Gates Has $300M of Buffett’s Stock
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Bill Gates, the world’s richest person, disclosed that he has acquired more than $300 million worth of stock during the past decade in the company run by his friend and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett.
The co-founder and chairman of software giant Microsoft Corporation, Mr. Gates reported Tuesday night in a regulatory filing that he owns 3,580 Class A shares of Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Mr. Gates was required to reveal the holdings after being named a director December 14 at Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire.
The Berkshire Hathaway investment represents less than 1% of Mr. Gates’s personal fortune, estimated at $48 billion in the September edition of Forbes magazine. It shows how Mr. Gates has used proceeds from the sale of billions of dollars in Microsoft stock to diversify into the type of low-tech businesses favored by Mr. Buffett.
“Berkshire is old industry – candy and newspapers and insurance,” said Andrew Kilpatrick, who wrote a 1,500-page book called “Of Permanent Value: the Story of Warren Buffett.” “That makes it a logical conclusion for Gates if something were to ever blow up in the computer world.”
According to Mr. Kilpatrick’s book, first published in 1994, a slew of well-known individuals have invested in Berkshire as a way of tapping Mr. Buffett’s stock-picking and business acumen. These range from Don Shula, former head coach of the Miami Dolphins professional football team, to Ted Koppel, the host of ABC’s Nightline, and even Mr. Gates’s father, Bill Sr.
Mr. Buffett, 74, has used Berkshire Hathaway to take large stakes in a handful of well-known businesses, ranging from Coca-Cola Co. to American Express Co. and Gillette Co. In recent years, Mr. Buffett has opted to buy entire companies rather than simply acquire some of their stock, with recent examples including mobile home manufacturer Clayton Homes Inc. and underwear maker Fruit of the Loom Ltd.
Mr. Buffett, listed by Forbes as the world’s second richest person, has been friends with Mr. Gates for years, and the two sometimes play bridge together. Berkshire’s directors voted to have Gates join the board – filling the seat left open by the death of Buffett’s wife Susan – and the software pioneer reported his company holdings on a Form 3 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
