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Warren Buffett just revealed he has about $600 million of personal wealth outside of his Berkshire Hathaway stock.
The famed investor and Berkshire CEO announced on Friday that he's donated another $5.3 billion of his company's shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four of his family's foundations. He noted that the gifts, based on their value when received, total around $55 billion over the last 18 years.
"I have no debts and my remaining A shares are worth about $127 billion, roughly 99½% of my net worth," he added.
Buffett's comment suggests the remaining 0.5% or about $600 million of his fortune is in other assets. The financial guru owns about $1 million of Berkshire's cheaper B shares, and his Omaha home is worth an estimated $1.4 million.
Even if Buffett possesses other physical assets worth a few million dollars, it seems likely his private portfolio of stocks and bonds accounts for the bulk of his non-Berkshire wealth.
After all, he's personally owned at least $80 million worth of just three stocks — Wells Fargo, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson — in years past, ProPublica reported last year based on leaked Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data.
Buffett also sold at least $466 million of stock between 2000 and 2019, and disposed of bonds worth much more, ProPublica said. The story pointed to a private portfolio worth hundreds of millions of dollars just a few years back.
The investor's latest hint supports that idea. It also helps explain how Buffett can afford to only collect a $100,000 salary from Berkshire, and return half that amount to the company each year.
Buffett likely earns meaningful amounts of stock dividends and bond income from his personal holdings, which spares him from having to sell Berkshire shares to pay his bills.
