Warren Buffett's warrants to buy almost 135 million General Electric common shares are still worthless, (in terms of their current intrinsic value), as they have been for almost the entire time since Berkshire Hathaway's $3 billion investment in the company was announced exactly one year ago today.
That's in sharp contrast to the Goldman Sachs deal Berkshire made just a few days before the GE infusion. Today, Buffett's Goldman warrants have an intrinsic value of about $3 billion.
The main element of both deals was Berkshire's multi-billion dollar loans to both Goldman ($5 billion) and GE ($3 billion), made near the height of the credit crisis last fall when it seemed that no company was immune from potential collapse.
Both loans, which came in the form of preferred stock purchases, pay a guaranteed 10 percent a year. Berkshire gets that hefty interest rate on its money no matter what Goldman and GE's common shares do in the market.