Buffett, Gateses, and Turner Made Big Payments on Past Pledges in 2010

Some of America’s biggest charitable donors made significant payments in 2010 on pledges they had made in previous years.

Among those donors was Warren E. Buffett, the investor who gave 20,362,655 shares of Berkshire Hathaway class “B” stock, worth slightly more than $1.6-billion in 2010, to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle.

The donation was the most recent payment on the pledge of 10 million shares Mr. Buffett made to the Gates foundation in 2006. However, in January 2010, the company split each class “B” share into 50 new shares. According to the Gates foundation, the stock split did not affect the value of Mr. Buffett’s gift, and his original pledge of 10 million shares converted to 500 million shares after the stock split.

Including his 2010 payment, Mr. Buffett has given a total of 113,109,530 shares of stock (reflecting the split), worth more than $8-billion, to the Gates foundation, and has 386,890,470 shares left to pay. (Based on the current rate, those shares would be worth about $32.2-billion.) Last year Mr. Buffett also made payments on additional pledges he had made in 2006. He gave 2,036,265 shares of Berkshire Hathaway class “B” stock, worth $160.5-million, to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, in Omaha, which is named after his late first wife; and he gave 712,690 shares of the stock, worth about $56.2-million, in 2010 to each of his three children’s foundations. He has promised to give a total of approximately $1.3-billion apiece to those foundations.

Another big donor, Ted Turner, gave $50-million in cash to the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Fund in 2010. The media mogul made the donation through his Turner Global Foundation, which was established in 2004. The grant was payment toward a $1-billion pledge Mr. Turner made in 1997 to establish the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Fund. To date, Mr. Turner has paid slightly more than $852-million toward the pledge.

Meanwhile, the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, gave $44.8-million in 2010 toward the approximately $3.3-billion pledge the couple made to their foundation in 2004. Mr. and Ms. Gates have paid a total of more than $2.8-billion toward their 2004 commitment and have approximately $521.1-million remaining to pay on that pledge.