More people now likely to invest with Buffett

By Jonathan Stempel and Lilla Zuill

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If you always wanted to invest alongside Warren Buffett, but found it too expensive, you now have your chance.

Buffett's decision to conduct a 50-for-1 split of Class B shares of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc lowers the price of entry for ordinary investors who long found it prohibitively costly to buy the stock.

The split is one piece of Berkshire's $26 billion takeover of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp, and is intended to make it easier for shareholders of the railroad who want to swap their shares for Berkshire stock to do so.

Berkshire Class B shares closed Monday at $3,265. After a 50-for-1 split, they would cost just $65.30. Class A shares of Berkshire trade around 30 times the price of the Class B shares, or around $100,000, and are not being split. The split requires approval of Berkshire shareholders.

"I do think it will attract more investors," said Justin Fuller, author of the Buffettologist.com blog.

Buffett, 79, had never split Berkshire stock. The world's second-richest person reasoned that splits could attract speculators rather than the long-term investors he prefers for his Omaha, Nebraska-based insurance and investment company.

In a shareholder letter in March 1984, when Berkshire Class A shares traded around $1,300 and 12 years before the B shares were created, Buffett said a split would "attract an entering class of buyers inferior to the exiting class of sellers."

His tune has changed little. "I'm not big on stock splits," Buffett told CNBC television on Tuesday. He said Tuesday's split, however, will let small Burlington shareholders as well as larger ones participate in a tax-free stock swap.