Donate another 33 billion!, Buffett's move to Berkshire | Value | Buffett

According to foreign media reports, Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, donated another $4.6 billion on June 21st!

Buffett donated $4.6 billion worth of Berkshire stocks to five organizations, with the majority going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and $1 billion to four charitable organizations run by Buffett's three children.

It is understood that this is Buffett's annual charitable donation, and since the donation program began in 2006, Buffett has been donating Berkshire Hathaway stocks to these institutions every year at this time.

Buffett: Over 99% of assets will be used for charity

Buffett is regarded as the "stock god". Using the principle of value investment, Buffett achieved a compound annual growth rate of 19.8% for businesses between 1965 and 2022, and he himself became one of the wealthiest people on Earth. At the same time, he is also very passionate about charitable causes.

In 2010, Buffett, along with Bill Gates and Melinda Lynch Gates, initiated the "Donation Promise", stating that he would donate 99% of his assets either during his lifetime or after his death. Buffett donates annually to five major foundations: the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Novo Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Apart from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the other four charitable organizations are managed by his three children.

According to Buffett's convention, he converted his Class A shares with super voting rights into Class B shares before donating. He donated a total of 13.7 million Berkshire B-shares this time, with a total market value of over 4.6 billion US dollars.

Buffett previously stated in a statement, "The annual gift schedule was established on June 26, 2006, and subsequently, a large number of gifts were made to four out of five recipients. Initially, I owned 474998 Berkshire Class A shares worth approximately $43 billion, which accounted for over 98% of my net assets. Before making the donation, I converted Class A shares into Class B shares."

If calculated based on the closing price of Berkshire's A-shares on June 21st, Buffett's original holdings of 474998 A-shares were worth approximately $244.9 billion. This means that if he had not made these donations, his current value would have surpassed Bernard Arnault and his family of the Louis Vuitton Group, firmly ranking first on the global billionaire list.

After this donation, Buffett still holds 218287 Berkshire Class A shares, valued at $112 billion based on the latest closing price. Buffett currently holds approximately 15% of Berkshire's shares and nearly 30% of voting rights.

Previously, Forbes Rich List data showed that Buffett currently ranks fifth among global billionaires, with a wealth of $106 billion.

Buffett said, "In the past 17 years, I have neither bought nor sold any A-shares or B-shares, and I have no intention of doing so. The Berkshire B-shares received by these five foundations were worth about $50 billion at the time of receipt, far exceeding all of my net assets in 2006. I have no debt, and my remaining A-shares are worth about $112 billion, far exceeding 99% of my net assets."

Buffett further stated, "Nothing particularly happened at Berkshire; a long runway, wise overall decisions, favorable winds in the United States, and a compound effect have shaped my current wealth. My will stipulates that over 99% of my assets will be used for charitable purposes."

Rich people are passionate about charity

It is understood that in recent years, similar to Buffett, global billionaires have been very enthusiastic about charitable causes.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates joined Buffett in 2022 and plans to donate all of his wealth. Gates previously stated, "I have an obligation to give back my personal resources to society, thereby having a significant impact on reducing pain and improving life. I hope that other people with enormous wealth and privileges can also stand up at this moment."

"Looking into the future, I plan to donate almost all of my wealth to the foundation. My ranking on the list of the wealthiest people in the world will continue to decline and eventually withdraw from the list." Gates wrote in a previous tweet, announcing that he would donate an additional $20 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates have pledged over $50 billion to the foundation since 1994.

In 2022, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced plans to donate most of his $122 billion fortune.

Not only overseas billionaires, but also Chinese billionaires are very enthusiastic about charitable causes. In 2022, Hurun Research Institute released the 2022 Hurun Charity List, with 49 Chinese entrepreneurs donating over 100 million yuan in the past year, totaling 72.8 billion yuan. Among them, Liu Qiangdong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of JD Group, Wang Xing, Chairman of Meituan, and Lei Jun, Chairman of Xiaomi Group, ranked in the top three with total donations of 14.9 billion yuan, 14.7 billion yuan, and 14.5 billion yuan, respectively.

According to statistics from Hurun Research Institute, in 2022, entrepreneurs will mainly donate in three directions: education, disaster relief, and rural revitalization. The number of people donating to the education sector is the highest, with 66% of philanthropists on the list making contributions to the education industry, an increase of 27% compared to the previous year; The number of donations in disaster relief ranked second in 2022, accounting for 28%; The proportion of donations for rural revitalization is 21%, ranking third.

"In the past, the older generation of entrepreneurs in China were more accustomed to using donations to solve people's food and clothing problems when doing charity. In recent years, entrepreneurs' charitable behavior has developed new models in addition to traditional forms of donations." Hu Run, the chairman of Hurun Baifu, said that relatively speaking, a company's economic power is much higher than an individual's economic power, which can address the biggest problems in society, including poverty alleviation, environmental protection, etc., while individuals mostly do charity related to education and healthcare.