Warren Buffett donates $ 3.6 billion in Berkshire shares to 5 foundations, including Gates
Warren Buffett, chair of the board of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., right and Bill Gates, chairman and co-founder of Microsoft Corp., attends a newspaper event at Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, May 5, 2012.
Daniel Acker | Getty Images
Warren Buffett said he will donate $ 3.6 billion of Berkshire Hathaway shares for five reasons, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Omaha Oracle will convert 1[ads1]1,250 of the A shares to 16,875 million B shares. About 16.8 million of these B shares will be donated to five bases: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation, the company said in a statement on Monday.
In a letter from 2006, Buffett promised to make annual gifts of Berkshire B shares throughout his life in favor of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He donated $ 1.5 billion of shares that year.
Berkshire said Buffett had never sold any shares in Berkshire, and about 45% of its 2006 holdings were given to the five foundations, a total of about $ 34 billion.
Buffett plans to give away all his Berkshire shares through annual gifts, which will be completed ten years after the property is settled, the company said.
Buffett is Berkshire's largest shareholder, and owns 37.4% of the A shares, according to FactSet. Stocks in Berkshire rose 4.4% so far this year, significantly underperforming the broad market.
