Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will hold a shareholder meeting Jan. 20 on its proposal to undertake a 50-to-1 split of its Class B shares as part of its acquisition of Burlington Northern Sante Fe Corp., according to the Wall Street Journal.
The railroad is already 23 percent owned by Berkshire, which last month agreed to pay $26 billion in cash and stock for the remaining stake. As part of the deal, Berkshire announced plans for the 50-1 split of the Class B shares, which closed Thursday at $3,291.
The vote date was disclosed in a filing of preliminary proxy materials Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Berkshire had previously said the meeting would be in January.
In addition to voting on the stock split, which would be the first in the company's history, Berkshire holders also need to approve an increase of how much stock the conglomerate can issue. The current maximum is 57.7 million and Berkshire is proposing an increase to 3.23 billion.
Shareholders as of Nov. 30 will be eligible to vote. There are 1.1 million Class A shares and 14.9 million Class B shares, and the B shares have a mere 0.5 percent of the voting power of the A shares. Warren Buffett owns one third of the As and 10 percent of the Bs. Per-share voting power of the Bs would be cut to one-tenthousandth that of the As after the stock split.
(This item appeared Dec. 4, 2009, in the Wall Street Journal.)
