BRIEF BUSINESS STORIES

Berkshire Hathaway, the investment vehicle of veteran investor Warren Buffett, is selling a new class of shares with a difference. These come with a health warning from the great man himself. Filings with America's Securities and Exchange Commission for the $112m offering say neither Mr Buffett nor vice-chairman Charles Munger would currently buy shares in Berkshire at the current price. "Nor would they recommend that their families or friends do so." The proposal to sell an initial tranche of 100,000 B shares at a thirtieth of the current price of around $34,000 a share is seen as a way of pre-empting plans by other companies to launch so-called "unit investment trusts". These would allow small investors to take a stake in Berkshire without putting up the full price of a share.

Ciba, the Swiss chemicals group in the midst of a merger with rivals Sandoz, is to sell its Mettler Toledo weighing and analytical instruments division for SFr919m (pounds 504m). The sale to AEA Investors of the US means that plans to float Mettler Toledo in Switzerland have been abandoned. The division, which had sales of over SFr1bn last year, will retain its existing management. AEA is one of the oldest private investment companies in the US. Its shareholders include 50 current or former heads of major international companies and institutions.

The High Court in London has given liquidators of the collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International until 26 April to prove its compensation claims against the Bank of England. Accountants Deloitte & Touche said they must show that the UK's banking regulator "deliberately and knowingly" breached its obligations in licensing BCCI and that it knew its depositors would probably suffer loss as a result.

British Rail's Network Train Engineering Services has been sold to to WS Atkins Consultants. The company, the last of BR's three railway engineering services companies to move into the private sector, offers specialist engineering consultancy services to the traction and rolling stock industry. The business employs about 120 people at Derby, Euston and Croydon.