Discussion about this post

User's avatar
The Rational Walk's avatar

CALPers filed the following with the SEC in support of proxy measures 4, 5, 6, and 7 and they also oppose the re-election of Christopher Davis, Susan Decker and Meryl Witmer:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/919079/000114036123016992/brhc10051155_px14a6g.htm

The Illinois State Treasurer filed the following with the SEC in support of proxy measure 5:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000121465923005016/x46230px14a6g.htm

As I have written on numerous occasions, Berkshire will continue to be pressured by institutions acting with clearly political motives that wish to bully the board into adopting various vapid "ESG" measures. The CALPers statement is particularly vapid, as their management seems oblivious to the extensive disclosures offered by Berkshire subsidiaries, most notably Berkshire Hathaway Energy which regularly posts such information in its SEC filings as well as investor presentations, such as this one from March:

https://www.brkenergy.com/assets/pdf/fiic-presentations/2023-fiic-presentation.pdf

Institutions with political motives will eventually succeed in making Berkshire act as all other mega-caps unless sufficient support exists among remaining Class A shareholders in the decades to come. Unfortunately, I am not optimistic about the chances of Berkshire avoiding the ESG nonsense in the long run given the dynamics of Class A to Class B conversion and the very high price of Class A stock that will force individual investors to convert to B or realize very large capital gains. As I wrote last year, Berkshire could elect to split the Class A shares to reduce the need of individual investors to convert to B:

https://rationalwalk.com/the-case-for-splitting-berkshires-class-a-shares/

Expand full comment
The Rational Walk's avatar

Greg Abel purchased 55 shares of $BRKA on Friday, March 17 at an average cost of $447,259.99. This transaction is worth more than his entire gross pay for 2022. Of course, he does have more money he can invest from last year's sale of his 1% stake in BHE, but I find it hard to criticize a man who now has built a nine figure stake in Berkshire is just a few months. He will likely buy more in the future. A huge vote of confidence from Berkshire's next CEO.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000108131623000009/xslF345X04/wf-form4_167942916524621.xml

Expand full comment
17 more comments...