BLOOMBERG: Berkshire Zero Strikes Offered in Asia for First Time

By Angus Whitley

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- A Malaysian bank offered securities that track Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock, allowing investors to bet on Warren Buffett’s company for a fraction of the price of the New York-listed shares.

AmInvestment Bank started selling so-called zero-strike warrants on Berkshire Class B shares in Asia’s first program of its type, it said in a statement today. For a minimum payment of 100 ringgit ($27), investors can buy an asset listed in Malaysia that will mature in five years and reflect the performance of shares of the Omaha, Nebraska-based company.

“What we want to do is take something that is inaccessible, list it here, and make it something that people can buy,” Ng Ee Fang, head of equity derivatives at Kuala Lumpur-based AmInvestment, said in an interview. “People are looking for alternative investments.”

A single lot of 10 Berkshire Class B shares costs $27,400, more than four times the per capita income in Malaysia, according to data from the central bank. Billionaire Buffett, who invested in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in the financial crisis, says buying opportunities are now appearing in the U.S. after he scouted Europe for takeover targets last year, according to a Bloomberg Television interview aired today.

Berkshire has dropped 37 percent in the past 12 months. The benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index lost 32 percent in the same period.

The lots of 100 zero-strike warrants on Berkshire shares -- at 1 ringgit each -- can be traded on the Malaysian stock exchange like conventional equities, said AmInvestment, which is a unit of AMMB Holdings Bhd., Malaysia’s fifth-biggest bank.

Ng said the Malaysian bank may increase its 100 million- ringgit offering of the strikes if there’s sufficient demand.

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