He created BRKB for just this purpose. He doesn't need to split BRKA for any reason other than Nasdaq's computers

Creating a second class of share is a very very bad solution: It splits exchange liquidity. It also complicates all the investor relations correspondence, adding lawyer fees.

I think they’re doing fine regardless.

Just because you’re powerful does that give you the right to be more difficult?

Yes.

If not having power, that seems upsetting. But...thats how power works, otherwise it isn't powerful.

I think you can be considerate and powerful, but maybe I’m in the minority!

Different class shares should be illegal.

A huge fraction of publicly traded companies have preferred stock in addition to their standard ticker... They just have different terms (eg pricing vs underlying, dividends, etc).

And why's that?

Because the owner of the other class of share believes themselves to own part of the company, but they don't. It's confusing. What you really own is some sort of bond from the company that guarantees they will pay you an amount equivalent to a dividend or something, not a share of the company.

> Because the owner of the other class of share believes themselves to own part of the company, but they don't.

Shares, whether in one class or many, are packages of claims against the company, not really ownership of the company in the simple sense. That’s fairly fundamental to the corporate form as distinct from, say, partnerships.

Because shares express ownership, and ownership is defined by being able to make decisions about the owned thing.

both BRK.B and BRK.A have voting rights.

>1. Many retail investors do not have the funds to buy a full share.

That is a feature, not a bug

Yes Smithers we don't want the "poor's" getting their greasy fingers on our shares :-)

This also leads to those dodgy partial share adverts targeting younger unexperienced investors which is not a good thing in the long run.

Many mobile platforms/brokers let you but fractions of a share now.

Most of modern retail platforms offer fractional shares.

I don't know of any platform that offers that in my country.