Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Grows Less Transparent

For years, Lubrizol filed annual reports with securities regulators that ran 80 pages or more, detailing everything from inventories to pension obligations. Today, investors won’t find its earnings in public filings. The reason: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought the chemical maker in 2011 for about $9 billion and now lumps together its results with those of several other manufacturing businesses.

Buffett, 83, has long highlighted his candor and desire to give equal access to information about the company. The billionaire Berkshire chairman and chief executive officer often includes self-critiques in letters to shareholders and takes hours of questions at an annual meeting in Omaha. Yet the $280 billion company, which is poised to post a record full-year profit on March 1, has become less transparent during Buffett’s five-decade-long acquisition spree. “It’s a critical issue,” says Meyer Shields, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW), who has a hold rating on the stock. “You don’t really know what you’re getting within Berkshire Hathaway.”