Billionaire Warren Buffett announced that he’ll be giving away an additional $6 billion of his company’s stock to five different charities, one of which is run by Bill Gates.
Buffett, still worth $152 billion, is donating upwards of 12 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Gates Foundation and four other foundations controlled by his wife and three children.
This marks his biggest charitable contribution since 2006, when he pledged he’d give away the bulk of his fortune before he died.
The 94-year-old investor is giving 9.43 million Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Gates Foundation.
Another 943,384 shares are being directed to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the organization named for his wife, who died in 2004.
Finally, another 660,366 shares will sent to each of the three charities led respectively by his children Howard, Susie, and Peter: the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Sherwood Foundation and NoVo Foundation.
The donations will be officially made on Monday.
Billionaire Warren Buffett announced that he’ll be giving away an additional $6 billion of his company’s stock to five different charities
Buffett converted 8,239 class A shares – each worth a staggering $730,000 – into 12,358,500 class B shares.
A shares are original stock in Berkshire Hathaway and have high voting power, whereas B shares were created in 1996 primarily so retail investors could own shares of the company.
The vast majority of the newly created class B shares – worth about $485 apiece – were donated to the five foundations Buffett has been consistently donating to for decades.
Despite just giving away billions of dollars, Buffett will retain control over the company because he owns just under 40 percent of the class A shares.
Overall, he owns 13.8 percent of Berkshire’s stock, making him the world’s fifth richest person, according to Forbes.
