Warren Buffett’s annual gift of Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is worth about $1.6 billion dollars this time around.
That’s an increase of 28 percent from the value of last tears gift, even though Buffett is donating roughly one million fewer shares. The shares are up almost 35 percent over the 12-months since Buffett’s previous donation.
But Buffett said “you can reasonably expect the value of Berkshire shares to increase, in an irregular manner, by an amount that more than compensates for the decline in the number of shares that will be distributed.”
So far, that’s turned out to be true for every year except 2009.
| BUFFETT’S ANNUAL BRK.B STOCK GIFTS TO GATES FOUNDATION | ||||
| Number of Shares | Share Price At Time of Gift | Market Value | Pct. Change | |
| 2006 | 25,000,000 | $60.86 | $1,521,500,000 | |
| 2007 | 23,750,000 | $74.28 | $1,764,150,000 | +15.9% |
| 2008 | 22,562,500 | $79.98 | $1,804,548,750 | +2.3% |
| 2009 | 21,434,375 | $58.48 | $1,253,482,250 | -30.5% |
| 2010 | 20,362,656 | $78.81 | $1,604,780,939 | +28.0% |
| TOTALS | 113,109,531 | $70.27 | $7,948,461,939 | |
| Adjusted to reflect 50-for-1 stock split in January, 2010 | ||||
With this year’s installment, Buffett has given the Gates Foundation 22.6 percent of the 500 million shares he earmarked four years ago, representating almost all of his vast personal fortune. Total market value at the time of the donations: almost $8 billion.