By Jonathan Stempel
OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) – Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:) Inc shareholders on Saturday overwhelmingly rejected six proposals addressing environmental and social policy issues at Warren Buffett's conglomerate, all of which were opposed by the billionaire investor and his board. directive.
By margins of more than 4 to 1, shareholders at Berkshire's annual meeting voted against two proposals that the company's insurance and energy operations disclose more about its efforts to address climate change, including gas emissions. greenhouse effect.
They also rejected a proposal for greater disclosure about efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.
Shareholders overwhelmingly voted against a separate environmental-related proposal, creating a board-level committee to monitor safety at BNSF's rail unit and requiring Berkshire to report annually on how much its business operations depend on it. of the “hostile” Chinese government.
Berkshire invested in Chinese electric car company BYD (SZ:) in 2008, although it began reducing that stake in 2022.
The votes were not surprising because Buffett owns special stock that gives him a 31% voting stake in Berkshire. That makes it difficult to adopt proposals that Buffett opposes.
Berkshire shareholders also re-elected the company's 14-person board of directors.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
