Buffett gives $37 billion to Gates and other foundations
Sunday June 25, 6:25 pm ET
By Robert MacMillan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is donating a total of $37 billion -- most of his personal fortune -- to a foundation started by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and to several family foundations, making it the largest-ever individual charitable gift in the United States.
Buffett, 75, is the chief executive of investment firm Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A - News). He is worth an estimated $44 billion, according to Forbes magazine, making him the second-richest man behind Gates, who is worth about $50 billion.
The $37 billion comprises about 85 percent of Buffett's fortune.
In a letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Buffett, 75, said he will set aside 10 million shares of Berkshire class B common stock (NYSE:BRK-B - News) for the foundation.
Based on the stock's per-share price of $3071.01 as of Friday, the total amount for the Gates foundation comes to about $30 billion.
The amount is the largest commitment to a philanthropic cause ever made by one person in the United States, said Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
"Even if you look at what (John D.) Rockefeller and (Andrew) Carnegie gave historically -- even if you do it in today's numbers, it doesn't come close to that," she said.
In a letter to the Gateses, Buffett wrote that "You have committed yourselves to a few extraordinarily important but underfunded issues, a policy that I believe offers the highest probability of your achieving goals of great consequence."
"We are awed by our friend Warren Buffett's decision to use his fortune to address the world's most challenging inequities, and we are humbled that he has chosen to direct a large portion of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation," the Gateses said in a statement on the foundation's Web site.
Buffett also pledged 1 million shares to a foundation established for his late wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, and 350,000 shares each to foundations for children Howard, Susan and Peter.
He said he will award 5 percent of the shares he has set aside on a yearly basis.
The amount going to the Gates foundation in the first year alone would be worth more than $1.5 billion.
Gates is a Berkshire director, and a bridge partner of Buffett's. Buffett, meanwhile, serves on the board of the Washington Post Co.(NYSE:WPO - News) with Melinda Gates.
The announcement comes after Gates, 50, said he would move away from his day-to-day role at the Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) to focus more on charity work.
Now worth $30 billion, the Gates foundation is one of the world's richest philanthropic organizations. It has committed millions of dollars to fighting diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries, and to education and library technology in the United States.
In letters to the recipients, he said he will award the gifts every year for the rest of his life. He is in "excellent health," he wrote to the Gates foundation, but said that he is writing a new will to ensure that the stock is distributed after his death.
The gift is contingent on one of the Gateses continuing to be involved in the foundation, Buffett said.
Berkshire Hathaway officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
By Robert MacMillan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is donating a total of $37 billion -- most of his personal fortune -- to a foundation started by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and to several family foundations, making it the largest-ever individual charitable gift in the United States.
Buffett, 75, is the chief executive of investment firm Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A - News). He is worth an estimated $44 billion, according to Forbes magazine, making him the second-richest man behind Gates, who is worth about $50 billion.
The $37 billion comprises about 85 percent of Buffett's fortune.
In a letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Buffett, 75, said he will set aside 10 million shares of Berkshire class B common stock (NYSE:BRK-B - News) for the foundation.
Based on the stock's per-share price of $3071.01 as of Friday, the total amount for the Gates foundation comes to about $30 billion.
The amount is the largest commitment to a philanthropic cause ever made by one person in the United States, said Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
"Even if you look at what (John D.) Rockefeller and (Andrew) Carnegie gave historically -- even if you do it in today's numbers, it doesn't come close to that," she said.
In a letter to the Gateses, Buffett wrote that "You have committed yourselves to a few extraordinarily important but underfunded issues, a policy that I believe offers the highest probability of your achieving goals of great consequence."
"We are awed by our friend Warren Buffett's decision to use his fortune to address the world's most challenging inequities, and we are humbled that he has chosen to direct a large portion of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation," the Gateses said in a statement on the foundation's Web site.
Buffett also pledged 1 million shares to a foundation established for his late wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, and 350,000 shares each to foundations for children Howard, Susan and Peter.
He said he will award 5 percent of the shares he has set aside on a yearly basis.
The amount going to the Gates foundation in the first year alone would be worth more than $1.5 billion.
Gates is a Berkshire director, and a bridge partner of Buffett's. Buffett, meanwhile, serves on the board of the Washington Post Co.(NYSE:WPO - News) with Melinda Gates.
The announcement comes after Gates, 50, said he would move away from his day-to-day role at the Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) to focus more on charity work.
Now worth $30 billion, the Gates foundation is one of the world's richest philanthropic organizations. It has committed millions of dollars to fighting diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries, and to education and library technology in the United States.
In letters to the recipients, he said he will award the gifts every year for the rest of his life. He is in "excellent health," he wrote to the Gates foundation, but said that he is writing a new will to ensure that the stock is distributed after his death.
The gift is contingent on one of the Gateses continuing to be involved in the foundation, Buffett said.
Berkshire Hathaway officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
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