WCA January 2009

“If BYD were to enter the North American market, Mr Buffett’s investment would enhance the BYD brand name,” the president of BYD, Wang Chuanfu, said at a news con- ference in Hong Kong on 29 th September. Mr Wang added that BYD might even, by using Berkshire’s money to accelerate research, move up its plans for entering the US market. Mr Buffett, whose $62 billion fortune made him the world’s richest or second-richest individual in 2008, is indeed a valuable connection. He is also, like JP Morgan at the time of the Great Depression in the US, a steadying influence in the midst of financial turmoil. Mr Buffett now finds himself “at the centre of things, [drawing] headlines and inspiring confidence,” said Robert F Bruner, dean of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and co-author of “The Panic of 1907: Lessons from the Market’s Perfect Storm” (2007). For its part, MidAmerican, a collection of electric utilities in the Midwest and West, sees plug-in electric cars as superior to hydrogen-fuelled vehicles for curbing automotive emissions of carbon dioxide. David Sokol, the chairman of MidAmerican, noted at the news conference with Mr Wang that the US has the infrastructure to supply electricity for recharging almost anywhere. Plans for hydrogen-fuelled cars would require the installation of many hydrogen-fuelling centres.

calling for pay cuts in exchange for job security. For its part, Mitsubishi Motors North America on 4 th October agreed to impose no involuntary layoffs at the plant, and guaranteed to keep it open through August 2012 when the new contract expires. Some 1,200 workers at Normal were let go in 2004 as part of a global cutback that the Tokyo-based parent company Mitsubishi Motors Corp called its last chance at survival. The plant, which was opened in 1988, now employs fewer than half the workers it did at its peak about a decade ago. Serious about electric cars, Warren Buffett turns to China for battery expertise The American billionaire investor Warren E Buffett has agreed to buy a 9.89% stake in BYD Co, a Chinese battery manufacturer that plans to sell electric cars in the US by 2010. Based in Shenzhen, the mainland China city that lies just north of Hong Kong, BYD is one of the world’s largest makers of rechargeable batteries for cell phones and other uses. The company also has a fast-growing auto-making unit, and makes fuel-efficient compact and subcompact cars for the Chinese market. Mr Buffett’s investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 87.4% of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co, which will pay about $230 million for the BYD stake.

Dorothy Fabian Features Editor

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Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2009