(Bloomberg) – Warren Buffett has been a leading figure on the world wealth list for decades, but in recent years he has slipped off the list as technological fortunes skyrocket and his hot hand cools down.
Now, at 90, its net worth has blown more than $ 100 billion.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the wealth of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman rose to $ 100.4 billion on Wednesday. That makes Buffett the sixth member of the $ 100 billion club, a group that includes Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and his friend Bill Gates.
The clan’s combined wealth grew rapidly, fueled by the government’s stimulus, central banking policy and rising stock market. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 billion Covid-19 bill cleared the final hurdle of Congress when the House voted to approve the legislation, which contributed $ 3 trillion or more in stimulus, which Washington has already paid out in the past year.
Berkshire, the source of almost all of Buffett’s wealth, had a good start to 2021. The company’s A shares rose 15% this year, bringing the S&P 500 index above 3.8%. This was helped by Buffett’s recent push to spend record sums to buy back Berkshire’s own shares, which is a significant shift for an investor who previously chose to use the $ 138 billion cash stack to buy other businesses or ordinary shares. for sale.
Share buyback
Buffett has struggled over the past few years to find substantial deals to spur Berkshire’s growth, in part because of the large size of the conglomerate. As a result, equities have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past five years. But by 2020, Buffett had spent a record $ 24.7 billion on repurchases, and the submission indicates that he had already raised at least $ Bought 4.2 billion worth of shares.
Read more: Berkshire’s Busy 2020 achieved a record despite no major offers
It is all the more remarkable to exceed $ 100 billion, given how much the Omaha billionaire has given away. A co-founder of Giving Pledge, a campaign to encourage billionaire philanthropy, has donated more than $ 37 billion in Berkshire shares since 2006. Without the gifts, which nearly halved his holdings in Berkshire Class A shares, he would be worth more than $ 192 billion.
The staggering amount of wealth the ultra-rich have built up – $ 1.8 billion by the world’s 500 richest in 2020 alone – underscores the K-shaped recovery that is taking place as the US emerges from the pandemic. While millions of people who are excessively poor, working class and minorities remain unemployed, the rich have seen income and net worth levels rise thanks to a vibrant stock market and rising house prices.
Meanwhile, more than 8 million Americans – including many children – fell into poverty in the second half of last year, according to an analysis by University of Chicago economist Bruce Meyer, James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame and Jeehoon Han from Zhejiang University.
Buffett added $ 1.9 billion to his fortune on Wednesday when Berkshire A shares reached a record high, leading to a second-day gain for the S&P 500.
(Add Buffett’s Wednesday profit in the last paragraph)
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