Countdown to count down, a sweetheart of a dripping in ketchup red deal on this valentines day, the company known for red, scooped up by warren buffet, the billionaire investor and 3g capital dishing out green for heinz in a 28 billion surprise deal. Its the Largest Food Company acquisition ever. In just minutes, inside story from the oracle of omaha warren buffet himself here on fox business. Plus, Cisco Systems on tech spending. Government orders not what they used to be for routers and switches, and european buyers watching euros and cents. John chambers is live on how to fulfill the promise to energize earnings. Treasure in the trash. Making money on what others throw away, especially on valentines day. The dough in the hands of shareholder, company upping dividends again. Waste management ceo joins us live in a fox business exclusive. Countdown to the closing bell begins right now. Good afternoon, everybody, im liz claman, the last hour of trading, and with the largest food acquisition on record to spike the markets, trading mixed in a narrow range. U. S. Airways, we have turbulence there. It is down about 8 and change. This, as the rumor becomes the news. U. S. Airways merging with asr, parent of american airlines, the deal that creates the Worlds Largest character. Sketchers off to the races, shares are skyrocketing here, a nice move of 12 , the maker of mens and womens footware with whether or not blowout numbers, and we got the shoes, yeah, thanks to strong demand, up believable demand for shoes in retail stores, wholesale business, womens, domestic, everything looking good. Whats getting the American Consumer on board with sketchers . Coming up, on the run with sketchers ceo, a fox business exclusive. Lets get to that match made in hog heaven as in food hfn. 3g capital buying ketchup maker, heinz. Yes, you heard it correctly, heinz. The transaction valued at 28 billion, the largest ever for the food industry. Taking a look at what it is, 72. 50 a share. Thats a 20 premium, and, you know, actually, initially, you have the stock above that, and now it is slightly below it so maybe the price is just right. Lets ask warren buffet, joining me, the chairman and ceo, warren buffet. Good to talk to you warren, happy value types day. Caller hi, liz. Liz im wearing ketchup red. Caller good, good. Liz reminds me of the deal Christmas Day on 2007. Was this time for valentines day . Caller well, i dont know, but i like it on valentines day, i put it that way. Liz how did you pick the price of 72. 50 with the guys . Caller they did most of the work of on deciding what to pay. I went along with it, and i was reluctant, but i signed up. Liz at 72. 38, and this is why i like interviews in the closing bell because we see the market absorbing the news and figuring the value. Its slightly below it. How does that make you think about the deal . Well, my guess is the arbitrary jurors set the price because i would guess 90 would be going into arbitrage, and they calculate the probabilities of the deal going through. They calculate the carry in terms of dividends and cost of money, and when they get through with it, they shoot for fairly small returns, but Interest Rates are so low these days that thats the nature of the arbitrage business, and they probably rate this, you though, probably as virtually 1 00 likely to did through, and that enters the calculation of what they pay. Liz well, yeah, theres not bidding wars, and if there were one, you would back away . Caller no bidding wars on this one. Liz a big whale of a deal which i know you love. 3g is the operator. Youre not in the test kitchens here . Well, i think thats where my skill ends. I actually had some french fries and ketchup with the hamburger for lunch. Liz like lifting a glass, a toast there. This is a little bit, not entirely, but a little bit rem rem necessary cant of bying wrigleys gum, that was 4 billion then . Caller 4. 5 billion for a subordinated debt roughly and 2 billion preferred. That was purely a financing deal. Thats a long term financing deal, the wrigley deal. This is a permanent ownership operating business deal for heinz. They are really quite different in that respect. Liz the question perplexing me, warren, covering you for as long as i have, since when do you partner with private equity . You dont scoff, but question the way they do business saying they load up company with debt versus truly caring to mentor and grow a company. Why is 3g different . Caller well, they are consistent, i mean, it was named after three fellows, all of whom i know, and led by George Apollo lem men, and hes not really a private equity guy. He operates and runs and will own businesses to his death, such as liz they caller i think some of the owners that went into that deal that may sell. One thing i can assure you is that we will own our interests and maybe even larger interest overtime in heinz, and my guess is George Apollo, im almost sure, will be our partner forever on that. Liz okay. So caller this is not a this is not a private equity deal. It has certain things that make it look like it, but its not a private equity deal. This is an operational business deal. Liz no discussion about shining it up and then flipping it back to being publicly traded . Caller no way that i would we are putting some money in it, but not taking money out. Liz okay. I figured thats not the way you do business. Caller no, no. Liz again, obviously, people talked about it, its not the first time youve been in food. You bought shares of kraft, and critical of them for selling the pizza business to buy cadbury. Are you as critical in retrospect . Caller i wont dig that up, but i was not happy about the deal when they bought cadbury, but thats in the past. You know, well focus on heinz going forward. Liz focus on heinz is the food company. Caller you bet. Liz speaking of whats in the past and future k looking at the economy right now, i all look at you as being a huge chunk in the housing business with acne brick, shaw carpet, Benjamin Moore point, not to mention nebraska furniture mart. What are they telegraphing to you now about the Housing Market and the economy . Caller well, its Getting Better, both in terms of new construction and in terms of the resale of existing homes. Were actually, also, the second largest Real Estate Brokerage firm in the United States. I get the figures every month on the brokerage units from 5 cities, and i get median prices, shale spending, all kinds of things. The signs point upward in the home field. Liz what are you seeing from shaw carpet, the largest industrial carpet company, a massive housing and development play. Caller yeah, whether its shaw or whether its in the brick business, its Getting Better. Its Getting Better from a low base, though, liz. We are not remoltly back to where it was in 2005 and six and that period, but it is Getting Better every month. I can tell you in terms of brick shipments, average prices per you name it, the business is Getting Better. Liz jamie dimon said, quote, housing is totally back, and gold mapp sachs feels the same thing that its strong. You cant outsource housing, has to be done here in the u. S. Caller yeah. Liz clearly, do you feel the same way . Caller its true. Housing, people say, well, construction workers are 4 of the labor force, but its beyond that. You just named it, whether its in paint, brick, or carpet, people those are not construction workers, but they are activity in those fields that feeds off construction so i think construction coming back is a very important force in the economy. Liz how is your railroad looking . I look at that also sending a signal about a strengthen the economy. How are the cargo loads . The shipping loads . Last week, carried 195,000 they call it units, but its 195,000plus, and that was up a fair percentage over the year before. There, again, the gains, the gains keep coming. Were not back to the peak buyout by a long shot, but they keep comes pretty consistently since the late summer of 2009. We had a rather consistent, but not robust recovery to this point, and i think itll continue. Liz this jumped into my head. Hurricane sandy, you have a lot of insurance companies, i think its 65,000 cars were lost here in the tristate area. Geico, any meaningful addition to a bottom line what happened there . Caller yeah. We are number one in Auto Insurance in the metropolitan new york market so of the cars that were destroyed, we were the leader. [laughter] liz thats right where you dont want to be. Caller oh, its okay. We love being number one in the metropolitan new york area. That was a day or two there where it was there, but we love being one in new york. Liz definitely affected caller we got our share. Liz okay, all right. Back to bank of america, revisiting a couple things because im fascinated watching the stock. 5 billion in preferred, i guess, exercisable at 7. 14 back in 2011, look at this stock now. 12. 16. Is triple your money enough or staying in . Caller well be around, in all likelihood, cant guarantee you this, but got ten year warrants, and i expect that we would exercise those very close to the tenyear period. I like the long term prospects. No reason to exercise them until just probably shortly before expiration. Liz you told me back then you felt comfortable with the management of bank of america. Caller yeah, if i felt comfortable, i feel more comfortable now. Liz a lot of people dont understand this. You dont sit there and constantly call anybody in whom you have a stake; correct . Caller no, no. No, ive probably phoned brian at the time we made the deal, a couple calls, and i probably had a couple calls since then, and i did they invited me to come to charlotte, i dont know, a few weeks ago, and that was the first time id ever talked to a group liz train or fly . Caller i flew. Liz american express, you have a big stake there. A moment where people were floating kens name as treasury secretary, and, obviously, thats not the case. Jack lew is the guy now going through the confirmation process. Do you know him, and what you know of him, do you think he would make a good treasury secretary . I ask you this because the day it was announced that Timothy Geithner was the treasury secretary, we were in omaha with you, and you commented on him. Caller thats right. Tim was a terrific treasury secretary. The country owes him a lot. I dont know jack lew, never met him. Im glad i liz and you love the way he marks brands. Your newspaper business has been growing pretty exponentially lately. You believe in print. Im glad you do. We have a lot of friends in the news corporation, but as you know, theres been discussion about time inc floating magazines. Youre telling me People Magazine fits into your metrics of having competitiveness and this ability to have a great brand. You want People Magazine . Caller i read the newspapers, but i dont read people. Liz put yourself on the cover of the sexy men issue. Caller yeah, well, maybe we can have a swim suit issue or something. Liz all right, warren, thank you very much. Caller okay. Liz again, heinz, a huge purchase. Let us know if you float the purple ketchup idea again. Caller okay. Use a lot of ketchup now. Liz okay. Great to talk to you, warren buffet, chairman and ceo, again, specifically said, this, while it looks like part of it is a private equity deal, it is not not what he believes to be a classic private equity deal where they take a company, telling fox business this, take a company, shine it up, and put company. Lew believes 3g and will be continue to be partners for years to come. The closing bell ringing right now in 45 minutes. Cisco systems is the 800pound gorilla in networking. Trust us, you could not get on the interpret without them. It helps us and the federal government stay connected. They say the business is struggling, especially overseas, but cisco has a plan to make up for it. Ceo John Chambers is joining us to talk about potential Growth Drivers and i. T. Spending. Thats coming up as countdown rolls on with the big names. I need to rethink the core of my portfolio. What i really need is sleep. Introducing the ishares core, Building Blocks for the heart of your portfolio. Find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. Ishares by blackrock. Call 1800ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Read and consider it carefully before investing. Risk includes possible loss of principal. Liz Technology Giant and dow component i have to add. A lot of you may own it somewhere. Cisco reported earnings, another strong quarter, investors, though, at the moment, not exactly impressed. Down under a full percent, about a percent at the moment. What are they focusing on, perhaps . Perhaps, on the outlook where growth is in question in cisco, particularly, overseas, but clearing it up now with the real story, John Chambers from san jose, california to talk about where the business is headed. Thank you, john, for being here, and lets get to it. Liz, thank you, a pleasure to be on the show again, go ahead, ill follow you where you go. Liz the router, core business, routers and switches. Okay, what jumped out at me was routers down 6 . They are 47 of the total revenue. Tell me why i should not be worried about that . Okay. Let me start with just a little bit of background. Liz was this was the 8 th quarter in a road of record revenues. We exceeded expectations in terms of profitability on gross margins, very stable growth margins, which people are concerned about. One to two years ago when we talked before, and we also are the number one player in Service Provider by a long way, which most routers go. The Service Provider market tends to be lumpy, big order oriented. This is a market that i think almost everyone agrees we lead, and while we have competition thats good there, our architecture play is winning. Also, if you can grow at 5 in this market with europe struggling tremendously, u. S. Federal government done, ect. , like warren said in the interview before, one of the best interviews, liz, ive seen, and, yes, liz, im kissing up, but its true. When you are number one in each market, you have no place to run when theres a challenge. We tend to be affected and a early bellweather of ups and downs, and that leads to the positive side. Whats going well for cisco . In the market transitions. What you hear about cloud, we grew 65 . Mobility is what brings all the technologies to light. We grew wireless by 27 . Video, we grew 20 . We saw very early, but probably very good signs in the u. S. Of u. S. Enterprise business and u. S. Commercial business growing at 9 . Those are usually indications two to four quarters out of gdp thinking the government doesnt mess anything up on this. We leveled out, and i realize im p im the exception in this, but we saw segments of europe, and think of europe not as one group, but central, northern, liz oh, absolutely. Southern and eastern. We saw germany, u. K. , Southern Europe stabilizing. Too early to be a trend, but liked what we saw there, the dissent slowing dramatically in the last quarter. Its positive, liz. The problem is not growth opportunities, but macro driven in our opinion. Most agree with that. Its been a roller coaster for the age months. Liz the real cuts hitting, probably, march 1st. I dont know about you, i dont see a solution here at this point. How does that affect you . Some of your, obviously, Government Spending might be affected by that. What are you anticipated . Have you modeled this . What do the models show you . Well, we have modeled for it. We characterize it as a pause, not just in Government Spending. The market may be concerned, but our trend here is, unfortunately, off a low base in terms of gdp growth. Most of the ceo counter parts had u. S. Gdp at 1. 5 current growth levels, give or take a half percent, normally take it. We would assume that in this dead hit causes a temporary pause, but we think its up to the right, and we see that in the key customer businesses, a good indication. There could be a pause, but i think thats what itll be, liz. Liz glad you mentioned that. Theres a stock chart, last three months gore yows. Gorgeous. People wish they got in august, if not then, december. Done well, real signs of activity here. Thank you. Liz china had negative growth which you believe could last for a bit of time here. Whats the plan to win the chinese . Is that doable in what is still, i dont know, a closed market, not closed, but one thats tweaked by government forces. All right. Ive been doing business in china for 27 years. I did the First Technology joint venture there. We have a very good relationships with the people in china, and china is one of five targeted emerging markets for us that represent 10 of the current business, but could be 20 of the business looking out three or four years. Specifically to china this has a little to do with the activity versus a key competitor, and well navigate through that, liz. Anybody who thinks the chinese economy is going to slow down, they are remarkably efficient, and theres no way they will have new leadership come in and not grow the economy, at least 7 9 . If you look at the latter half of this year, i think youll see us come back. Were good, tough, but we also partner to achieve key areas like health care, education, job creation, and were a good partner in india, china, brazil, mexico, and even in russia in ways that, candidly, that i. T. Counterparts are not. Thats the opportunity to be the number one i. T. Company around the world rather than just the number one communications company. Liz john, good to watch developments and see your optimism, and who cares if the stock is down 1 . Its close to a 50 5 52week high. The media tends to not have perspective. Thank you for that. John chambers, cisco chairman and ceo. See you next time. We are far from down here on the big names on countdown to the closing bell with 36 minutes before the market closes, treasure in trash. Waste management, the nations largest garbage hauler make money picking up other peoples waste. How its generating so much cash. We have a live exclusive waste exclusive interview with waste ceo straight ahead. This is a fox business exclusive. I am adam shapiro with your fox business free. Anheuserbusch is revising its takeover of modelo beer of mexico. Under the revised terms, and hands or bush has offered to sell the rights to corona beer and other modelo brands in the United States. The price is nearly 3 billion. Metlife sold nearly 6. 5 billion in think deposits to General Electric back in january. They are being asked to the register. What could be happening is Michael Bloomberg in new york city is making Economic Development drawing and young people in the city of new york. 50 million tourists visited new york city and the big apple last year. We continue now with liz claman. Liz as we said, stocks are trading in a very narrow range. The Dow Jones Industrial in positive territory. Lets find out what the traders are talking about. We have Nicole Petallides on the trading floor. Yes, we are going to hover around these levels. It will be seven weeks in a row that the s p will be higher. That is the first time we have seen that in two years. Are you trying to tell me that two years of optimism is working . The sentiment in the market is you want to be in this market is moving moving higher. Look at the news today. Very positive sentiments in our markets. M a news. Cash on hand. Its a very positive thing. That is cut and dry. On the other hand, with m a news, good news. Then you have struggling in europe. We do. That has been a headline that has been around for a while. But the good news is outweighing the bad news and the market is resilient enough. What we need to do now is get through the end of this month and we need to get through february. We have a holiday next week. If we can struggle through this month, bflat, may maybe down little. We will be okay. We are out of time, but my next question is how does the silver numbers . It feels pretty good. Liz johns got me all excited looking at these gold numbers. Gold is right about a sixmonth low at the moment. A key level here, now it is 1637. It could be an uncomfortable move lower 27 minutes before the closing bell rings. Sketchers off to the races today. In the lead it is womens fancy pants part of it. The numberone marathoner in the United States is running with these things and winning races. We have the sketchers chairman and ceo Robert Greenberg and the fox business exclusive. We have the whole team out here. The stock is jumping 12 full percentage point. Liz investors are running back to sketchers this valentines day. This doc is skyrocketing. A huge move after the company absolutely crushed expectation in the Fourth Quarter, blowing away the estimates. In my mind from i have to ask why dont they make these in my size . Total sparkle bunny. [laughter] Robert Greenberg is the sketchers chairman and ceo. You are the founder of a company that i used to wear all the time, i hear is we shown the way of your colorful products right here, not only do they swing to again here, the 40 increase in sales. 72 jump in sales. Every single metric you did beautifully. What cha what changed from a year ago . Its just a wonderful time to be in the shoe business. Color is raging, comfort is raging, everyone looks the same on the street except for there she was. Casual friday has become casual america. She was our status and the greatest accessory you can buy. People like good close, but they love their shoes. Liz that is very true. Nobody is going to mistake business casual this is casual at all. It jumps out at you. Who are your designers . How do you come up with these . It is resonating right now with the american public. Is that a childs shoe . Yes, it is. For you we can make a pair your size. That is twinkle toes. [laughter] first of all, we have over 30 of our domestic business, which is children. We have a lot of sensational characters, twinkle toes and all kinds of animated characters that we use to market the product. But we have a very talented staff of 40 designers and greek factories around the world that make the product. A lot of shopping and trending and seeing what people are wearing. We interpret everything and give it our little touches and that makes a product unique. Liz i would say this is not just this is not just temporary. Suddenly do you find yourself in real demand by competitive runners . Yes, we do. The company is now 21 years old. After all that time, we have learned how to make all sorts of great products and different technologies and running the last frontier. Its the biggest piece of the industry. As you know, nike does almost 25 billion per year in sales. They are the Biggest Company for shoes in the world. Liz putting all of that aside, you are almost going to take on the world. Look at our model there. They are so great. You are going into a parallel this point, that is an even more competitive world. How are you going to win . We are not doing not directly. We have licensees for that, that are in the apparel industry. Our active licensee is a 20 billiondollar company and they are making sketchers apparel. Liz raising the minimum wage. How would that affect you at all . Well, i dont think i will. We will be in the moderate part of the business. I dont think that affects us. Liz what does affect you. If you had the president s ear, was the what is the best way to invigorate business in america . I think that they should lower tier of some footwear so people dont have to pay an extra tax when they wear them. Because you know that most is made offshore and the duty rates go up to 50 from 10 or 8 . It is unfair. Liz they want you all be free to manufacture here. Are you really going to step that up . Its really impossible because in the shoe factories in asia, the average worker makes 100 a month. Here, it would be more than 100,000. Theres a large spread that i dont think will change. Its a great day. As we know an ethical apparel and shoe business, congratulations on a great quarter. Thank you very much. Liz Robert Greenberg, sketchers chairman and ceo. He founded l. A. Gear. He made a great point that it is still cheaper to manufacture footwear in asia than it is in america. A little bit disappointing Earnings Report for today. There was some to be found, including a dividend increase. The stock is up. How much did Hurricane Sandy boost the companys bottom line this quarter . All about hauling of trash, Waste Management ceo David Steiner joining us in the fox business exclusive. man legs up man legs up . Legs up, legs up, legs up red hot deal days are back. Let nothing stop you. Good job its red hot deal days. Get the nokia lumia 822 in red for free and discover all the things to do on the go with city lens. Or the droid razr m by motorola in pink for 49. 99. Everything droid does in an edgetoedge display. Hurry in, because the sale ends february 20th. Powerful devices. Powerful network. Verizon. I have obligations. Cute tobligations, but obligations. G. I need to rethink the core of my portfolio. What i really need is sleep. Introducing the ishares core, Building Blocks for the heart of your portfolio. Find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. Ishares by blackrock. Call 1800ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Read and consider it carefully bere investing. Risk includes possible loss of principal. Liz you do not have to deal down in the dumps on valentines day. Valentines day is great for a company like Waste Management. You will all eventually throughout the dead roses and chocolate boxes and presents i got wrapped. Waste management is giving shareholders a bit of a sweet treat in the form of an annual dividend increase. Lets bring in David Steiner. He is the Waste Management ceo and president. Joining me now is a fox business exclusive. Everyone loves a big dividend move, dont they . Well, i hope its a happy valentines day for our shareholders. Happy valentines day to you and my wife, judy. Liz well, we appreciate that. Mixed expectations, Energy Commodity prices and cost has this been a drag on the business and how long do you continue to expect this will be a drag . Recycling natural gas, it has been a drag on us for about 12 months. We expect to see a slight drag from that in 2013. We will make up by having great cost control, pricing programs, and driving the free cash flow. When you talk about Waste Management, the person you think about is the generation of free cash. We are going to go up by 33 up to 45 and generate 1. 1 of 2. 2 billion. Liz watch out. One but it is looking. He loves free cash. [laughter] certainly our shareholders are getting that free cash flow. Liz green star, your Company Recently announced, you are in the recycling business for real. Tell us about that. I put my basket and thins out every wednesday and thursday. I do the mixing and all of that. Is america really getting into recycling . And when you get to see some opportunity there for making a lot of money for the bottom line . Absolutely. We are the largest recycler in north america. One of the largest in the world. From our point of view, its not just about recycling, its about all the things that we do to extract value from materials. When we look at the materials that we put into a landfill every year, they are worth about 10 to 15 billion. We are about a 13 to 14 billiondollar revenue company. We can take that and extract value, think about the money we can create from our shareholders. That is what recycling is all about for a. Liz in the end, what are your customers asking for . Our customers are asking us to put our products back in stream the stream of commerce. We are going to do about 8 million tons with the addition of green star. Our ultimate goal is to do much more by 2020. Liz let me ask you about Hurricane Sandy. We sent Liz Macdonald come one of our reporters come out to the degree of Hurricane Sandy in a landfill. A wave of demolition of construction not that we want to see any person benefit from misery, but its business. Will you see a benefit at some point . You know, its interesting. I have a brother that the firefighter. Before 2001, my brother was joe the firefighter. After september 11, he became joe the hero. When you think about Hurricane Sandy, i like to think about the folks that are out there on the street without them he wouldnt have the cleanup. When you look at our drivers come at dont just say theres a guy picking up the garbage. Think about what they do for the community on an everyday basis. Much less when Something LikeHurricane Sandy happens. I like to think about our employees as the real heroes. From a financial point of view, honestly you have a lot of debris after hurricanes that you need to pick up. We expect it to continue a little bit through the Fourth Quarter and then you always have the rebuilding cycle. Liz you have brought one out here in the past to show us and we are very focused on the opportunities here. How does this add to your money . The price differential between natural gas and diesel fuel is tremendous. Right now we are doing the best natural gas at about 1. 60, that relates to 4 per gallon for diesel. But it really is what Waste Management is all about. No matter if youre talking about recycling or otherwise. We love it when we can do something that is good for the bottom line. Liz Waste Management moving higher, the stock is up 6 , decent dividends here, good to see you. Please come back. Thank you, we will see you soon. Liz we will be right back. The dow is about 14 points down currently. We will be right back suddenly, she does something unexpected and you see the woman you fell in love with. Shes everything to you. But your erectile dysfunction that could be a question of blood flow. Cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytimthe moments right. You cabe more confident in your ability to be ready. 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