Charlie Munger gave 77 shares of stock to a California museum. It’s enough to build 30 homes for visiting scholars.
By JOSH FUNK | AP Business Writer
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Investor Charlie Munger, who has been Warren Buffett’s right-hand man for more than five decades, has made a $40 million gift to a California museum.
Munger gave 77 Class A Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Museum in San Marino, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At Thursday’s closing price of $523,545.06 a share, that made the gift worth more than $40.3 million.
Huntington spokeswoman Susan Turner-Lowe said the donation will be used to build more than 30 residences for visiting scholars to use while they spend time at the museum doing research.
Turner-Lowe said scholars often spend a school year studying at the Huntington and the expensive rental market in Los Angeles has made that difficult to afford. She said this is “a long-time dream that is in the process of being fulfilled in a major way.”
A decade ago, Munger gave the Huntington museum nearly $33 million worth of Berkshire stock to help pay for an education and visitors center.
Though once a billionaire, Munger’s fortune never rivaled his best friend Buffett’s, and he lost his billionaire status long ago as he steadily gave away his fortune. Roughly $1 billion of his stock went into a charitable trust in 2010 after his wife died.
Back in 2000, he held 15,911 Class A Berkshire shares, which would be worth more than $8.3 billion today.
Munger, who is known for his quick wit and acerbic manner, will turn 100 in January.
The conglomerate that Munger helped Buffett build owns dozens of companies, including BNSF railroad, Geico insurance, See’s Candy and Dairy Queen. Although Berkshire is based in Omaha, Nebraska, where Buffett lives, Munger has long lived in Southern California, and much of his charitable giving has been focused on the West Coast.
One of his donations made headlines two years ago: He donated $200 million to build a dormitory at University of California, Santa Barbara, with the condition that the project adhere to his design of tightly packed pods with windowless bedrooms. The outcry over what was dubbed “Dormzilla” led the school to abandon the plan.