The Berkshire Hathaway chief, who has given away billions, asks whether donations should keep their special status.
Billionaires’ giving goes under the spotlight
News yesterday that Warren Buffett had resigned from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has raised questions about the foundation’s future after the impending divorce of its namesake founders. Buffett’s resignation announcement also attracted new attention to the billions the wealthy give to charity — and the tax breaks they get for doing so.
Buffett says that he has given more than $41 billion to charity over the years. He announced $4.1 billion in donations yesterday. This comes weeks after a ProPublica exposé based on confidential I.R.S. data revealed how much the richest Americans paid in taxes. The article noted that Buffett paid $23.7 million in taxes from 2014 to 2018, a period when his wealth grew by an estimated $24 billion.
Billionaire giving has become a hot topic of debate. Polling by Recode this year suggested that Americans believed higher taxes on the wealthy would be more beneficial to society than more donations from the wealthy. Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike have questioned whether billionaires’ donations are reaching their intended recipients quickly enough — or at all. Two years ago, Andrew cited Buffett’s donations of stock as an example of a loophole in the tax code.
Buffett says that philanthropy can be a powerful tax shield, if donors want it to be. Buffett’s donations, he said yesterday, resulted in only 40 cents in tax savings per $1,000 given. The reason his tax bill is so low, he said, was because he earns relatively little in wages, amassing most of his wealth from his holdings of Berkshire Hathaway stock, which isn’t taxed until it’s sold.
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Buffett has criticized “huge dynastic wealth,” and his arguments for higher taxes on the wealthy led to the so-called Buffett Rule, a proposed minimum tax on millionaires and billionaires. Yesterday, he reiterated his support for overhauling the tax code. “It is fitting that Congress periodically revisits the tax policy for charitable contributions, particularly in respect to donors who get ‘imaginative,’” he said.
What do you think? Should the tax treatment of philanthropy change? If so, how? Let us know: dealbook@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, and we may feature your response in a future newsletter.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
House lawmakers advance sweeping bills to curtail Big Tech’s power. After hours of sometimes contentious debate, the House Judiciary Committee approved efforts to rein in Silicon Valley’s giants. One would block the biggest tech companies from buying rivals; another, which would make it easier to break them up, is still under consideration.
A potential compromise emerges on infrastructure spending. President Biden is set to be briefed today on a $600 billion package for investing in areas like roads and broadband, brokered last night by White House officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. It would essentially serve as the first step in the president’s $4 trillion infrastructure ambitions.
John McAfee dies in a Spanish prison. The antivirus software pioneer, 75, died after a Spanish court said he could be extradited to the U.S. on tax-evasion charges. After severing ties to the McAfee company in 1994, he led a globe-trotting life full of controversy, including accusations of drug-dealing, drunken driving, illegally entering Guatemala … and running for president.
JPMorgan Chase weighs mandatory vaccinations for workers. The bank, which plans to bring its employees back to the office next month, may become the latest Wall Street giant to require some level of inoculation of its work force, according to a memo sent to staff.
You won’t believe how BuzzFeed plans to go public. The digital publisher that made its name with listicles and clicky headlines (and won its first Pulitzer this year) is nearing a deal to merge with a SPAC, and may also raise additional money to buy up rivals.
Brunswick sells a stake to Warren Buffett’s favorite banker
For decades, Brunswick Group made its name, and money, by advising companies on matters like mergers. Now it has struck a deal of its own: selling a minority stake to BDT Capital Partners, the merchant bank run by Byron Trott, a former Goldman Sachs banker and a Warren Buffett favorite.
BDT will invest in Brunswick at a £500 million ($698 million) valuation, we’re told. The deal, which came together after Brunswick explored financial options for more than a year, is meant to help Brunswick expand — it currently has 27 offices worldwide — and, perhaps more important, to fund £140 million in payouts to its 200 equity partners. (Half of which will go to Sir Alan Parker, the firm’s chairman and biggest shareholder.) Changes to Brunswick’s corporate structure will also give younger partners a stake in the firm. The Financial Times first reported the deal.
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Compensation issues have been a problem for Brunswick in the past, driving some top performers to leave. But in recent years, the firm has hired prominent names, including the former deputy Treasury secretary Neal Wolin as C.E.O. and the former CNBC editor in chief Nik Deogun as head of the Americas.
It’s the latest deal in the P.R. industry, as investment firms have bet on growing client demand. CVC Capital Partners bought a majority stake in Teneo two years ago, while Golden Gate Capital bought a 40 percent stake in Sard Verbinnen in 2016. BDT tends to buy into founder-led private companies, with an aim for holding its investments longer than most private equity firms. “Our minority, long-term investment will continue to support their efforts to remain an independent and partner-controlled business,” Trott told DealBook in a statement.
“All I want is to own my money.”
— Britney Spears, in a rare public appearance, asking a judge to end her father’s legal control of her life. She said she had been drugged and compelled to perform, and she blamed her father for controlling her against her will. “I would honestly like to be able to sue my family,” she said.
Larry Fink’s pandemic ‘project’
When the going gets tough, call Larry Fink. BlackRock’s chief was in frequent touch with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the Fed chair, Jay Powell, in the days before and after many of the Fed’s emergency rescue programs were announced in late March 2020, The Times’s Jeanna Smialek reports. In one email obtained by The Times, the asset management firm referred to parts of the rescue programs as “the project” that Fink and the Fed were “working on together.”
The weekend before the Fed’s policy package was released, Mnuchin spoke to Fink more than anyone other than the Fed chair. The New York Fed later hired the firm’s advisory arm, which operates separately from its asset-management business, to carry out the Fed’s purchases of commercial mortgage-backed securities and corporate bonds. (BlackRock also helped with the Fed’s crisis response during the 2008 financial meltdown.)
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“They’re about as close to a government arm as you can be without being the Federal Reserve,” said William Birdthistle, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Read Jeanna’s full article, including the emails obtained by The Times, about BlackRock’s role in the pandemic crisis response.
Housing policy is set for remodeling
The Supreme Court yesterday saved the imperiled Federal Housing Finance Agency, which has overseen Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since their government bailouts, but put the agency’s director on the chopping block. The Biden administration quickly took the opportunity to remodel.
The case stems from the 2008 financial crisis. Shareholders in Fannie and Freddie sued to recover $124 billion in payments the lenders were required to make after their bailouts. The shareholders said the F.H.F.A.’s unconstitutional structure invalidated these collections. The statute creating the agency, written by Congress, limited the president’s power to dismiss its director, which shareholders said violated separation of powers principles. Justices agreed that the clause was flawed, but they declined to dismantle the agency or invalidate its past actions. They sent shareholders back to lower courts and said the agency’s director could be removed with or without cause.
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Fannie and Freddie’s share prices plunged, hitting hedge funds that have bet on their privatization.
The White House removed the F.H.F.A. director hours after the decision. Mark Calabria, a libertarian economist appointed by Donald Trump in 2019 to lead the F.H.F.A., was working on a plan to release Fannie and Freddie from conservatorship. Calabria issued a parting shot in a statement, saying, “When the housing markets experience a significant downturn, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will fail at their current capital levels.”
“Having a privately owned, too-big-to-fail duopoly in control of the housing market was a terrible idea,” said Jim Parrott, a former housing adviser in the Obama administration now at the Urban Institute. There was once widespread agreement on that, Parrott told DealBook, but getting Fannie and Freddie back in private hands was Calabria’s top priority, and it informed all of his policy decisions. He expects the next director to focus on “questions of how best to help support the housing needs of a nation.” For now, that is Sandra Thompson, who has been at the agency since 2013 and was appointed acting director last night.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
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GlaxoSmithKline finally unveiled details on its $11 billion plan to spin out its consumer businesses. (Reuters)
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The N.F.L. has reportedly hired Goldman Sachs to help weigh the sale of stakes in its media properties. (WSJ)
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Embark Trucks became the latest autonomous vehicle start-up to merge with a SPAC, in a $5.2 billion deal. (Reuters)
Politics and policy
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“This Is the Plan to Rescue Poor Countries From the Pandemic” (NYT)
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A federal judge temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s plan to offer debt relief to minority farmers. (NYT)
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The Supreme Court ruled that a California regulation allowing unions to recruit agricultural workers at their workplaces was unconstitutional. (NYT)
Tech
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Inside Comcast’s efforts to transform from cable titan to streaming giant. (WSJ)
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Tech giants like Amazon are racing to buy up renewable energy supply for their power-hungry data centers. (WSJ)
Best of the rest
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C.E.O.s like Tim Cook and Jamie Dimon say being in the office is necessary to inspire innovation. Researchers say there’s no evidence for that. (NYT Upshot)
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Gary Kelly, Southwest Airlines’ C.E.O. of two decades, will step down next year; he’ll be replaced by another veteran executive, Robert Jordan. (NYT)
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How Peter Thiel reportedly turned a Roth IRA retirement account into a $5 billion tax-free windfall. (ProPublica)
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Buffett Weighs In on Tax-Free Philanthropy - The New York Times
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