enabled charting tools. Scouting reports on football players can be ranked and itemized with tools that look like the player evaluation pages of the Madden NFL video game franchise, with sortable attributes and comparison pages. Major League Baseball, at both the league and club level, can evaluate players with what equates to the back of a live-updating digital baseball card, with modular statistics that can be weighted for every situation and comparison. Fernandez discussed tennis tracking data, and how she aims to use that data for stronger, more informative broadcasts.

Everything in the panel revolved around how greater, more specific information informs the way we process and enjoy the games. Everything sought to increase the vocabulary of sports conversation, as well as move away from anecdotal information and towards quantifiable. Everyone professed a desire to create the tools, and make them a part of the fan experience, so that there could be a base for the next data breakthrough. Baseball, according to Fernandez, will openly reach out to fan corners of the Internet, to integrate cutting-edge stats like UZR and leverage index. The goal of the NBA's highly data-rich website, which allows players' performances to be inspected in myriad ways, is for fans to "contribute, and feel more invested in the product," according to DeGennaro.

For all the excitement and positivity, the competitive juices were also flowing. And not every sport felt as well-represented as the others.

Devin Pleuler, an Advanced Data Analyst for Opta, the company responsible for the official league statistics of Major League Soccer and the English Premier League, was unimpressed by the soccer panel, which he felt poorly represented soccer analytics' cutting edge.

"The soccer analytics movement has come out of a blogosphere kind of atmosphere," Pleuler said. "All the major advances of the last 18 months have come out of the soccer blogging ecosystem, which is where I came from.

"We're asking much more in-depth, answerable questions that these guys are not really aware of. There's a very real disconnect between whatever went on here organizing the soccer panel and the actual people involved in soccer analytics.

"You could have put Brian Bilello, president of the New England Revolution, probably the most forward-thinking soccer organization in the world, with how they approach analytics from the top down, instead of bottom-up. He's here at Sloan, with his analysts. These guys actually have real-life experience with this, not just in the technical end, but also in the implementation of it, which is continuing the conversation that's going on in these other panels. It's, 'Well, we have these really good analytics, how do we implement it?' These guys are doing that, and there's not a lot of guys that are. And that's happening in our own backyard here in Boston. And here we are, at Sloan, and it's frustrating."

Still, for any shortcomings, there was plenty of excitement.

Sparks said that, compared to past years, "There are a lot more people here, and everything that goes with that. It's exciting to see how much it's grown.

"To see everyone here with an interest in this kind of thing is exciting because it's the stuff I'm interested in."

For all the forward thinking, information appeared to move at different speeds in the different sports geospheres.

For Pleuler, and perhaps the soccer community, it was a matter of the conference's priorities. "What's too bad about Sloan is that it's turned into such a media event, where it's not actually beneficial for all these soccer people to come," he said.

For Rishabh Desai, a 23-year-old, first-year basketball operations analyst and recent San Francisco State graduate, things are much brighter.

"(Analytics) are slowly becoming more respected, more appreciated, now, especially because of this conference," he said. "I think this conference is actually one of the things that has made it more popular."

Many different worlds are summoning all their academic and corporate might, and demandingly asking the most critical questions in sports. That is the heart of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

As Desai described it, "People are starting to look at it more as a science than a sport, which is kind of cool. It's fun to combine the two worlds."


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Buffett posts record profit but loses again to S&P

OMAHA, Neb. — Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reeled in record profits in 2013 as its wide-ranging businesses capitalized on the improving U.S. economy, though its performance again failed to keep pace with the surging S&P 500.

"On the operating front, just about everything turned out well for us last year — in some cases very well," Berkshire's chairman and CEO wrote in his annual letter to shareholders released Saturday.

Buffett touted performance gains at auto insurer Geico and in its "Powerhouse Five" — a group of non-insurance businesses including Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad and electric utility MidAmerican Energy that posted pretax earnings of $10.8 billion for 2013, up nearly $760 million year-over-year. In total, Berkshire owns roughly 80 subsidiaries, including clothing, furniture and jewelry firms. It also has major investments in such companies as Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. In 2013 Berkshire spent nearly $18 billion to buy NV Energy and about half of foodmaker H.J. Heinz.

Buffett's preferred measure of Berkshire's performance is the growth in book value — its assets minus liabilities. By that measure, Berkshire gained a substantial 18.2 percent in 2013, but couldn't match the S&P 500's 32.4 percent run-up. That marks the fifth straight year that the company has underperformed the S&P. But in his letter, Buffett noted that over the full six-year market cycle — which would include the 2008 rock-bottom market year — the Omaha, Neb., company outperformed the benchmark index.

"Through full cycles in future years, we expect to do that again," Buffett wrote. "If we fail to do so, we will not have earned our pay. After all, you could always own an index fund and be assured of S&P results."

Buffett said he and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger will continue to look for other investments and acquisitions that allow them to bet on the future of the American economy.

"Charlie and I have always considered a bet on ever-rising U.S. prosperity to be very close to a sure thing," Buffett wrote. "Indeed, who has ever benefited during the past 237 years by betting against America?"

Buffett said Berkshire has a solid foundation that includes roughly $48 billion cash and owning 8 ½ businesses big enough to be part of the Fortune 500 if they were separate companies.

Berkshire earned $19.48 billion last year on total revenue of $182.15 billion. That's up from $14.82 billion in profit and revenue of $162.46 billion in 2012. Strong gains in the value of its investments and derivative contracts added $4.3 billion to the results, up from $2.2 billion the previous year. That included gains Berkshire recorded last fall as it redeemed warrants for General Electric and Goldman Sachs stock and Mars and Wrigley repaid Berkshire for an investment made during the financial crisis.

Buffett has said Berkshire's operating earnings are a better measure of how the company is performing in any given period, because those figures exclude the value of derivatives and investments, which can vary widely even though Berkshire rarely sells them.

Operating earnings grew to $15.1 billion, or $9,211 per Class A share, in 2013. That's up from $12.6 billion, or $7,629 per Class A share, in 2012. Four analysts surveyed by FactSet expected full-year operating earnings per share of $9,106.50 per Class A share.

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Follow Josh Funk online at www.twitter.com/funkwrite

___

Online:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: www.berkshirehathaway.com


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Long waits frustrate callers to health exchanges

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — For those trying to enroll through online health exchanges, help has long been advertised as just a phone call away.

Yet the challenge in some states has been trying to get a call through at all, never mind the multiple transfers once contact has been made.

Long wait times of an hour or more have been commonplace in some states, primarily those running their own health care exchanges. California, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada and Washington are among the states in which consumers and insurance agents have complained. One consequence is that people just give up because they are unable to wait indefinitely.

"If I had to use one word, I'd use 'frustrating,'" said Jacki Manley, a stay-at-home mom in the western Maryland town of Keedysville, who has been trying since mid-December to enroll in a health plan through that state's health exchange.

With a child who is almost 3 and another who is 5 months, the 20 minutes she can spare on hold often have not been enough. She estimates she has reached someone at the Maryland call center three out of about a dozen times she has called, but then she gets passed between different people and cannot get definitive answers to her questions.

"It just seems like all the right connections aren't being made," Manley said, adding that she believes she has successfully enrolled her children but is unsure whether she and her husband have been enrolled after more than two months of trying.

Manley said she has given up calling. Now, she uses Facebook to try to get the help she needs.

The telephone frustration is just one more obstacle consumers are facing as the March 31 deadline for open enrollment approaches. Technical glitches and software meltdowns on the federal and some state-run exchanges deterred many people from signing up after enrollments under the federal Affordable Care Act began in October.

With many of those technical problems solved, enrollments across the country have been brisk since the start of the year. Yet even with 4 million signed up for policies through the exchanges, the Obama administration will be challenged to meet its own projection of 7 million enrollees by the deadline.

Long wait times for consumer won't help.

In California, an operational review of the state-run exchange's first three months showed consumers waiting 45 minutes to an hour for an employee to answer, and insurance agents have said they have waited hours to make human contact. The exchange's goal was to answer 80 percent of the calls within 30 seconds.

"We did not meet our standards," said Yolanda Richardson, Covered California's chief deputy executive director.

The most recent statistics, from the first week of February, show the average wait time for those dialing in to a California call center at about 47 minutes.

Sherrie Larsen, a 49-year-old truck driver in Tacoma, Wash., said the first time she called the exchange, she was told after waiting an hour and 27 minutes that the computer system was down, and she would have to call back. She called the state insurance commissioner's office to complain, and said she didn't get a lot of help or understanding there. The next day, Larsen called the exchange again, and was told the wait time would be about 29 minutes. After more than an hour on the phone, she finally got the help she was seeking, but no apology or explanation.

"It's very, very, very frustrating," Larsen said.

In Nevada, Claudia Lamb complained publicly about spending more than 100 hours on the phone to a call center, then waiting by her phone for hours more for return calls that never came.

Lamb and her husband first tried to apply in early October when the system went live, but she only received confirmation they had been insured on Feb. 12. That was 129 days after she first applied.

"I once waited three hours and 40 minutes to get through to a manager who cycled the problem back through to his subordinate," Lamb testified about her experience with Nevada Health Link, the state's exchange. "The subordinate's solution was to do another application."

Wait times for call centers on the federal marketplace that is running in 36 states have been much shorter to reach a customer service representative. The average wait time in October was just more than one minute, dropping to 38 seconds in November. It rose to about eight-and-a-half minutes in December, when more people were trying to get coverage for Jan. 1.

The federal call centers have about 14,000 employees.

Maryland's problems have been particularly embarrassing because officials there were quick to support President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, a term-limited Democrat who is weighing a White House bid, and Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who is running to succeed him, had hoped to make Maryland a national model for health care implementation. Instead, the state has had one of the rockiest rollouts of the 14 states operating their own exchanges, with the call center problems coming on top of constant problems with the online enrollment portal.

For example, some Maryland residents early on were prompted erroneously on the exchange website to seek help by calling a telephone number that led callers to the owner of a pottery shop in Seattle.

The disastrous rollout forced the previous director of the Maryland exchange to resign.

Officials in some states, including Maryland, Nevada and California, have taken steps to address the long wait times.

Nevada has boosted its call center staff from 50 to nearly 250, and wait times reportedly have been reduced significantly. California is adding 350 to 400 more call center employees by the end of March, while Maryland has tripled the number of call center employees from 120 to about 360 at the state's call center in Baltimore, said Carolyn Quattrocki, the interim director of Maryland's health exchange.

Quattrocki said she is optimistic the boost in staff at Maryland's call center, expected to cost about $6 million, will be enough to handle the expected increase in activity as the enrollment deadline nears. She said wait times and abandonment rates have gone down since the middle of January.

Covered California also created a dedicated phone line for insurance agents and counselors, increased the number of bilingual staffers and added an online chat feature to help take pressure off the phone lines. Exchange officials there said they were somewhat surprised by consumer behavior that exacerbated the long wait times.

They designed the exchange so people could shop, compare, select a plan and be done with the process in one stop. Instead, they found that people often had questions after visiting the website and wanted to speak to someone by phone. They often called back two or three times before selecting an insurance plan, adding to the volume of calls coming into the service centers.

Still, Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said the exchange is not making excuses and is working hard to reduce wait times.

"We've heard their concerns," Lee said. "We've stepped up to say we're going to make it right."

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Associated Press Writer Donna Blankinship contributed to this report in Seattle.


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Berkshire Hathaway's 4Q profit up 10 percent

OMAHA, Neb. — Warren Buffett's company said Saturday that fourth-quarter earnings rose 10 percent to nearly $5 billion as its insurance, rail and energy businesses generated major gains in the improving economy.

Berkshire Hathaway's insurance companies, which include Geico and General Reinsurance, reported a $394 million underwriting profit for the final three months of 2013, compared with a $19 million loss a year earlier. The Omaha, Neb., company also benefited from the strong performance of its non-insurance companies including BNSF railroad and electric utility MidAmerican Energy.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns roughly 80 subsidiaries, including railroad, clothing, furniture and jewelry firms. Its insurance and utility businesses typically account for more than half of the company's net income. The company also has major investments in such companies as Coca-Cola Co., IBM and Wells Fargo & Co., and last year bought NV Energy and a major stake in H.J. Heinz.

Berkshire's fourth-quarter report and Buffett's annual letter to shareholders released Saturday show the company doesn't face any significant business issues in the coming year, said author and investor Jeff Matthews, who wrote "Warren Buffett's Successor: Who It Is and Why It Matters."

"Life is good at Berkshire Hathaway," Matthews said Saturday.

Quarterly net income rose to $4.99 billion on revenue of $47.05 billion from $4.55 billion on revenue of $44.72 billion in 2012. Buffett has said he thinks operating earnings are a better measure of how Berkshire is performing because they aren't affected by swings in the paper value of investments and derivatives. Operating earnings, which exclude investments and derivatives, grew to $3.78 billion, or $2,297 per Class A share.

Berkshire earned $19.48 billion for 2013 on total revenue of $182.15 billion. That's up from $14.82 billion in profit and revenue of $162.46 billion in 2012. Strong gains in the value of its investments and derivative contracts added $4.3 billion to the results, up from $2.2 billion the previous year. That included gains Berkshire recorded last fall as it redeemed warrants for General Electric and Goldman Sachs stock and Mars and Wrigley repaid Berkshire for an investment made during the financial crisis.

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Follow Josh Funk online at www.twitter.com/funkwrite

___

Online:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: www.berkshirehathaway.com


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