此次会议将于2010年1月20日上午9点半在奥马哈的荷兰表演艺术中心举行。会议将表决收购伯灵顿北方铁路公司的事项，同时为了让原伯灵顿的小股东可以免税交换伯克夏的B股，巴菲特罕见地要把伯克夏的B股一股拆成50股，从而把目前3300美元一股的B股变成约66美元一股。由于巴菲特控制伯克夏31.6%的股份，所以表决的结果应该没有意外。

原文来自CNBC的巴菲特观察栏目：

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has set the date for a shareholders meeting related to its planned acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe .

In a preliminary proxy statement filed this morning with the SEC, Berkshire gives notice that a special meeting of shareholders will be held at 9:30a on Wednesday, January 20, 2010, at Omaha's Holland Performing Arts Center.     

Shareholders are being asked to approve a 50-for-1 split of Berkshire's Class B shares, without splitting the higher-priced Class A shares.

That split would bring Class B shares down from about $3300 each (at today's price) to roughly $66 each.

In an interview with CNBC just after the Burlington deal was announced about a month ago, Buffett told us:

"I'm not big on stock splits. But by having this split, it enables anybody that has as little as one share of BNSF to opt for the tax-free exchange... So those small shareholders can have exactly the same availability that otherwise would only have been available to a big shareholder."

We assume this meeting will be all business, with a relatively small number of people in attendance, unlike the annual party/media frenzy that accompanies Berkshire's regular shareholders meeting each May. 

And there's no doubt about the outcome.  Buffett has 31.6 percent of the aggregate voting power of both classes of Berkshire stock, owning 350,000 shares of Class A and 1,500,618 shares of Class B.

Those shareholders who do make the journey to Omaha on January 20, instead of submitting their proxies by mail, can expect an average high temperature of 32 degrees, and an average low of 11 degrees, with a mean of 22 degrees.