Warren Buffett donates $3.4B to charity

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett on Monday gifted Berkshire Hathaway stock worth $3.4 billion to five charities as part of a 2006 pledge to donate the bulk of his fortune.

Buffett converted more than 11,000 of his Class A shares in Berkshire Hathaway into more than 17 million Class B shares. The shares were donated to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the NoVo Foundation and the Sherwood Foundation, the company said in a press release.

The donations marked the 13th consecutive year that Buffett has dispersed a portion of his holdings in keeping with the pledge. The “Oracle of Omaha” has donated a total of roughly $31 billion over that period.

Each of the Class B shares were worth about $192 as of market close Monday, Reuters reported.

Buffett is one of several billionaires who have promised to donate most of their earnings. Gates, hedge fund magnate Bill Ackman and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have made similar pledges.

Buffett has a net worth of $82.6 billion, according to Forbes.