LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Berkshire Hathaway has denied reports that it is plotting a takeover of troubled California utility PG&E, which would have marked its return to the M&A trail after a nearly four-year lull.
The report that talks were underway, which was attributed on social media to Sparkspread, light a fuse under PG&E stock, triggering a 25% spike in its share price, although by 1312 BST and after CNBC reported that Berkshire chairman, Warren Buffett, had issued a denial those gains had subsided, giving way to a more pedestrian advance of 3.30% to $22.24.

In his annual letter to shareholders, in late February, billionaire investor and Berkshire chairman, Warren Buffet, had complained of "sky-high prices for businesses with decent long-term prospects" even as he pined away for an elephant-sized transaction.

"Even at our ages of 88 and 95 - I'm the young one - that prospect is what causes my heart and Charlie's to beat faster," Buffett wrote.

As of 23 February, Buffett's investment vehicle was sitting on $112bn of liquidity that was parked in Treasury bills or held in the form of other cash equivalents, together with a further $20bn in miscellaneous fixed-income instruments which it employed a permanent buffer to guard against " external calamities".

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