(The following story by Bob Cox appeared on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram website on February 11, 2010.)
FORT WORTH, Texas — Stockholders of Burlington Northern Corp. on Thursday voted to approve the sale of the railroad company to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
BNSF officials said owners of about 70 percent of BNSF shares not already owned by Berkshire voted to approve the sale at $100 a share.
The deal, which will become final today when the paperwork is submitted and approved in Delaware, marks the transition of Fort Worth-based BNSF from a publicly traded company answerable to stockholders to the relative security of being just a part of Buffett’s empire.
“We are at an important milestone in our 160-year history,” Matt Rose, CEO of BNSF, said after a shareholders meeting at the company’s far north Fort Worth headquarters. “This is a vote of confidence in BNSF and the future of freight rail, and it demonstrates how well our business model is aligned with our new parent company.”
Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire, did not attend the meeting. In a statement, he said he’s looking forward to the new BNSF era “as our railroad does its part to ensure the future prosperity of the country.”
Buffett has called his $26.3 billion acquisition of BNSF “an all-in bet” on the future of BNSF “and the economic future of the United States.” He has said railroads should thrive as the U.S., seeking energy efficiency and facing traffic congestion on highways, hauls more freight on rails.
After the meeting, Rose said there should be little difference in how BNSF operates, except that the focus will be more long-term than it has been.
Berkshire Hathaway’s “style is letting companies do what they do best,” Rose said. “Warren has been very clear he wants to operate this like it’s a family company that’s been around for a 100 years.”
Rose said he won’t miss quarterly earnings calls with financial analysts and the pressure of producing every last nickel of profit to drive short-term stock prices.
“This team will always be very performance-driven,” he said. “We will be very focused on putting up results. But we won’t necessarily be worried about individual quarters. We will be looking at the long-term horizon.”
BNSF operates one of the largest North American railroad networks, with about 32,000 miles in 28 states and two Canadian provinces. It employs about 38,000 people nationwide, including 3,300 in the Fort Worth area.