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Berkshire Hathaway’s purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe will give the investment company an even larger presence in Fort Worth. Here’s a look at other locally based companies Warren Buffett’s company owns:
TTIIn December 2006, TTI founder Paul Andrews visited Buffett in Omaha, Neb., in a bid to sell the $1 billion-a-year electronics components firm. The deal they struck closed in March 2007.At the time, Buffett said it took him about an hour to read through TTI materials before deciding he wanted to buy the company.TTI is the world’s leading authorized distributor that sells passive, connector, electromechanical and discrete components for industrial, military, aerospace and consumer electronic uses. Andrews, laid off from General Dynamics, founded TTI in 1971 in a spare bedroom of his Fort Worth home. By 2007, its sales rose to $1.15 billion. He remains TTI’s president and chief executive.TTI employs more than 2,000 people at more than 50 locations throughout North America, Europe and Asia. It has 662 employees in Fort Worth. TTI subsidiary Mouser Electronics, a catalog retailer of components, is based in Mansfield and has 593 employees. Berkshire Hathaway board members toured the Mouser plant when they met in Fort Worth a couple of weeks ago.Last year, the firms’ combined revenue was $1.58 billion.Justin Brands, Acme Brick Co.The companies were parts of Justin Industries when Berkshire bought it in August 2000. Berkshire separated the companies into Justin Brands, which includes several Western boot lines, and the Acme Brick Co., which includes other building materials companies.Berkshire Hathaway paid $600 million for Justin Industries.Justin was founded by H.J. Justin in 1879, who borrowed $35 from a barber to start a boot repair company in Spanish Fort, Texas. He moved the company to Nocona, and his sons moved it to Fort Worth in 1925. The third generation, John Justin Jr., became president in 1951. His name is synonymous with Fort Worth.Justin Brands has about 900 employees today. It doesn’t release sales figures.Randy Watson, chief executive and president of Justin Brands, said Buffett is a 100-percent hands-off manager but is easily available when called."It’s everything you ever read or heard about Mr. Buffett’s management style," Watson said. Acme Brick was founded in Parker County in 1884 by George Bennett. It moved to Fort Worth in 1911 and was bought by the Justin Co. in 1968. In 2007, the company moved its long-standing West Seventh Street headquarters to a southwest Fort Worth site overlooking the Trinity River, where it has about 130 employees.Acme Brick has 1,900 employees companywide, down from a peak of more than 3,000 at the height of the construction boom three years ago. The company has also temporarily closed 24 brick plants. In 2006, sales were more than $500 million, but times since have been hard, said Dennis Knautz, president and chief executive.He said he and Buffett talk as many as a half-dozen times a year and often correspond by e-mail."A lot of what you read about his management style is exactly how he manages," Knautz said.SANDRA BAKER, 817-390-7727
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