Buffett Foundation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Buffett Foundation is the charitable organization formed by legendary Omaha, Nebraska investor and industrialist Warren Buffett as a vehicle to manage his charitable giving. It was renamed Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation in honor of his wife Susan Buffett after her untimely death in 2004. Allen Greenberg, the Executive Director, was once married to the Buffetts' daughter, Susie.

While the foundation is already a major charity with annual disbursements of over $12,000,000, it will become far more important after his death if he carries out his long-stated intention to leave a portion of his net worth to it. His intention was originally to leave 99% of his estate to the Buffett Foundation but in June 2006 he made an announcement of giving 85% of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation instead. Buffett stated that he changed his mind because he has grown to admire Gates's foundation over the years; he believed that the Gates Foundation would be able to use his money effectively because it was already scaled-up.^[1] "Susan's Foundation" is to receive a bequest of about $3 billion over a span of many years. The vast bulk of Buffett's wealth consists of his personal holdings in the Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, a conglomerate of which he controls almost 40% directly and has managed personally since the mid-1960s.

Giving away such a large part of his company holding could prove problematic in that much of the business of Berkshire Hathaway consists of stock insurance companies. In the past, many state insurance regulators have had serious qualms about allowing for-profit (as opposed to mutual) insurance companies to be ultimately controlled by non-profit entities.^{[citation needed]} In probably the most famous case regarding this, the MacArthur Foundation was forced to divest itself of Bankers Life and Accident.