Top Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders (2024)

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B), led by billionaire investor and CEO Warren Buffett, is a diversified holding company whose subsidiaries are involved in insurance, freight rail transportation, energy generation and distribution, manufacturing, and retailing. Berkshire Hathaway also holds a large investment portfolio of equity securities and derivatives.

The top shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway class B shares are Warren E. Buffett, Ronald L. Olson, Meryl B. Witmer, Vanguard Group Inc., BlackRock Inc. (BLK), and State Street Corp. (STT).

Berkshire Hathaway, which has been looking to spend its large cash stockpile on major acquisitions, announced in July that subsidiary Berkshire Hathaway Energy agreed to acquire the natural gas transmission and storage business of Dominion Energy Inc. (D). Berkshire paid an estimated $9.7 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway's 12-month trailing net income and revenue are $10.0 billion and $237.2 billion, respectively. The company'smarket capis about $456.4 billion. These financial data are as of July 14, 2020.

We look in more detail below at Berkshire Hathaway's top 6 shareholders.

Top 3 Individual Insider Shareholders

Warren E. Buffett

Warren Buffett owns a total of 10,188 Berkshire Hathaway class B shares, representing less than 0.01% of the company's totalshares outstanding. Mr. Buffett also owns an additional 15% of Berkshire Hathaway based on his holding of 248,734 class A shares, according to the company's SEC Form 4 filed on July 8, 2020. Regarded as one of the world's most successful investors, Buffett is chair and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Berkshire, as well as at a number of Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiaries. After his investment group took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, Buffett built it into one of the world's biggest and best performing companies. He achieved that in two ways: by buying undervalued companies through numerous acquisitions, and by investing in the shares of scores of public companies. Berkshire's giant investment portfolio has equity holdings worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Buffet today also serves as manager for Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC, another subsidiary of the company. Buffett has a net worth of $71 billion.

Ronald L. Olson

Ronald L. Olson owns a total of 2,435 Berkshire Hathaway class B shares, representing less than 0.01% of the company's total shares outstanding. As a Berkshire director for the past 23 years, he and the board have approved many of CEO Warren Buffett's major acquisitions into diverse industries, sharply boosting Berkshire's revenue and net income. Mr. Olson co-founded and is a senior partner at law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson. 

Meryl B. Witmer

Meryl B. Witmer owns a total of 2,000 Berkshire Hathaway class B shares, representing less than 0.01% of the company's total shares outstanding. Ms. Witmer has served as a director for Berkshire Hathaway since 2013. She is a general partner at investment company Witmer Capital Management LLC, and a managing member at Eagle Value Partners LLC, a portfolio advisory firm, which she founded.

Top 3 Institutional Shareholders

Institutional investorshold the majority of Berkshire Hathaway's class B shares at about 70% of total shares outstanding.

Vanguard Group Inc.

Vanguard Group owns 145.9 million class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway, representing 6.0% of total shares outstanding, according to the company's 13F filing for the period ending March 31, 2020. The company is primarily a mutual fund and ETF management company with about $6.2 trillion in global assets under management (AUM). The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) is one of the company's largest exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with about $152 billion in AUM. Berkshire Hathaway is one of VOO's top 10 holdings, comprising 1.39% of the fund's total holdings.

BlackRock Inc.

BlackRock owns 109.9 million class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway, representing 4.5% of total shares outstanding, according to the company's 13F filing for the period ending March 31, 2020. The company is primarily a mutual fund and ETF management company with approximately $6.47 trillion in AUM. The iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) is among one of BlackRock's largest ETFs with approximately $200 billion in AUM. Berkshire Hathaway is one of IVV's top 10 holdings, comprising 1.35% of the fund's total holdings.

State Street Corp.

State Street owns 76.5 million class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway, representing 3.1% of total shares outstanding, according to the company's 13F filing for the period ending March 31, 2020. The company is primarily a manager of mutual funds, ETFs, and other assets with approximately $2.7 trillion in AUM. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) is among one of State Street's largest ETFs with approximately $279 billion in AUM. Berkshire Hathaway is one of SPY's top 10 holdings, comprising 1.37% of the fund's total holdings.

Diversity & Inclusiveness of Berkshire Hathaway

As part of our effort toimprove the awareness of the importance of diversity in companies, we offer investors a glimpse into the level of transparency of Berkshire Hathaway and how that reflects its commitment to diversity, inclusiveness, and social responsibility. We examined the data Berkshire Hathaway releases. It shows Berkshire Hathaway does not disclose any data about the diversity of its board of directors, C-Suite, general management, and employees overall. It also shows Berkshire Hathaway does not reveal the diversity of itself by race, gender, ability, veteran status, or LGBTQ+ identity.