(Reuters) – Warren Buffett has donated $5.3 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to five charities, the largest donation since he began giving in 2006.
The donation, announced Friday, involves approximately 13 million Berkshire Class B shares, of which 9.93 million will go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Warren Buffett also said he is donating 993,035 shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named in honor of his late first wife, and 695,122 shares to each of three charities run by his children Howard, Susan and Peter: the Foundation Howard G. Buffett, the Sherwood Foundation and the NoVo Foundation.
The 93-year-old businessman plans to sell more than 99 percent of the fortune he built at the Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire conglomerate, which he has led since 1965.
Although he sold more than half of his Berkshire shares, Warren Buffett still has a fortune estimated at $134.3 billion, which makes him the eighth richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine.
With the donation announced Friday, its total donations to charities reach approximately $57 billion.
(Written by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Niket Nishant in Bangalore; Mathias de Rozario, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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