Warren Buffett’s railroad buyout sees big returns thanks to oil boom

Days after Warren Buffett announced his $26.5 billion buyout of railroad BNSF, he insisted that he had paid a steep price to own a business that would benefit his company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., over the next century.

“You don’t get bargains on things like that,” Mr. Buffett said in a November 2009 interview with Charlie Rose that aired on PBS. “It’s not cheap.”

Five years later, that assessment rings a bit hollow. Buoyed by an onshore oil boom, Burlington Northern Sante Fe has become a cash machine for Mr. Buffett.

The railroad had sent more than $15 billion in dividends to Berkshire through Sept. 30, according to quarterly regulatory filings. More stunning: The business is on pace to return all the cash Mr. Buffett spent taking it private by the end of this year.

Since he bought it, annual revenue at the railroad has risen 57%, and earnings have more than doubled to $3.8 billion. Sales have climbed even as BNSF faced increased public scrutiny over service delays and safety.

‘A WONDERFUL ASSET’

“He stole it,” said Jeff Matthews, a Berkshire shareholder and author of books about the company. “He’s got to feel really good that he bought it when he did, because it’s a wonderful asset, and it’s done nothing but get more valuable in the time that he’s owned it.”

The railroad’s profit continued its climb in the third quarter as revenue from agricultural and industrial shipments, including oil, rose. The business accounted for more than a fifth of Berkshire’s net income in the period, according to a Nov. 7 regulatory filing.

Berkshire’s third-quarter profit slipped 8.6% to $4.62 billion on investment results, including the impairment of a holding in U.K. retailer Tesco PLC.

OIL GLUT

BNSF’s tracks sit on top of North Dakota’s Bakken formation, where energy producers are using fracking and other extraction methods to pull crude from the ground in unprecedented volumes. Because pipeline capacity in the area is limited, oil companies have turned to BNSF to ship their product to refineries.

The extra freight has exacerbated weather-related train tie-ups that the railroad has spent months working to resolve. In June, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board ordered BNSF and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. to report plans for resolving the delays.

At a hearing in North Dakota in September, state officials urged the railroad to improve service. BNSF has said it’s adding workers and rail cars to improve operations. In the filing, Berkshire said the railroad’s service is still “well below” its standards.

The expansion of crude shipments also has created risks for the industry. Derailments of oil tank cars in the U.S. and Canada have led to fires, spills and the bankruptcy of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd. after a derailment in Quebec last year killed 47 people.

BNSF has worked to allay concerns about oil shipments by agreeing to buy 5,000 safer tank cars. It also has announced plans to apply a surcharge on an older generation of cars, which have been involved in some of the worst accidents.

Investments like those have been common since Berkshire took over. The railroad budgeted a record $5 billion this year to upgrade its network, expand facilities and buy equipment. That’s about $1 billion more than it spent in 2013.

CASH, STOCK

Even with those increasing outlays, BNSF’s climbing earnings have helped make the multiple that Mr. Buffett paid look small. Berkshire was already the railroad’s largest shareholder when he agreed to buy out the remaining 77.5% of the company. The price included Berkshire stock and $15.9 billion in cash. Since the beginning of 2011, the railroad has paid distributions to its parent of at least $750 million a quarter.

Union Pacific Corp., BNSF’s main competitor in the western U.S., currently trades for about 12.6 times annual pretax, pre-interest income, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Were Mr. Buffett’s railroad to fetch that kind of price now, 77.5% of it would be worth about $66.5 billion — more than double what Berkshire paid.

Part of Mr. Buffett’s success with BNSF comes down to luck, said James Armstrong, who oversees Berkshire shares as president of Henry H. Armstrong Associates. Very little crude was being shipped by rail when Mr. Buffett bought the company, and it wasn’t widely known that BNSF would play such a big role in transporting oil from where it was produced.

Luck aside, there’s little upside for Mr. Buffett in bragging, said Mr. Armstrong. Always looking to buy other businesses, Berkshire needs to have a reputation for paying fair prices, he said.

“It’s never in Buffett’s interest to indicate that he got a bargain, even though that’s what he’s shooting for,” Mr. Armstrong said. “He has to manage other people’s perception of him.”