What % of BRKA and BRKB does Buffet own, and how will those be affected when those shares are liquidated by/for the Gates Foundation? Has any of that liquidation happened yet?
Page 42 of the annual report (
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2007ar/2007ar.pdf) lists 1,081,024 "A" shares and 14,000,080 "B" shares outstanding at the end of 2007. (An "A" share is worth 30 "B" shares.) The report also says those are an equivalent 1,547,693 "A" shares.
Buffett's 2006 letter to the Gates foundation says that he's earmarked 10 million "B" shares for the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years, giving them up to 500,000 shares a year. (The number of donated shares actually drops each year since he gives 5% of the remaining balance. See the details at
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/donate/bmgfltr.pdf) He's also giving away a total of another 2,050,000 "B" shares to his kid's foundations and his first wife's foundation over the next 20 years in the same manner. So starting in July 2006, over the next 20 years he's giving away the equivalent of 401,667 "A" shares. All five foundations are more or less required to cash out his donations within the year, so none of the foundations will accumulate a position in Berkshire.
Buffet's SEC filing at the end of 2007 (
SEC FORM 5) lists 2,564,355 "B" shares and 350,000 "A" shares, the equivalent of 435,478 "A" shares. So right now he owns 28% of the company but by the time he's nearly 96 years old he'll be down to less than 5%. Chairman/son Howard Buffett, directors, institutions, and others also have Berkshire shares which you could see summarized at places like
BRK-A: Major Holders for BERKSHIRE HATH HLD A - Yahoo! Finance .
Berkshire's daily "B" share volume is rising and has already at least doubled over the last five years, which could be considered both good and bad. Volatility will be reduced and Berkshire may someday join the S&P500. But people are probably already day-trading the shares and someday an options market could start up. From the charities alone roughly an extra 600,000 "B" shares/year will hit the open market-- at least 3000 each trading day where volume is already 20,000 shares/day.
Upon further consideration of the idea hat Buffett is a one-of-a-kind with no replacement, I've decided that's hogwash. He found Lou Simpson & Ajit Jain through the typical executive-search process and he'll continue to do the same with future Berkshire execs and his CIO candidates. Buffett used to be much more reclusive & secretive but he's deliberately raised his profile over the last 10 years to attract motivated candidates. He's cherry-picking the best and I suspect that he's better at training his successors than he gets credit for. Howard Buffett is expected to assume Chairman when Buffett steps down or dies, and Howard's main job will be to preserve Berkshire's culture. It's reasonable to expect that he & Gates (also on the board) will be able to preserve the current system. But, hey, I won't complain if they start paying dividends.
We hold ~23% of our ER portfolio in Berkshire because we can handle the volatility and the single-stock risk-- I have a COLA'd pension and spouse will be getting her own in 2022. We also bought at a low in 2001-2002 and would do the same again if our allocation dropped below 18%. We have no further plans to sell unless our allocation gets above 28%, so don't depend on our signals.
Some (former) Berkshire holders have lost quite a bit of money, especially in the 1980s (when the shares dropped 50%) and again in the late 1990s. So don't buy Berkshire shares unless you're a long-term shareholder (five years or more) or you're using testosterone money. If the Buffett transition is messy then the shares could take another 50% hit in a matter of days.
Other alternatives to Berkshire include the Danaher brothers and Eddie Lampert. I fear that neither have both Buffett's reputation and his ability. (Of course I could be wrong.) If anyone is aware of another Buffett wannabe with publicly-traded shares then I'd love to hear about it, but I think that "Chainsaw Als" are much more common than Buffetts...
in February ahead of (amidst) the doom and gloom. Wanting to average back in, how does Berkshire look right now as, say, a five year or longer play (Warren looks likes he's still got significant tread left)? 
