Berkshire Hathaway said Wednesday that its shareholders had approved splitting the company’s class B shares 50-for-1 as part of the company’s $26.3 billion acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the nation’s second-largest railroad.
The stock split, supported by Warren E. Buffett, Berkshire’s chief executive and controlling shareholder, will enable the company to offer Berkshire stock to smaller shareholders of Burlington Northern as part of the takeover.
Mr. Buffett said at a shareholders meeting in Omaha that the stock split was needed to make the transaction easier for small investors. “If we hadn’t done this, there would have been justification of the criticism that a big shareholder got a different deal that a small shareholder,” he said, according to Reuters.
The 50-to-1 stock split will make Berkshire’s class B stock much more affordable at roughly $68 a share, based on Wednesday afternoon’s price of $3,430.75. But the Berkshire class A shares, which remain the most expensive American stock at nearly $103,000 on Wednesday, will not be split.
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