Warren Buffet donates ₹7,250 cr in Berkshire Hathaway shares to charities for Thanksgiving
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American business magnate Warren Buffett said in a statement on Tuesday that he had gifted 2.4 million Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock to four family-run charitable foundations ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, continuing a tradition of giving away his massive wealth of about $120 billion.
“At Thanksgiving, I have much to be thankful for”, 92-year-old Buffett said as he announced gifts to the four charities-The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, The Sherwood Foundation, The Howard G. Buffett Foundation and NoVo Foundation.
It comes to approximately USD 876 million (around ₹7,250 crore) and is in addition to the regular donations he makes each summer to those foundations and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
This is the second year that Buffett has made additional gifts to the family foundations around Thanksgiving.
"My children, along with their father, have a common belief that dynastic wealth, though both legal and common in much of the world including the United States, is not desirable," Buffett said in the statement, adding that after his death, his children would act as trustees of a charitable trust that would inherit 99 per cent of his wealth.
The “testamentary trust will be self-liquidating after a decade or so and operate with a lean staff," Buffett said. His will be available for inspection at the county courthouse in Omaha, he said.
Buffett first committed to giving away his fortune in 2006, and in 2012, he increased the annual donations he made to the foundations.
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation is named after Buffett's first wife who has since passed away. His children are Susie, Howard and Peter Buffett.
In 2021, Warren Buffett estimated that he had given away about half of his wealth as counted by the number of Berkshire Hathaway shares that he holds. The remaining shares, he said, were valued at around USD 100 billion.
“I feel good but fully realize I am playing in extra innings," the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chief executive officer said in a Thanksgiving letter to shareholders. He’s long pledged that more than 99% of his wealth will go to philanthropy. “After my death, the disposition of my assets will be an open book — no ‘imaginative’ trusts or foreign entities to avoid public scrutiny but rather a simple will available for inspection at the Douglas County Courthouse" in Omaha, Nebraska, where he lives.
Buffett is the world’s ninth-richest person, with a $120.8 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and his fortune has gained $13.3 billion this year.
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In 2010, Warren Buffett initiated the Giving Pledge alongside Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, committing to donate his wealth during his lifetime or after his death. Four years earlier, he started making massive donations to both the Gates Foundation and foundations associated with his children.
Buffett, in a recent letter, disclosed that his three children, aged 65 to 70, serve as both executors of his present will and trustees of the charitable trust slated to receive his fortune.
“They were not fully prepared for this awesome responsibility in 2006, but they are now," Buffett said. “In administering the testamentary trust, the three must act unanimously. Because of the random nature of mortality, successors must always be designated. The trust’s charter will be broad."
Warren Buffett also said in the letter that he donated Berkshire Hathaway stock valued at more than $868 million to charities, including one named after his late wife, this week.
Buffett gave 1.5 million Class B shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and 300,000 shares each to the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation, according to a letter — the same number of shares donated to each group last year. He made the donation after converting 1,600 Class A shares into 2.4 million Class B shares.
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