Finance History | Nebraska Furniture Mart, 30 August 1983 — US$55,337,777 Offered for 90 Percent

On 30 August 1983, Berkshire Hathaway proposed to buy 90 percent of Nebraska Furniture Mart for US$55,337,777 in 1983 dollars. The short written offer addressed Rose Blumkin and her family and described a cash purchase of the furniture and appliance retailer they had built around a single Omaha complex. The remaining 10 percent would stay with Louis Blumkin and his sons, preserving a meaningful family interest while Berkshire became the controlling owner. Closing depended on satisfying federal antitrust requirements, and the proposal provided for a 12 percent annual increase in the purchase price if that process extended beyond 50 days but not beyond 90 days. That provision assigned the first portion of regulatory timing risk to Berkshire without changing the basic economics of the negotiated purchase. Berkshire's willingness to proceed from unaudited financial statements reflected unusual confidence in the sellers, but the proposal still required title assurances and a certification about the company's shares, obligations, tax return and balance-sheet condition. The deal joined permanent capital with a retailer known for high volume, low prices and rapid inventory turnover rather than imposing a centralized operating program from Omaha. It also created an ownership pattern Berkshire would repeat: buy control from a family, retain capable managers and allow the operating business to keep its local identity. Three decades later, Berkshire's 2013 shareholder letter reported that the Omaha and Kansas City stores were each producing about US$450 million of annual sales in 2013 dollars, evidence that the acquired model could expand without losing its operating character. Retail economics remained demanding because large inventories, price competition, real-estate commitments and consumer-credit cycles could quickly pressure margins and working capital. The Kansas City store at 1601 Village West Parkway anchors that later expansion rather than the place where the 1983 offer was signed. The photographed site represents how a US$55,337,777 proposal in 1983 dollars developed from control of one Omaha retailer into a multistate home-furnishings operation still managed as Nebraska Furniture Mart. Photo: Lectrician2, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.