(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s fortune reached $ 100 billion on Wednesday, with investors taking the share price of his company Berkshire Hathaway Inc to a record high.
Buffett’s net worth, as measured by Forbes magazine, comes almost entirely from owning about a sixth of Berkshire, a company of about $ 600 billion.
Berkshire’s stock price soared higher in March, with its Class A shares exceeding $ 400,000 on Wednesday.
This happened after the company based in Omaha, Nebraska, on February 27, said fourth quarter operating results improved despite the coronavirus pandemic, while gains at Apple Inc. and other stocks generated a total profit of $ 35 , 8 billion.
Buffett’s 90-year-old net worth would have been greater if in 2006 he had not started donating his Berkshire shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities.
Buffett already owned nearly a third of Berkshire, and his donations totaled more than $ 37 billion when they were made.
Berkshire was a failed textile company when Buffett took control in 1965. It now owns more than 90 companies, such as auto insurance company Geico and the BNSF railroad, and ended last year with $ 281.2 billion in shares.
One of the most celebrated investors in the world, Buffett was once the richest person in the world, but he was bypassed by several executives whose company share prices rose faster.
Before this year, Berkshire’s shares were behind Standard & Poor’s 500, including dividends in the previous decade.
The stock outperformed in 2021, and some analysts raised their price targets this month.
Forbes said Buffett is fifth on its list of the richest people in the world, behind Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Elon Musk of Tesla, Bernard Arnault and his LVMH family Moet Hennessy, and the philanthropist and co-founder Microsoft Bill Gates.
Jonathan Stempel reporting in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy