{"id":199388,"date":"2010-01-19T14:50:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T19:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.33766"},"modified":"2010-01-19T15:45:03","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T20:45:03","slug":"warren-buffett-now-retailing-for-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/199388","title":{"rendered":"Warren Buffett, Now Retailing for $65"},"content":{"rendered":"

Berkshire Hathaway shareholders will vote<\/a> Wednesday on a 50-to-1 split of the company’s Class B shares to finance a $26 billion purchase of Burlington Northern railway. Chairman Warren Buffett has described this purchase as an “all-in wager on the economic future of the United States” that, while potentially incurring short-term losses, will benefit Berkshire Hathaway over time. This reasoned, patient approach is trademark Buffett — the kind of investing that has spawned countless imitations. If tomorrow’s vote goes through, as the Wall Street Journal<\/i> reports<\/a> it likely will, average investors will no longer have to resort to crude mimicry of Buffett’s strategy–they’ll be able to purchase shares of his company.  <\/p>\n

Historically, Berkshire Hathaway shares have been split into Class A, which closed at $97,500 each on Friday, and Class B–known as “Baby Bs”–which closed at $3,247. These lofty prices discouraged<\/a> small retail investors and the high-frequency traders who can buy and sell millions of shares in a millisecond. A 50-to-1 split of the B shares would drop their price to around $65, enabling an influx of new investors and making the company eligible for inclusion in the S&P 500 index (Berkshire Hathaway is the largest corporation excluded from<\/a> the index).  <\/p>\n

Since Buffett has previously expressed<\/a> concern that a share split would discourage long-term investing, the Burlington deal must have been attractive enough to change his mind. Opening up Berkshire to a new cadre of investors may puncture the legendary aura<\/a> surrounding Buffett’s company, but it also exemplifies the pragmatism responsible for creating the aura in the first place. 


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Berkshire Hathaway shareholders will vote Wednesday on a 50-to-1 split of the company’s Class B shares to finance a $26 billion purchase of Burlington Northern railway. Chairman Warren Buffett has described this purchase as an “all-in wager on the economic future of the United States” that, while potentially incurring short-term losses, will benefit Berkshire Hathaway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}