Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) is facing shareholder resolutions to do more on climate change, as its annual shareholders meeting is coming up next weekend.
But Chief Executive Warren Buffett is adamantly opposed. Berkshire shareholders voted handily against climate change proposals last year.
“Overwhelmingly, the people that bought Berkshire with their own money voted against those policies,” Buffett said at last year’s annual shareholders meeting.
“The votes for it were from people who never put a dime of their own money into Berkshire. And I don’t think they read our annual reports. I don’t think they read the reports of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.”
The activist shareholders want Berkshire to provide more detail about its carbon emissions and to spend more money to fight climate change.
Buffett Begs to Differ
But Buffett is having none of it. He says Berkshire subsidiaries, such as Berkshire Hathaway Energy, already reveal a lot of detail about their carbon output and fork over billions of dollars for renewable energy, the New York Times notes. The proposals will almost certainly fail.
Some analysts say Berkshire’s is too tight-lipped in general. “This is just a continuation of a corporate style — and a corporate style that is becoming antiquated,” Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research, told The Times. “And I think we’re going to see just how antiquated with the shareholder vote.”
Meanwhile, California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as Calpers, the nation’s largest public pension fund, said in an April 19 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it’s supporting a proposal to replace Warren Buffett as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. He would remain CEO.
Corporate-governance advocates for years have been calling on companies not to have their chief executives also chair the board. The idea is to keep the board independent from management.
Berkshire’s board said last month that Buffett should remain chairman as long as he’s chief executive. Once Buffett is no longer chief executive, a non-management director should then be named board chair, it said.
