The Firm represented the underwriters, J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, in the public offering of $8 billion of debt securities of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (“Berkshire”), consisting of $600,000,000 of 1.400% Senior Notes due 2012, $1,400,000,000 of 2.125% Senior Notes due 2013, $1,700,000,000 of 3.200% Senior Notes due 2015, $2,000,000,000 of Floating Rate Senior Notes due 2011, $1,100,000,000 of Floating Rate Senior Notes due 2012 and $1,200,000,000 of Floating Rate Senior Notes due 2013.
Berkshire will use the net proceeds from the debt offering to finance its acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (“BNSF”), which was approved by Burlington shareholders on February 11, 2010.
Berkshire owns subsidiaries that engage in a number of diverse business activities, including property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, utilities and energy, finance, manufacturing, services and retailing, and with the acquisition of BNSF, railroads. Subsidiaries include GEICO, the third largest auto insurer in the United States and two of the largest reinsurers in the world, General Re and the Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group.
The Simpson Thacher team for the transaction included Andy Keller, Ana Navia, Dora Jimenez and Till Lefranc (Capital Markets), Jonathan Cantor and Jennifer Klein (Tax) and Jennie Getsin (Blue Sky)