Warren Buffett has been an active philanthropist for decades now, which is good news for the charities that find themselves beneficiaries of his largess. Five different charities recently landed a pot of Berkshire Hathaway Class B (NYSE:BRK.B), which added up to a total in the multi-billion range. Buffett gave away a hefty sum in Berkshire shares, shelling out around $4.64 billion to a total of five different charities. The charity that got the bulk of the payout? None other than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.
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The donations arrived on Tuesday when Berkshire closed at $338.61. In addition, Buffett has now donated more than $50 billion cumulatively. That’s actually more than Buffett himself was worth back in 2006, he noted. But don’t cry for Buffett; he’s currently debt-free, and his remaining class A shares (NYSE:BRK.A) are worth a combined total of $112 billion. That’s most of his net worth, as he only has 344 shares of class B stock left.
Buffett describes the processes that keep his share value so high as the “American tailwind,” a combination of factors that are unique to America itself. That combination allows the United States to continue building wealth, whether in peacetime or in wartime, both conditions that Buffett has seen over the last several decades. Meanwhile, the charities Buffett most recently contributed to offer support for everything from hunger to reproductive health to issues specific to Nebraska.
Hedge funds, however, don’t seem to be that interested in BRK.B stock. Indeed, Hedge funds currently have a “Very Negative” confidence level in Berkshire Hathaway class B stock, and in the last quarter, they reduced their holdings of it by 6.7 million shares. That’s the third consecutive quarter that hedge funds trimmed their positions. If it hadn’t been for a slight jump in July 2022, it would actually have been the seventh.
