Berkshire May Be Buying Class A Stock Directly From Holders to Boost Repurchases
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Andrew Bary
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Updated Nov 09, 2026, 7:12 pm EST / Original Nov 09, 2026, 7:11 pm

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Warren Buffett has stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, but he still owns a huge voting block. (Johannes EISELE / AFP via Getty Images)
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Berkshire Hathaway appears to be supplementing open-market stock buybacks with private purchases of its supervoting Class A shares.

The company repurchased a record $9.6 billion of stock in the third quarter, including about $3.4 billion of Class A shares.

Retiring Class A shares increases the effective voting power of CEO Warren Buffett’s Berkshire stake, which consists almost entirely of A shares.

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appears to be supplementing its open-market purchases of the company’s stock with privately negotiated sales with Berkshire holders involving the company’s supervoting Class A shares.

During the third quarter, Berkshire repurchased $9.6 billion of stock, a record quarterly amount. Most of that consisted of the more liquid Class B shares, but some $3.4 billion involved the A stock.

There is very light volume in the A shares, averaging just 183 shares a day in the third quarter, against 4.3 million shares for the B shares, Bloomberg data show.

The light A share volume, reflecting the buy-and-hold approach of many A share investors who have held the stock for a long time, isn’t consistent with the buyback activity in the A shares.

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The buybacks amounted to more than 35% of the A share volume in the third quarter, above the 25% limit that most companies like to maintain. So that suggests that Berkshire supplemented the open-market buys of the B shares—and some of the A shares—with private transactions of the A stock with longtime holders, or a holder’s estate or beneficiary, such as a charity.

That is what happened when Ruth Gottesman, the widow of longtime Berkshire director and investor David “Sandy” Gottesman, donated $1 billion of stock to a New York medical school in 2024.

CEO Warren Buffett commented at the 2024 annual meeting that Berkshire had bought that $1 billion of stock from Gottesman—more likely the school—and happened to purchase another $500 million the same day from an undisclosed Berkshire investor.

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“But I have to say, one thing that was astounding is that the same day we bought $1 billion worth of Berkshire Class A stock from Ruth, and I guess we were actually buying it from the school at that point...we bought $500 million worth of stock from somebody else that nobody will ever have heard of, and in a different state, and I won’t elaborate beyond that. But we have had a very significant number of people, and there’s more to come,” Buffett said.

CEO Greg Abel also referred to this in his annual letter earlier this year, “We may also purchase large blocks of shares directly from major holders when the opportunity presents itself.”

Why the private transactions and why the A shares? There are many wealthy Berkshire investors who bought the stock decades ago and have huge profits. This makes them unwilling to sell and pay hefty capital-gains taxes. There are probably many Berkshire holders who own at least $100 million of stock.

When they die, their estates or philanthropic beneficiaries might look to sell that stock to diversify or monetize the shares. The owners also may donate the stock while they are alive.

A negotiated private sale to Berkshire can be simpler and get a higher price than open-market sales of A stock in an illiquid market.

Berkshire likes to retire its stock—and Buffett in particular likes to see A shares retired. Why? Buffett’s economic stake in Berkshire is falling as he gives away stock each year and he now owns 13% of the company. His voting stake is about 30% because the A shares are supervoting—they have about seven times the voting power of the B stock.

Buffett, 96, likely wants to maintain voting control of Berkshire for himself and the foundation that will hold his stock after his death for as long as possible. The lower the amount of A shares outstanding, the higher the effective voting power of Buffett’s Berkshire stake, which consists almost entirely of A shares—some 188,000 A shares now worth about $160 billion.

The A shares now represent just a third of Berkshire’s outstanding stock and that percentage keeps dropping every year as holders convert their shares into more liquid B stock, and as the company buys back A stock. The A shares can be converted to B stock but not the other way around.

More private purchases of Berkshire stock are likely in the coming years as more wealthy owners die or give away stock.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com

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