Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK.B)

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Bar1080, One problem with Berkshire's approach as they've gotten bigger is that they now tend to acquire controlling interests in companies, or else buy the companies outright.

It's tough enough managing a single company, but trying to manage a whole group of disparate companies efficiently is far from ideal. Even if you keep the existing management in place, their motivation and focus won't be the same as when they were the owners of the company.

Better to have a minority interest that is big enough to have some clout on the Board, but not so large that you remove ownership by the current successful group.

That said, Berkshire seems to be doing well, but as it gets bigger the trend will likely be to take on even more full ownership positions. The 'conglomerate' business model was once popular, but there aren't many conglomerates these days, they found that the businesses could be run more efficiently as independent companies.