Would Warren Buffett Use Delta Bonus Miles To Buy FCSC? April 25, 2011March 24, 2017 FREE MILES: AMEX TO DELTA Transfer American Express Membership Rewards Points to a Delta Airlines Frequent Flyer account before June 30 and you will get a bonus of either 25% (under 100,000) or 40% (100,000 or more). So if you transfer 100,000 points you get 140,000 miles – 40,000 extra. I just transferred enough to fly me to the moon. Not literally, of course; whom do I know on the moon? But Delta’s partners currently include Aeroflot, Air France, Alitalia, Avianca, China Airlines, KLM, Korean Air, and Singapore Airlines, among others, so there are lots of places I could go. And Delta miles don’t expire, so I have time to decide. There is a small per mile fee, but it’s capped at $99, so if you were to transfer 200,000 miles – and if you figure they are worth a penny each (arguably, they are worth a lot more if you want to fly business class) – then the 80,000 mile bonus is worth $800, and $99 isn’t too bad. If this could be helpful to you, visit delta.com/servingupmiles. WARREN BUFFETT IN 1983 Fortune first ran this piece 28 years ago, and have trotted it out again this week to coincide with this year’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. As I have lamented many times: if only I had invested the $1,500 they paid me to write it in a share or two of Berkshire Hathaway stock. ANOTHER SPECULATION I sure would have preferred to buy this one a few months ago, much cheaper, but – only with money I can truly afford to lose – I bought a few shares anyway: Guru: “The company is Fibrocell Sciences. On June 22, 2011, they should be getting FDA approval for a product that amounts to giving your own skin to you. They take a biopsy from behind your ear (where a tiny incision won’t be noticed and will grow back seamlessly), grow it for several weeks, then send it back to your doctor in an injectable form. The initial use will be aesthetic: filling in deep lines and wrinkles around the face and repair of acne scars. For wrinkles, it does not have quite the “filling” capacity of leading products such as Juvederm and Restylane (both made of a naturally occurring sugar molecule called hyaluronic acid), but those products get resorbed and must be replaced. Fibrocell gives you your own skin that grows and stays there – you might find you need more elsewhere, but not where it was injected originally. For acne, it’s really the only viable therapy. Laser treatments won’t fill in an acne scar. The cost will probably be about double Juvederm, but you’ll get a more natural look. . . . They went in front of an FDA Advisory Committee in 2009 that voted overwhelmingly in favor of efficacy, but felt there hadn’t been detailed follow-up of the implants to rule out the possibility (however remote) that the injection stimulated cancer formation. In 2010, the company undertook a study that did histology analysis after implantation at 3 and 6 months to look in detail at what happened to the cells. They reported earlier this year that nothing of note was found and they filed this data with the FDA. I don’t see anything that would impede an FDA approval on time. Longer term, they have a research agreement with UCLA to do gene therapy via skin and they have preliminary data in repairing injured vocal chords and in burns. . . . They have been raising money and will need to raise more. By the time of launch, they should have about 100 million shares outstanding. Rodman and Renshaw picked up coverage recently with a fair value of $3/share (stock now $1). I think some of their assumptions are aggressive, but say it’s worth $1.50 – still good upside from here.” ☞ Hey, every 50% helps.