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 According to regulatory filings on Tuesday and Thursday, Berkshire
acquired 21.39 million USG shares last month by exchanging $243.8
million of convertible notes it held in Chicago-based USG.
That boosted its USG stake to 38.46 million shares, or more than 27
percent, worth $1.09 billion as of Tuesday's close.
The stake makes Berkshire the largest shareholder of USG. It could
rise above 30 percent if Berkshire was to swap its remaining $56.2
million of USG notes, a filing shows.
Shares of USG rose 0.7 percent to $28.60 on Thursday.
A USG spokesman declined to comment on Berkshire's stake. He said
USG has roughly 139 million shares outstanding on a fully diluted
basis following last month's redemption.
Berkshire, based in Omaha, Nebraska, and Canada's Fairfax Financial
Holdings Ltd <FFH.TO> in late 2008 acquired $400 million of USG
convertible senior notes in a private placement.
With that deal and others in the same time period, Berkshire gained
a reputation as a lender of last resort when financial markets come
under strain.
The USG notes had a 10 percent interest rate, the same that
Berkshire got when it invested $8 billion in Goldman Sachs Group Inc
<GS.N> and General Electric Co <GE.N>.
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Berkshire also bought $300 million of senior notes with a 15 percent
rate from motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson Inc <HOG.N>.
USG last month redeemed $325 million of the notes at a premium, and
Berkshire exercised its right to swap its securities into USG common
stock at just $11.40 per share.
As of Sept. 30, Berkshire held 15.7 percent of USG's common
stock, regulatory filings show. That percentage reflects USG's lower
number of shares outstanding at the time..
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New
York; editing by Leslie Adler)
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