World’s richest number five, Warren Buffett has donated about $4bn to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and four family charities.
Buffett made the donation in his commitment towards giving away nearly all of his net worth.
The number five World Richest man revealed that the donation will be given through his company Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N), which has been running since 1965.
According to reports, the donation comprises about 14.4 million of Berkshire’s Class B shares, whose closing price on Tuesday was $277.64.
“Eleven million shares will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and 1.1 million will go to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for Buffett’s late first wife,” Reuters reported.
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates pioneered “The Giving Pledge,” where more than 200 people including Michael Bloomberg, Larry Ellison, Carl Icahn, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg committed at least half their fortunes to philanthropy.
Another 770,000 shares will also go to each of three charities run by Buffett’s children Howard, Susan and Peter: the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation and the Novo Foundation.
Recall that since 2006, the 91-year-old Buffett has donated more than half of his Berkshire shares, with the donations worth about $45.5bn as at the time he made the donation.
Despite the donations, Buffett still owns approximately 16 per cent of Berkshire and controls about one-third of its voting power.
Both percentages have been fairly stable in recent years because Berkshire has aggressively repurchased its own stock.
Warren Buffett has built Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire into a conglomerate worth over $600bn, owning dozens of businesses such as the BNSF railroad and Geico auto insurance, and stocks such as Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N).
