Microsoft's Gates increases stake in Berkshire Hathaway

Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp.'s co-founder and the world's richest man, increased his stake in friend and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., adding 90 shares at a cost of about $7.5 million.

Gates, 49, now owns 3,730 shares of Berkshire, the Omaha, Neb., investment company and insurer controlled by Buffett, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He paid between $82,680 and $83,200 for each of the shares in purchases made Sept. 1, the filing showed.

The transactions make Gates, who became a Berkshire director on Dec. 14, the company's 16th-largest shareholder, according to Bloomberg data. Buffett, 75, who plays bridge with Gates and has traveled with him, held about 38 percent of Berkshire's Class A shares as of July 2004.

"This is chump change to Bill Gates but it does make a statement that he has full confidence in Berkshire and where it's going," said Frank Betz, a partner at Warren, N.J.-based Carrett Zane Capital Management LLC, which has been adding Berkshire shares to client accounts.