What's in the News?

There have been several events that have hit the press. The first is SK Telecom's $1BN investment for 6.6% of China Unicom. It will be interesting to see whether this pays off or not. I hope for SKT's sake it does. And a prime driver of the deal according to an SKT official is that the two parties will have an 18 month exclusivity period for "establishing a strategic alliance" with each other. Hmm..... What does a billion dollars buys you these days in China! Not much! No apparent board seat, 6.6% ownership, small fish in big pond. Prefer big fish in little pond as an investment strategy. Better control over your precious capital. Otherwise why not give cash back to the shareholders and let them invest as they see fit.

The second was the announcement by Warren Buffett that he would be donating $31BN to the Gates Foundation. Remember the money cycle of Learn, Earn and Burn. Clearly Buffett at 75 is in the Burn phase. some burn by buying 27 sports cars and 18 houses; others use it for fighting for genuine causes. With $60BN in Assets I would bet that Bill will be leading his second revolution.