Tom Perkins, who is leaving the News Corp. board next month after saying two octogenarian directors are too many, wouldn't feel so old if he served at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Buffett, 81, and Vice Chairman Charles Munger, 87, are among six directors on the 12-member board at Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire who are at least 80 years old. News Corp. Director Kenneth Cowley, 76, is also stepping down at the firm's Oct. 21 annual meeting as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch, 80, adds 50-year-old James Breyer to the board.
Berkshire's willingness to retain directors in their ninth decades reflects Buffett's influence on the firm and a national trend toward older boards. About 15 percent of directors at companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index are older than 69, compared with 9.8 percent in 2002, according to data compiled by executive-compensation benchmarking firm Equilar. Proxy filings reviewed by Bloomberg showed 52 directors were age 80 or older.
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