A long term bias towards reducing A shares? Back before Gen Re,
in 1997, there were 1.2 mill A's. Now, even after a bump-up in A's outstanding with GenRe (and a small bump with Burlington Northern) there are 956k A's (total 'A-equivalents' including the B's are 1.65 mill).
The number of A's will continue to diminish, and this is no accident. The A to B conversions are one-way, and there's a steady trickle of conversions as A-holders convert, for gifting or whatever. Buffett's own steady conversion of his A's will continue.
btw, if my math is correct (and I'm sure I'll be told if not): taking this to the extreme, and assuming there's no future dilution, if conversions continued indefinitely then 33,000 A's would still have over 50% of the vote (that would be just over 2% of the A-equivalent equity).
All WEB has to do is to get the B %M Gates foundation to slow down the selling of their shares.
Except that in making the gift he stipulated that the dollar equivalent actually be spent the next year. There's no requirement that the BRK-B's have to be sold specifically - some of holdings resulting from Gates' contributions could be substituted - but the spending requirement means that that the selling will continue.
I'd always figured that if there was a buy-back, the donated shares would be great candidates - it's clean and solves a few housekeeping issues all around (not to mention Munger commented indirectly to that effect back pre-Gates). But Buffett of course has knocked idea that down.
I'd lean to pro-buyback, but to counterpoint, probably the best argument that I've heard not to is the insurance aspect. BRK is still the 'Fort Knox' and buy-backs don't help maintain its broad range of ability. I also would also be quite surprised to see any buy-back unless BRK's ratings were well into AAA territory again.
in 1997, there were 1.2 mill A's. Now, even after a bump-up in A's outstanding with GenRe (and a small bump with Burlington Northern) there are 956k A's (total 'A-equivalents' including the B's are 1.65 mill).
The number of A's will continue to diminish, and this is no accident. The A to B conversions are one-way, and there's a steady trickle of conversions as A-holders convert, for gifting or whatever. Buffett's own steady conversion of his A's will continue.
btw, if my math is correct (and I'm sure I'll be told if not): taking this to the extreme, and assuming there's no future dilution, if conversions continued indefinitely then 33,000 A's would still have over 50% of the vote (that would be just over 2% of the A-equivalent equity).
All WEB has to do is to get the B %M Gates foundation to slow down the selling of their shares.
Except that in making the gift he stipulated that the dollar equivalent actually be spent the next year. There's no requirement that the BRK-B's have to be sold specifically - some of holdings resulting from Gates' contributions could be substituted - but the spending requirement means that that the selling will continue.
I'd always figured that if there was a buy-back, the donated shares would be great candidates - it's clean and solves a few housekeeping issues all around (not to mention Munger commented indirectly to that effect back pre-Gates). But Buffett of course has knocked idea that down.
I'd lean to pro-buyback, but to counterpoint, probably the best argument that I've heard not to is the insurance aspect. BRK is still the 'Fort Knox' and buy-backs don't help maintain its broad range of ability. I also would also be quite surprised to see any buy-back unless BRK's ratings were well into AAA territory again.