Berkshire Hathaway's Telltale Stock Split

P/>OMAHA, Neb. (TheStreet) -- Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK-A) $44 billion acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) announced on Tuesday had Warren Buffett written all over it, but the move to split its B-class shares to a fraction of their current size may speak to an epoch when he's no longer around.

The investor-insurance conglomerate is paying $100 a share for the stalwart U.S. railroad company, of which it had already owned a 23% stake. The deal represents a further rebalancing of Berkshire's portfolio, and comes just days after the firm reported the sale of 1.15 million Moody's (MCO) shares. It also represents a belief in the U.S. economic recovery. Buffett called it "an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States."

Buffett has reiterated that view throughout the recession, while making high-profile investment in Goldman Sachs (GS) and General Electric (GE), and maintaining positions in U.S. Bancorp (USB) and Wells Fargo (WFC).

"It was simple -- $100 a share; it's not $98.50 or anything like that," says R. Jordan Smyth, Jr., managing director of Edgemoor Investment Advisors, speaking to Buffett's style of simple deal-making for businesses he understands well.