[travisby]

Think of it more as a hard asset rather than as voting rights in a company:

Through one reason or another, you and I both own portions of a house. I own 95% of it, and you own 5%.

I want to sell, because I would like to have the money. You believe if we wait a year we will make more money. Is it fair that your very much minority position could prevent me from selling my much larger stake? It's a house so chances are we can't sell it piecemeal (which is unlike stock of a company, but very similar to going private as a company!)

[StillBored]

Except you point of the very problem with your argument. Stocks are liquid as small percentages of the company. It is quite possible for a single individual/organization to accumulate the vast majority of the shares/control of a company without forcing anyone to sell.

I've been through this a few times with stocks I've held, and rarely am I happy about the outcome. For example about 10 years ago I saw something that apparently no one else on wall street saw, so I purchased a number of shares in three competing companies in proportion to how well I saw them profiting over the next 5-10 years. It wasn't 6 months later that Warren Buffet announced he was buying the company I had bet on the heaviest.

Lets just say that I'm still sore about it 10 years later. I even checked the, "I want my stock converted to BRK/A" but they ignored it, because I was going to have too small a fraction of a single share of BRK (which would have been amusing by itself). Heck, in the 10 years since BRK/A has again doubled.

So, IMHO, its just another case of the market being rigged for the big investors.

[sokoloff]

Doubling in 10 years is a tick over 7% per year, hardly an amazing missed opportunity.

[gohrt]

Why didn't you buy shares of brk/b on the day your sale closed?

[NamTaf]

Without speaking on the GP's behalf, perhaps the leverage in a particular strategy represented by investing directly in the company made the risk worthwhile whereas the more diversified, risk-averse but lower-leverage investment represented by BRK/B was not?

[StillBored]

Yah, basically, what I did was buy more of the competing companies, even though I didn't think they were as as well positioned. Turned out to be a fine investment, better than the BRK would have been.

[beachy]

There is no right answer- it depends on how the company was set up, which in turn reflects the type of company it's founders wanted it to be.

We changed our company constitution for this exact reason. We felt that it was important that the majority owner could present an empowered, decision making face to the outside world, rather than having to start any discussion with"I'm here to talk, but I need to run anything past all the other owners".

This does impact on the rights of the minority owners - a 2% owner can't hold up or influence an acquisition for example - but the upside is that their shares are worth more than if the company was controlled by a squabbling rabble.

Having gone from a majority owner to a minority one, I still feel this was the right move for us.