Here, have 30 Billion Dollars

[Miasma]

Warren Buffett has always been a pretty great guy and now he plans to go out on a high note.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive
Warren Buffett is donating about $30 billion in stock to a charitable foundation started by Microsoft Corp. co-founder
Bill Gates, the firm said on Sunday.

In a letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Buffett said he will set aside 10 million shares of class B common stock for the foundation.

He said he will award 5 percent of the balance of those shares to the foundation each year.

Based on the stock's per-share price of $3071.01 as of Friday, the first year's gift of 500,000 shares would be worth more than $1.5 billion.

Buffett, 75, made the pledge as he prepares to give away 85 percent of his personal fortune, valued at $44 billion to support philanthropic causes, according to Fortune magazine. The bulk of that stock will go to the Gates foundation.

The announcement comes after Gates, 50, said he would move away from his day-to-day role at the Redmond, Washington-based software company to focus more on charity work.

Now worth $30 billion, the Gates foundation is one of the world's richest philanthropic organizations. It has committed millions of dollars to fighting diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries, and to education and library technology in the United States.

Buffett also pledged annual gifts to a foundation established for his late wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, as well as children Howard, Susan and Peter.

In letters to the recipients, he said he will award the gifts every year for the rest of his life. He is in "excellent health," he wrote to the Gates foundation, but said that he is writing a new will to ensure that the stock is distributed after his death.

The gift is contingent on one of the Gateses continuing to be involved in the foundation, Buffett said.

Berkshire Hathaway officials were not immediately available for comment.

I'm not sure why he wouldn't just form his own foundation, I guess he believes in Gates.  I suppose if Gates puts as much effort into this massive charity as he did into Microsoft he could do some pretty incredible things.

Random Factoid: A single share of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway company costs $92,100 (by Friday's close).

[Ironwood]

How the hell does a single share even get that expensive ?

Really ?

[Murgos]

I'm starting a company shares are available now for $89,264.34 US.  Share value is only going to rise so you better get in now while it's cheap.

[schild]

Some have called the cost of shares in f13.net, LLC. broken.

I call them fair.

Plz mail ur chex to me.

Yes, I mean the cereal.

[Abagadro]

How the hell does a single share even get that expensive ?

Really ?

I may be wrong, but I don't think he has ever split the stock.  He wanted them to be buy and hold value investments instead of being churned by traders so he has purposefully kept them exceedingly expensive. They are hard to buy too because people don't sell them all that much.

[sinij]

Some have called the cost of shares in f13.net, LLC. broken.

Plz mail ur chex to me.

Cheque is in the mail. Now as a shareholder I get to sue you for lost profits every time you don’t whore yourself out for petty cash. So far you are safe.

[shiznitz]

How the hell does a single share even get that expensive ?

Really ?

The stock was never split. Starbucks has had 5 2:1 stock splits since 1993. If you adjust its current $36 price for those, it would be trading at $1,152 per share. Backing out all the Home Depot stock splits (back to 1982) would mean $11,500+ per share.

Since stock splits don't add any value (it is just cutting the pizza into 16 slices instead of eight) Buffet's policy is to not do it. So, considering that Berkshire Hathhaway has been public since 1958 (started at $7.58), a $92,000 share price isn't too hard to fathom. However, he did succumb a little bit to investor pressure and did a pseudo stock split by issuing B shares back in the 1990s.