Burlington Northern Santa Fe CEO Sold Shares Prior to Berkshire Hathaway Offer

(GuruFocus, November 4, 2009) Berkshire Hathaway’s proposal yesterday to acquire 100% of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) represents a more than 30% premium. For investors who already held the stock prior to the annoucement, it is a nice rain fall of unexpected return.

Among the Investment Gurus that we track, besides Warren Buffett who owns 76,777,029 shares or 11.53% of his equity portfolio, nine other Gurus also held BNI prior to the announcement. We are in the process to update Gurus’ holdings for 3Q09 as they becomes avaialble, so most of the data are still as of 2Q09:

2 Gurus Initiated Positions in BNI: George Soros (bought 55,900 shares or 0.16% of portfolio) and Ron Baron (bought 59,000 shares, or 0.04% of portfolio).

1 Guru Increased Positions in BNI: Kenneth Fisher owns 982,838 shares or 0.29% of his portfolio. Kenneth Fisher kept his positions steady for 3Q09.

6 Gurus Kept Positions in BNI Unchanged or Slightly Adjusted: Chris Davis (224,224 shares, 0.03% of Portfolio) , Tweedy Browne (1,334,954 shares, 5.82%), Prem Watsa (2,088,000 shares, 2.95%), Wallace Weitz (204,900 shares, 0.98%), PRIMECAP Management (100,000 shares, 0.02%), Jean-Marie Eveillard (15,000 shares, 0.01%).

Warren Buffett must have kept his intention to acquire the railway company close to his chest for all this time since he started to acquire shares in the company from 2007, for the Chairman, President and CEO of Burlington has sold large positions only recently. GuruFocus data shows Chairman, Pres. and CEO Matthew K Rose sold 24,079 shares of BNI stock on 09/11/2009 at the average price of 84.26, and on 07/28/2009 he sold another 78,820 shares. Rose may wish he had consulted Buffett before the sell.

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