Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Wednesday, October 22, 1997
Buffett's company buys Dairy Queen for $585 mil
OMAHA, Neb. -- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. agreed to buy International Dairy Queen Inc. for $585 million in cash and stock, adding the ice-cream-and-hamburger chain to a portfolio full of insurance, candy, shoe and newspaper holdings.Berkshire will pay $27 a share in cash or $26 in either of its two classes of stock for each Class A and Class B share of Dairy Queen, whose roots date back to 1939 when a Green River, Ill., ice cream maker joined forces with a refrigerator inventor.
Some analysts saw the purchase of Minneapolis-based Dairy Queen as a departure from Buffett's practice of buying stakes in companies, such as Coca-Cola Co. and Gillette Co., that dominate their industries.
Hong Kong market falls 6% on currency fears
HONG KONG -- Hong Kong stocks, hammered lower by currency jitters and interest rate fears, had their heaviest one-day loss this year as investors stampeded out of the market today.The market's blue chip barometer, in its fourth largest fall ever, plummeted 765.33 points, or 6.17 percent, to close at 11,637.77 -- a 13-month low.
Hong Kong had defied the turmoil that has swept Southeast Asian equity and currencies markets since July, but the equities rout swept Hong Kong this week.
Interbank lending rates jumped well above the local prime rate this week, driving the stock market to close at a 13-month low -- just a whisker above 11,636.13 on Sept. 26, 1996.
In London, Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa today said that interest rates may need to rise to defend the Hong Kong dollar's value against the U.S. dollar.