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Warren Buffett bought battery brand Duracell for a whopping $4.7 billion Thursday. And with Duracell's recent foray into smartphone batteries, picking up the company from Procter & Gamble seems to be a prescient move.
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway holding company in Omaha, Neb., purchased Duracell with its 1.9 percent holdings—worth $4.7 billion—in P&G, according to Forbes. Duracell was previously owned by The Mallory Battery Co. and then The Gillette Co., which P&G acquired in 2005.
Because Buffett essentially traded his stock for the brand, he could avoid capital gains taxes. The maneuver has been called a "cash rich split-off," and it's not new to Buffett.
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