Buffett pledges $30 billion to Gates foundation
Posted on: Sunday, 25 June 2006, 15:43 CDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive Warren Buffett is donating about $30 billion in stock to a charitable foundation started by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the firm said on Sunday.
In a letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Buffett said he will set aside 10 million shares of class B common stock for the foundation.
He said he will award 5 percent of the balance of those shares to the foundation each year.
Based on the stock's per-share price of $3071.01 as of Friday, the first year's gift of 500,000 shares would be worth more than $1.5 billion.
Buffett, 75, made the pledge as he prepares to give away 85 percent of his personal fortune, valued at $44 billion to support philanthropic causes, according to Fortune magazine. The bulk of that stock will go to the Gates foundation.
The announcement comes after Gates, 50, said he would move away from his day-to-day role at the Redmond, Washington-based software company 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.
Buffett also pledged annual gifts to a foundation established for his late wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, as well as children Howard, Susan and Peter.
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 were not immediately available for comment.
Source: REUTERS
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