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The brokerage called me today and asked if I wanted to swap our two (2) A shares to Berkshire Hathaway (the company headquartered in Omaha) for B shares at a premium ratio of B shares.

This is the first I have heard of this action by Berkshire. Anyone else gotten this offer?

While we hold far more dollars in B shares, there is no way we are letting our A shares out of our possession. It is a personal ego thing worth way more than a paltry investment premium differential.

Uwharrie

" The brokerage called me today and asked if I wanted to swap our two (2) A shares to Berkshire Hathaway (the company headquartered in Omaha) for B shares at a premium ratio of B shares.

This is the first I have heard of this action by Berkshire. Anyone else gotten this offer?"


Thanks for sharing that news. I just looked, I'm surprised there isn't an 8 K making that offer to all A shareholders public.

The volume has been strong the past two weeks, who are the buyers? As Buffett sells off his shares team brk may have control concerns.

This should be disclosed, imo.

btw, are we talking 3 % or so or more? Thank you.

I cut off the conversation and did not ask for the premium percentage for exchanging A shares to Berkshire Hathaway for B shares. I did hear my local broker say because our shares were in a taxable account, this offer could be made and that this was not the case for A shares in IRA/401K accounts. Why would that be? Inquiring minds want to know.

Searching the Internet tonight, there does not appear to be any reference to this action by Berkshire. The party that called me is my local broker at Raymond James so there is little likelihood this is incorrect.

I may call their office tomorrow to get more details just to satisfy our collective curiosity.

Uwharrie

First confirm this is not a scam. You call a representative you know well or visit the branch.

I’ve known this person for more than 35 years. He and his now deceased brother have been affiliated with Raymond James for about 30 years.

I asked specifically was this share exchange offer from Berkshire Hathaway or some other party. He said the offer was from Berkshire. I was outside in my yard so it is possible I misheard some facts.

Will contact him tomorrow via email with questions.

Uwharrie

“ Will contact him tomorrow via email with questions.

Uwharrie“ Thanks, if you don’t get clarity call Marc H or I will.

I'm reminded RW wrote about this,

"Conclusion
While in absolute dollar terms, the trades I made recently are meaningful to me, the dollar amount represent a relatively small percentage of the capital at stake. I am not sure that Warren Buffett would approve of what I did, although his statement that the Class B shares represent a better value than Class A when the discount is over 1% leads me to believe that he would at least understand my motivation for the trade.

It is also important to note that the transactions were not free of risk because market prices can move very quickly at times. Although unlikely, it is not unheard of for the market price of Berkshire’s stock to advance or decline by 1-2% in a short period of time, especially at times of market volatility. Class A shares are also relatively illiquid and it is essential to use limit orders.

My core position in Berkshire is in Class B shares in my taxable account purchased between 2000 and 2005, as I discussed in my article a few years ago marking twenty years of ownership. There is no possibility of selling those shares to purchase Class A shares due to the large tax bill that would be due. However, it is possible to do these types of transactions in IRA accounts without a tax hit.

I hope to switch back to Class A stock in my IRA the next time the Class B discount is nearly eliminated. Assuming I am able to do that, I should probably refrain from engaging in this type of activity ever again. At some point, the Class B discount might widen permanently as market participants begin to value the voting power of the Class A shares more highly. As someone who cares about the future of Berkshire Hathaway, I value the greater voting rights of the Class A stock although I am not under any illusion that my level of ownership will make much of a difference.""

https://rationalwalk.com/berkshire-hathaways-class...

Decades ago the administrative costs of having a shareholder started to get expensive. We offered those with fewer than 250 shares a premium to sell back to the company.

Brk might be trying to buyback, odd lots of As, say 5 - 10 or fewer to reduce those costs.

I'm going to find out later today.

Interesting, Brk says they are not involved in this offer to A shareholders. I’m at the park let’s get to the bottom of this. Thank you.

Okay, it was one of those computer generated flags within the Raymond James system for apparently following up with clients. Here is the answer received today:


“I researched further and found it is actually not a tender offer, but a permanent structural feature allowing conversion from BRK.A shares to BRK.B shares. There is no deadline. I found that our system showed a deadline of today, but that was just to flag it for possible action. The conversion feature remains active.”

Sorry to have set my fellow board members off on wild goose chase.

Uwharrie

" Sorry to have set my fellow board members off on wild goose chase.

Uwharrie"


What about the part about converting at a, premium?

What about the part about converting at a, premium?

If a broker uses “last price” as a shortcut to market value, as some are known to do, it can appear at times that 1500 B shares are trading at a market premium to a single A share.

my guess is this is what triggered the notification to call. The idea being one could convert the A share to 1500 B shares and unlock the higher (apparent) market value of the Bs.

I chalk that up to being an old man with likely lifelong ADHD on a cell phone in the yard assuming the whole reason for Berkshire approaching me about converting our A shares was it involved a premium. In fact, I did ask what the reason was to my broker and he said this was an offer by Berkshire for the A shares and I asked if there was a premium and he said "some premium" . In this case, my long-time friend and broker had not done his homework and was likely also just following up on a prompt from HQ to let me know the so called window (a window only in the RJ network it seems) was ending today.

At any rate, I'll do more research in the future before posting something that seemed to be too close to all the discourse here on this esteemed board into Berkshire buying back (or not buying back) shares. I fell prey to confirmation bias, recency bias, old age bias, and possibly another half dozen biases listed years ago by Charlie Munger.

My apologies for spreading incorrect information.


Now, just as Warren Buffett's famous (and funny) story of the oil drillers in Hades goes, it would one day make potential sense for Berkshire to want to increase the number of B shares in circulation while simultaneously reducing the number of A shares in the market so as to delay the day when outside parties garner sufficient voting control to make changes to the Board of Directors leading to eventual changes in the direction of Berkshire Hathaway.

While wholly different from buying back stock, perhaps offering a premium for swapping from A shares to B shares is a viable path for A class shareholders not wanting to incur a tax event. There are other possible variations on this A to B theme. Instead of an upfront financial conversion premium, perhaps B shares are accorded other advantages (dividends or other kickers) to entice A shareholders to let go of their voting shares for non-voting B shares. The oil driller joke ended with the pre-approved for Heaven oil driller electing to follow his own shout out regarding oil in Hades. Perhaps my initial mistaken understanding may eventually presage a pathway Berkshire follows at some point in the future.

Stay tuned.

Uwharrie

" I chalk that up to being an old man with likely lifelong ADHD on a cell phone in the yard assuming the whole reason for Berkshire approaching me about converting our A shares was it involved a premium. In fact, I did ask what the reason was to my broker and he said this was an offer by Berkshire for the A shares and I asked if there was a premium and he said "some premium" . In this case, my long-time friend and broker had not done his homework and was likely also just following up on a prompt from HQ to let me know the so called window (a window only in the RJ network it seems) was ending today."


To be VERY CLEAR, I spoke to Berkshire today, the company, brk, is NOT involved in this offer IN ANY WAY. period.


Comprende amigo?

Find another broker IF IF he really told you this.

Thank you.

“My apologies for spreading incorrect information.”

No worries and it does make me wonder how often Berkshire is notified from those entities holding large blocks of A shares that may coming up for sale? I think I recall Warren said he thought it reasonable that one prefer the A shares as long as they were less than 2% above the price of 1500 B shares given the more powerful voting rights.

I’d like to think a lot of us would call Omaha initially if we were interested in selling a block of A shares. It will be interesting to to see how many A shares exist in 5/10/15 years with conversions, charitable contributions and generational wealth transfers. I do hope we can buy back Warren’s A shares as the Buffett family foundation makes its contributions.

" I do hope we can buy back Warren’s A shares as the Buffett family foundation makes its contributions."

Buffett converts As to Bs and the foundations sell Bs. Brk still does not have the, right of first refusal, on any or all foundation sales. brk should have attained that right in 2006.


Oh well, I wasn't advising Uncle Warren back then either. ::))

Just curious in this day and age why you would use a high fee financial advisor/broker like Raymond James, esp. one so ill informed about BRK A to B conversion.

What useful service do they provide that is worth their fees?

Good Question
1. We seldom make purchases or sell positions. Fees are less of a concern when holding a company for years while it appreciates.
2. We have our accounts set to NOT allow any online transactions. All transactions must be verified personally via a phone call. While I love and participate in the online economy, I don’t trust the system when it comes to now AI enabled hackers. This month’s issue of Wired quotes a coder saying he is now doing 90X lines of code per year compared to his pre-AI enabled lines of coding.
3. They give us best costs for transactions because they manage the front end of our company’s 401K plan and dealing with our mostly non/sophisticated investment-wise employees. The back end (record keeping) is handled by a firm specializing in filing 401K plans stuff to the various parties.
4. We don’t have an issue with them making some money when we do have transactions. It goes along the lines of Will Roger’s “return of my money” quote. I can physically grab somebody’s attention in the event it is needed by going to their office versus dealing through channels should things go awry in the world.

I considered Schwab and Fidelity then decided to stay with the status quo.


Again, thanks for posing this question to a coffee can type of investor.

Uwharrie

For years I kept most of my BRK investment in A shares, and I found the advantage was it kept me from trimming when it looked like a lofty price. You can't nibble away at an A share. After a 10 fold compounding, I finally did the conversion when it hit all time highs in 2025, and sure enough, I trimmed more than I originally planned. In retrospect, it has worked out well. (So far.)

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