California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund, said it plans to vote for a shareholder proposal that Berkshire Hathaway Inc. select an independent chairman, marking a rare rebuke of billionaire Warren Buffett, who’s both head of the board and the conglomerate’s chief executive officer.
The fund has more than $450 billion in assets under management and about $2.3 billion in Berkshire shares, it said in a filing Tuesday. The pension is supporting a proposal from the non-profit National Legal and Policy Center, also a Berkshire shareholder, that calls for the company to name an independent chair, saying the governance structure is weakened by having the chairman and CEO roles held by the same person.
