Billionaire Buffett gives stock to charity

More than $2.05 billion awarded to three charitable foundations

Related stories

Photo features

Reuters	The Week in Pictures From a community effort to put out a fire to snow-covered vineyards, a look at some of the week’s most compelling images.
Reuters	PhotoBlog View and discuss the pictures and issues that caught our eyes.

NBC Field Notes

NBC News correspondents and producers across the U.S. shed light on the news of the day.

updated 12:47 p.m. ET July 8, 2008

OMAHA, Neb. - Billionaire Warren Buffett has given away 512,169 Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock to three charitable foundations in keeping with his plan to give away the bulk of his fortune.

The gifts were revealed in paperwork filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Those shares were worth $3,999 each, more than $2.05 billion total, at the close of trading July 1, the day Buffett transferred their ownership. Most of the shares — 451,250 — went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

Buffett said in 2006 that he planned to give 10 million B shares to the Gates Foundation over time, 1 million B shares for the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation named in honor of his first wife, and 350,000 shares for each of the three foundations run by his three children.

Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway owns a variety of companies, including insurance, clothing, furniture, jewelry and candy companies, restaurants, natural gas and corporate jet firms and has major investments in such companies as Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co.