Bid 140 a share or over 5 billion scluting debt. The apollos offer was accepted. The later offer accepted by tech data as the better offer and buffett says he does not intend to make a higher offer a little bit about tech data, it is a global distributor of Technology Products and services it supplies Small Companies with Technology Software and hardware made by larger companies, larger technology companies, a middle man. This is evidence of what has been happening with Berkshire Hathaway as the cash ward has grown. Topped over 128 billion according to most recent s. E. C. Filings from the company this move is interesting pivot for buffett, he rarely goes up against private Equity Companies and doesnt like to get into bidding wars it shows how hes going further afield to try andlook to deplo his large stash of cash that he has on hand. Hes known as being a cheap guy. Somebody who looks at prices he doesnt like auctions. Doesnt like auctions, doesnt like to get into the fray what is interesting about this some of the back behind the scenes details on this bank of america brought the deal to him a go shop vision part of this. Bank of america brought it to him. They very rapid succession went to work put an offer on the table in a matter of days. So just shows there are different ways of coming at this im surprised 5 billion deal wouldnt even it is like pocket lint. 128 billion gorks the , gott what to do with it mike santoli will join us on the squawk newsline to talk about this what do you think . It strikes me as just in terms of the nature of the business, that tech data represents, its distribution is wide exposure to the u. S. Economy, global economy, which im sure it is a top down strategy by buffett to buy the types of businesses but they seem to check off a lot of boxes. Huge example is the railroads, Power Transmission just the idea of relatively steady and pretty Good Businesses, seems like that business could get consolidated more but then also i guess price discipline he had the ability to pay up probably not in the habit of going toe to toe with equity that also shows that it wasnt worth any price it wasnt going to be a trophy business, wasnt going to move the needle that much financially and so there is a number you are willing to go for, but not more. Yeah. And that too, just the idea that hes known as somebody who wont pay top dollar for things, got in, saw something he thought maybe he could offer a fair bid for, he said he wont make a second bid on this. Im surprised he would be involved because of this issue right . Bank of america brought it to todd within a day, buffett looked at it and realized he would be willing to bid up to 140 over 130 that apollo had bid greg abel went down and flew down to clearwater, florida on friday he was down at clearwater, florida, at the headquarters speaking with tech data. By saturday, they made a firm offer of 140 a share. It shows you how quickly they put it together. To speed things along, they took apol apollos contract that it had already written, sweetened terms, raised the price and threw it back together they didnt bring in any law firms on this. Was there a view that apollo wouldnt come back i dont think they were massively surprised to see apollo come back they would have thought itwas good way to put money to work. Interesting, just to see these coming through, he never really got involved in some things before youre looking for more avenues because what buffett told us in recent days, mike, or recent months and years, is that he thinks market valling with as for buying entire companies have gotten out of hand because there is so much liquidity, the markets are flush with cash, hard to buy a company outright absolutely. I think that is a piece of this right now. Even the fact that, you know, private equity is probably done less in terms of acquisition volume than you would expect, so even private equity is saying there is not enough to buy if it can hit their thresholds for valuation, i think that berkshire wont see there to be that many ripe opportunities valuation wise and, yeah, obviously one thing that berkshire always benefitted from, thats been the story, is that being the preferred buyer, right . You have Certain Companies that say, you know, it is almost kind of this mark of honor to have buffett want to own your business and if you dont have that, if you just simply go for the highest takeout price, the junk bond markets are right there to finance a lot right now. I think it makes it a struggle at this point in the cycle. Thats why this is so surprising to me just so antithetical to his whole sort of approach, he wants to be the preferred buyer this is somebody who sold themselves to somebody else, somebody else is the preferred buyer and they put a by default, this is like an automatic auction. The tech date whys board, he came in with the higher offer, immediately on sunday night, they already approved that offer, it gave three days to apollo to come back and match or raise or beat at to beat that offer thats what happened with it we were looking at the board showing some tech datas biggest customers. It is a supplier that uses the resales products that come from other Big Technology companies as we mentioned. About 16 of the sales come from apple products and products from cisco and hewlettpackard enterprise 11 each it is an interesting company, tech data, from the perspective of you could be a little bit of a bellwether for the broader technology industry. You see whoelz sale whose sales increasing mike, thank you for calling in it is good talking to you today. Well see you later. Joining us to talk more about the markets is simeon heimen at proshares, and Kevin Simpson of capital wealth planning, which has more than 1. 5 billion of assets under management. What do you think, market valuations now, not what this deal says about them, but watching market valuations and looking at big players struggling to find things they can buy . The market is trading at almost 20 times 2019 earnings, which isnt bad given how low Interest Rates are a full valuation mike hit the nail on the head with private equity. High yield spreads are tight now. 375 on the high yield index, rates are still low. Tough to compete against that. Also, with regards to this negotiation of taking out whole companies, governance isnt as bad as it was 20 years ago companies are buying back shares, and if they think the times are going good, and Going Forward, theyre increasing dividends, more Tech Companies that are consistently raising their dividends than ever before you cant swoop in and just fix things because theyre not as broken as they used to be from a governance standpoint. Kevin, how about you . What do you think . I think valuations, we have a little over 19 forward earnings for next year. There is so much cash on the sidelines, sometimes smaller deals attract the bigger investors. What does that tell you about where momentum is headed were looking at green arrows for the future, even when we set new highs the night before this is different dow futures down, but only 51 points ma maybe it suggests there is no alternative. I think there is a lot of positive signs in the u. S. If we look out the window, the consumer is shopping, out there spending i dont know if it is an indication of what the markets look like or the Holiday Season will look like, but not 100 certain my mom is watching this morning. Last night on Good Authority there may be talk goving to walmart for some early door busters . Yes if the u. S. Consumer spending, my moms spending, i think thats going to bode well for the markets and for the economy. Simeon, again, this momentum forward for the markets, we may be stretch valuation levels from a historic perspective is this the new normal given where you watch central bank policy, Interest Rates i think a couple of things, first, a little bit more of a santa claus rally is likely in order because Portfolio Managers are chasing returns. They want to put winners on their books. With regard to the retail season, people are forgetting, last year was tough. The retail season up against the big market selloff. The comps are not so bad this year there may be upside out of the consume they are year. People were freaking out the Conference Board survey came out at 125 a smidgen below expectations thats still sky high. All the Economic Data has been positive, has pointed to the idea we have dodged a recession. I think thats right. Even in germany, this week, we had some good news out of germany, everybody thought this summer was going into recession. So things are definitely look slightly better than six months ago and a lot better than a year ago. It is true, what else are you going to do with your money . And the signs of overheating arent there either. Capacity utilization numbers dropped to below 77. Thats a low number. Im not suggesting you try to play the china trade war or what happens on december 15th, with tariffs, thats going to that will be a headline risk, either to the upside or to the downside over the next two weeks. I dont know if you sit on if you have a little cash, say to yourself, i want to go in now, im betting this will go great, but thats how people think that way no i just dont know how you bet against that last little rush of money to put the names on the books, so your clients and the pms look like they own the winners all year t was in reverse last year. You had the selloff that was a separate issue there were people who did that as well. People were getting out to make sure it didnt look like they had losers all year. What would you suggest, kevin, for investors who look at this and saying, okay, maybe i want to get in, but i watched the markets run up to this point and now worry about what happens in january we think were in a bull market until proven otherwise. Crazy were sitting here with a return for the year, phenomenal. I think we can see a santa claus rally. Were still optimistic for 2020. So what may be over a shortterm two week period isnt going to change our views over the longterm of buying high quality companies, strong earnings, great dividends, we want to be in these names and were excited about the next month and 2020. Kevin, simian, good to see you both, thank you. More coming up on squawk box this morning. The squawk box black friday extravaganza begins. We have early data on the big holiday spend, projections for the winners and losers in the retail sector. All of it when we come back. 968. 8 million, thats how much americans spent on turkey for thanksgiving this year according to an estimate by the National Turkey federation at dn iglyro20thsowslht fm 18 wthats why xfinity hasu made taking your internetself. And tv with you a breeze. Really . Yup. You can transfer your Service Online in about a minute. You can do that . Yeah. And with twohour Service Appointment windows, its all on your schedule. Awesome. So while moving may still come with its share of headaches. No kidding. Were doing all we can to make moving simple, easy, awesome. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. Welcome back to squawk box. Happy thanksgiving, everybody. Americans ate their turkey yesterday, then shopped online in record numbers. According to early data from adobe, Online Retail sales will reach a record of 4. 4 billion, increase of 19 from last years online sales of 3. 7 billion adobe expecting black friday sales to reach 7. 5 billion this year, that would be a gain of more than 20 from last year we have a dynamic duo to cover the retail world for the next three hours. Jan niffe is here, cnbc contributor. Ill give him store credit you did not see each other at the same stores, different stores. Different stores. Who knows. Thats true. I want to get to both of them in a minute. Before we do that, full coverage of black friday Holiday Shopping today. Frank holland is at best Buys Distribution Center and kay rogers joining us to talk about the momentum for retailer target lets start with Courtney Reagan covering the mall traffic in woodbridge, new jersey courtney good morning, andrew. The cadence changed a little bit of black friday with a lot of these things happening earlier on thanksgiving day with the sales. Some retailers doing early black friday sales today is expected to be the busiest day of the year for retail so when youre looking at the fiveday stretch, 150 million today, 40 million were estimated to have hit the stores yesterday, and the internet according to the International Retail federation. Many retailers offering some early black friday deals, walmart starting those in october this year. Amazon started its black friday deals last week. This weekend, though, still very critical for the sector. According to tennessee data, last year, black friday generated 6 to 7 of total Quarterly Sales for lots of retailers including American Eagle and best buy that compares to a normal day of 1 so black friday is the equivalent of an entire week of sales. The average household expected to spend 415 bucks this weekend, according to deloitte. You mentioned the numbers from adobe, 4. 4 billion expected to have been spent online yesterday. 7. 5 billion today this fiveday stretch make up 20 of the total Holiday Seasons online sales so some early online performance issues, though, search int intelligence says that costco saw a big spike in search increases and in catch point said potentially as a result that site had some slowdowns, actually was off lon for a period of time yesterday morning. Came back on h m. Com down on thanksgiving morning for about five minutes or so. And home depot. Com also experiencing some slower load times. Well keep it all monitored here at the mall. Shoppers start coming back in. For now, back to you guys. Thank you, courtney want to get to our guest host this morning who have been traveling the malls and the shops. Get a sense of what is going on. What was the gut what is gut reaction here in. Black friday isnt what it used to be it is still a big day. You have promotions beginning on halloween or around there, consumers have a lot of choice of what to buy and when to buy the deals are special, it is a huge week gent, bend, but not wt used to be stores close by 2 00. Good thing, healthy thing, better it gives you a little more time, consumers always have a fixed budget they decide when theyre going to spend it is in the control the consumer is it better for the retailer retailers have more to make up in a shorter period of time it is more promotional than it felt before. Jan what did you see on your travels . Walmart started on the 29th of october for christmas sales. Really . Yeah, really. Target shortly there after if thats true now a race to july 4th . What are we talking about here a race to january 1st, yes, it is. Well see plenty of sales after christmas of course. This is the best it has ever been after christmas too the whole thing has changed. This is my 55th year of being in a store working or out looking at a store on black friday ive never missed one. And it changed dramatically. When we started, not when she started, shes younger, when we starred, the stores did open at 10 00 and close at 10 00 and then they went to 8 00 to 10 00 and 8 00 to midnight and judging the store got more and more difficult the internet has done the same thing. Were out in stores, we dont know whats going on because 20 of the sales, 25 of the stores are coming online. It is hard to tell by looking at the store what sales are doing if sales were really up 19 yesterday on lon which is what we believe, were going to be fine for the christmas selling season. Dana said it is more promotional than ever. It could mean there are zedeep discounts coming with that these are planned promotions. For most of the guys theyre planned promotions the margin gets right . I assume a lot of money losers i dont know if it works the same way online. We started at 2019, allabou margin flow through. Look where were ending 2019 what is the margin flow through . I think you think about the Holiday Season of 19, about the letter b. Binary Holiday Season and value and convenience between the halvf have and havenots. It is about brands if you have binary, brands, big box. Give me something unexpected. How about the retailer you think is going to win that everybody thinks is going to lose . Anybody out there that is not walmart or target or amazon . That you think will be a real two retailers that are going to win that other people dont think are going to win because people think the high end is slowing down, prada is going to do well despite the fact that people are trying to tell me the high end consumer is not strong, not going to affect the sales, going to be strong lvmh too, but theyre trading at a number that people find hard to buy theyll do well too. Caring doesnt trade at those kind of numbers. Why would those brands work, and yet obviously we hear about nordstroms and neimans and everybody else in the high end space who is just clobbered. Well, thats not brands i know. Brands are doing fine all across the spectrum. You think brands are selling through selling through what channel working for them theyre selling through their own stores, selling online, selling in places like nordstroms and naeemeeimans, bu theyre harvesting the the strong brands are winning. When you think about brands going more direct to consumer as well. And popups. Terrible question for you we were watching the macys parade yesterday. So were we. We all were one of the great things in the world, i love macys, how is macys going to do and ill tell you what came up at our dinner last night somebody said, i wont say who, said what happens if macys goes away one day what happens to the parade that was the conversation. And the fourth of july. And the fourth of july. Look at the parades and fireworks, memories create experiences. And when you think about what all of retail wants to be right now it the experience. You mentioned popup before. Who would have ever thought that l