Warren Buffett and Billionaires Are Crazy About These 7 Stocks

2. Liberty Global (LBTYK): Warren Buffett had more than $300 million in the C shares of Liberty Global. Stephen Mandel, Chase Coleman, John Griffin, and Dan Loeb are among other billionaires betting on this stock (you can see their entire portfolios by clicking on each billionaires name). Interestingly Bill Gates’ foundation and George Soros also had a position in the stock. In the July 2013 issue of our monthly newsletter we talked to Twin Capital’s David Simon and here is what he said about Liberty Global:

We’re fans of Liberty Global. It’s incorporated in London and trades here. They just acquired Virgin Media. The negative news today was that they made a bid for a German cable company while they were supposed to do a $3.5 million share buyback. We think John Malone’s philosophy is “Buy as much as you can now because interest rates are so cheap, then lock in your rates and own as much as you can,” because he’s very good with taxes and everything. The acquisition of Virgin Media increases the free cash flow of Liberty Global to the tune of 12% to 15% a year for at least 4-5 years, which is amazing.

Malone should pay down debt or whatever he wants and if he buys this other German cable company, he’ll control basically almost all of Germany because it’s contiguous to his other German companies. It’s the biggest cable operator in Europe and Europe’s growth rate in cable is probably over double what it is here. Attrition rates are much lower and telephony penetration is much lower. So, there’s more opportunity there.