NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Berkshire Hathaway's aWarren Buffett has once again found a deal that is tooajuicy to pass up in Burger King Worldwide's proposed takeover of Canadian coffee-chain Tim Hortons . Buffett has agreed to finance a piece of the deal by making a $3 billion preferred stock investment in Burger King that is likely to carry a yield in the neighborhood of 10%, or above. The preferred stock deal represents yet another investment that is available only to Buffett and Berkshire's shareholders that is out of reach of mostainvestors. Berkshire's financing commitment will supplement $9.5 billion Burger King is raising from bond markets to buy Tim Hortons for 89.32 Canadian dollars ($81.47) a share, in a cash and stock deal that will give Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital a 51% ownership stakeain the combined company. Read More: How Burger King's Brilliant Brazilian Billionaire Turned $1.2 Billion into $22 Billion Deals like the Burger King preferreds are common for Berkshire Hathaway. During the financial crisis, Berkshire made billions of dollars loaning money to the likes of Mars, Goldman Sachs , General Electric , Swiss Re , Dow Chemical and later Bank of America athrough large preferred investments. Berkshire suppliedaGoldman with $5 billion in a preferred dealathat paid a 10% dividend. A $3 billion deal withaGE also carried a 10% dividend yield, and a $5 billionaBank of Americaadeal carried a 6% dividend yield. Berkshire also suppliedaSwiss Re withaCHF 3 billiona($3.28 billion) at a 10% dividend yield, and Dow Chemical, $3 billionaat an 8.5% dividend yield. While most of those preferred stakes have since been redeemed, Berkshire still benefits from stock warrants the firmanegotiated when making those investments. Berkshire owns a 2.8% stakeain Goldman Sachs, which it effectively acquired for a total cost of $0. The conglomerate also has a right to buy 700 million Bank of America shares for $5 billion by 2021, a stake that is in the green by over $6 billion. When Goldman, GE and Bank of America came to Berkshire for emergency cash during the crisis, Buffett negotiated some of the savviest deals ofahis career, which also represented aaturning point for those corporations as they worked to survive the worstafinancial panic since the Great Depression. With no major crisis currently the horizon, deals like Berkshire's preferred stake in Burger King indicate that there are still plenty of ways that Buffett can make more money and at a lower risk than even the most sophisticated investors. Buffett appears to have found a new template in using preferred stakes to finance large takeovers. Berkshire Hathaway lent $8 billion to 3G Capital in its $23 billion takeoveraof Heinz in 2013. That deal carried preferred dividends of 9%, which Berkshire saidawould provide effective yields in the neighborhood of 12%aas a result of other contingencies. While the terms of Berkshire's preferred stake in Burger King haven't yet been hammered out, one would expect similarly largeayields. When combined, Berkshire's Heinz and Burger King stakes will be almost enough in size to replace the company's previous yield-generating stakes in Goldman, GE and Mars, which have all been redeemed in recent years. In fact, it took Berkshire less than a yearato find a replacement for $4 billion worth of Mars preferreds that were redeemed last October. Berkshire's Playbook Goes 3G As Buffett noted in his annual letter, the Heinz deal represented a new wayafor Berkshire Hathaway to find rich yields, and one that isn't reliant on a financial crisis. "With the Heinz purchase, moreover, we created a partnership template that may be used by Berkshire in future acquisitions of size," Buffett saidain Berkshire's annual letter to shareholders. In that deal, Berkshire teamed up 3G'saJorge Paulo Lemann, Bernardo Hees and Alex Behring. He is doing so, once again, with Burger King. There is one apparent difference between Berkshire' Heinz deal and its participation in Burger King's takeover of Tim Hortons. Berkshire also bought 50%aof Heinz common stock for $4.25 billionain the ketchup-maker's takeover. There is no indication Berkshire will buy any Burger King common shares in Tuesday deal. The Inversion Debate A final note: Burger King's takeover of Tim Hortons will shift the company's headquarters to Canada, technically qualifying as a so-called 'inversion transaction,' a financial structure increasingly referred to as tax dodge in Washington and on Wall Street. The deal may allow Burger King to lower its tax bill on foreign earnings, however, it will do little to impact the company's earnings in the United States, where it generates a majority of sales and revenue. Buffett has played a prominent role in a national debate on taxation, arguing that income tax rates are too low for billionaires like himself. Some may argue his financing of an inversion, in combination with many deals Berkshire has cut to minimize its tax bill on investment gains, reeks of hypocrisy. That may be an oversimplification. Berkshire has the most at stakeain the debate on corporate taxationaand it historically has paid near the U.S. rate. In 2014, Berkshire became the company with the most cash parkedain the U.S., as others like Apple and Microsoft park money offshore, and it remains one the biggest investors in America. Berkshire's subsidiaries invested $11 billion on plant and equipment in 2013, 89% of which was spent in the U.S. "Though we invest abroad as well, the mother lode of opportunity resides in America," Berkshire said in its 2013 investor letter. Read More: Walgreens Investors Focus on Buybacks after Inversion Dies Read More: Family Dollar's Lost Way Leads to Peltz and Icahn -- Written by Antoine Gara in New York Follow @AntoineGara
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