Cheapest Way To Buy Berkshire Hathaway in an ISA?

fcmisc

What would be the cheapest way to buy and hold Berkshire Hathaway in an ISA for 5-10 years?

Voyager2002

Simple: you cannot do so.

The ISA regulations only allow you to buy shares that are listed on the London Stock Exchange. If BH is listed there then the purchase is simple, but I doubt if it is listed in London, in which case you would have to buy it in a trading account and would not benefit from the tax relief.

le_loup

Voyager2002 wrote: »

The ISA regulations only allow you to buy shares that are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

That used to be true but I don't think it applies now.

bowlhead99

le_loup wrote: »

That used to be true but I don't think it applies now.

It doesn't apply.

Shares can qualify if they are issued by a company incorporated anywhere in the world and are either 'listed' on a recognised stock exchange or 'admitted to trading' on a recognised stock exchange in the EEA. By company shares it needs to be (e.g.) ordinary shares, preference shares etc, i.e. actual shares and not derivatives such as most types of warrants, options, futures, or nil paid rights purchased on the market.

I have / have had shares listed in US, Canada, all over Europe, Austrialia , HK etc in my ISA. That's with TD Direct Investing who are a mainstream and popular broker/platform. There would certainly be no issue buying Berkshire Hathaway. The annual admin fees are waived if you have over ~£5k of shares, so you can pay once to buy them and then just hold them with no ongoing fee.

If you were using a cheap broker with a free ISA wrapper like x-o.co.uk who doesn't deal in international stocks then you would need to change broker to one who did.

buffman

The cost of ONE Berkshire Hathaway share today is $254,702.02 - slightly above the ISA limit even after it increases in April!

ColdIron

buffman wrote: »

The cost of ONE Berkshire Hathaway share today is $254,702.02 - slightly above the ISA limit even after it increases in April!

That is true for the class A shares (BRK.A) but the class B shares (BRKB) are a more reasonable $169.87 and can also be held in an ISA

fcmisc

bowlhead99 wrote: »

It doesn't apply.

Shares can qualify if they are issued by a company incorporated anywhere in the world and are either 'listed' on a recognised stock exchange or 'admitted to trading' on a recognised stock exchange in the EEA. By company shares it needs to be (e.g.) ordinary shares, preference shares etc, i.e. actual shares and not derivatives such as most types of warrants, options, futures, or nil paid rights purchased on the market.

I have / have had shares listed in US, Canada, all over Europe, Austrialia , HK etc in my ISA. That's with TD Direct Investing who are a mainstream and popular broker/platform. There would certainly be no issue buying Berkshire Hathaway. The annual admin fees are waived if you have over ~£5k of shares, so you can pay once to buy them and then just hold them with no ongoing fee.

If you were using a cheap broker with a free ISA wrapper like x-o.co.uk who doesn't deal in international stocks then you would need to change broker to one who did.

Do they have reasonable fx fees? HL charges 1.5%!

fcmisc

The best I can find is IG.

https://www.ig.com/uk/investments/share-dealing/costs-fees

$15 per trade.
0.3% currency fee.

I'm not sure if IG are a good company or not though

mrodent

I currently have some BRK.B (Berkshire Hathaway in my HL ISA account. I'd like to keep it, but I'm moving all my stuff out of HL in search of lower costs.

I have an account with Lloyds Sharedealing (for funds) and another with IWEB (also owned by Lloyds although most Lloyds Bank personnel are unaware of it), where the charging structure for ETFs and regular shares (I have none) is low.

BUT... I have found that through Lloyds Sharedealing you can only buy funds which are in the Cofunds list. So certainly not BRK.B.

Would love to know if it is feasible to put these BRK.Bs in an ISA on a cheap platform...

greenglide

It looks to me that these can be bought through TD and Youinvest.

Depends on your definition of "low cost".

jimjames

mrodent wrote: »

BUT... I have found that through Lloyds Sharedealing you can only buy funds which are in the Cofunds list. So certainly not BRK.B.

Would love to know if it is feasible to put these BRK.Bs in an ISA on a cheap platform...

I just checked on iWeb and you can buy BRK.B via them. iWeb might ultimately be owned by Lloyds but it's more based on the Halifax platform so understandable Lloyds staff aren't aware as it's not available in branch