(Reuters) – Warren Buffett ‘s fortune reached $ 100 billion on Wednesday, as investors raised the stock price for his firm Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Buffett’s net worth, as estimated by Forbes magazine, comes almost entirely from the ownership of about one-sixth of Berkshire, a company of about $ 600 billion.
Berkshire’s stock price rose higher in March, with its Class A shares surpassing $ 400,000 on Wednesday.
That came after Omaha-based company Nebraska on Feb. 27 reported fourth-quarter operating results despite the outbreak of coronavirus infection, while gains in Apple Inc and other stocks spurred profits total of $ 35.8 billion.
Buffett’s net worth of 90-year-olds would have been higher had he not in 2006 donated his Berkshire shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities.
Buffett had previously owned nearly a third of Berkshire, and his donations have stood at more than $ 37 billion when they were disbursed.
Berkshire was a clothing company that failed when Buffett took control in 1965. It now owns more than 90 businesses such as insurer Geico and rail BNSF, and ended last year with $ 281.2 billion of stockings.
As one of the most reputable investors in the world, Buffett was once the richest person in the world but several officials have overtaken him and the stock prices of their companies have gone up faster.
Prior to this year, Berkshire stock had tracked 500 Standard & Poor’s including shares over the previous decade.
The stock has outperformed 2021, and some analysts raised their price targets this month.
Forbes said Buffett is fifth on his list of the richest people in the world, after Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com, Elon Musk at Tesla, Bernard Arnault at LVMH Moet Hennessy and his family, and the person- philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Edited by Marguerita Choy