Berkshire Hathaway Didn’t Have to Disclose Earlier its 10% Stake in Paramount. Here’s Why.

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Berkshire Hathaway
’s
purchase of more than 10% of

Paramount Global
,
disclosed late Monday, normally would have triggered an earlier regulatory filing. But Berkshire apparently didn’t have to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission because it owns non-voting shares in the media company.

The news of the Berkshire Hathaway (ticker: BRK.A, BRK.B) purchase of nearly 69 million class B shares of Paramount Global (PARA) in the first quarter is giving a nice lift to Paramount’s depressed stock, which recently hit a 52-week low. The stock up 10% in pre-market trading Tuesday to $30.90

Berkshire’s 13-F filing Monday showed that that it held 10.6% of Paramount, formerly ViacomCBS, based on Paramount’s latest share count as of late April, when Paramount had 40.7 million class A shares outstanding and 608.4 million class B shares.

Only the class A shares have voting rights. The class A stock is majority-owned by National Amusements, which is controlled by the Redstone family.

The SEC normally requires investors to disclose promptly through a Form 3 or 4 when they move over a 10% stake in a company. Those rules apparently don’t apply to non-voting stock, perhaps because Berkshire’s stake gives it no say in how Paramount is run.

Write to Andrew Bary at [email protected]