Bill Gates’ charitable foundation is revealing how it invests its endowment through its quarterly stock disclosures, spotlighting three major holdings in the equity portfolio. The largest positions include Berkshire Hathaway, Canadian National Railway, and WM, with the reported weights suggesting a strategy that blends long-term compounding with cash-flow durability across financials, industrials, and utilities-like infrastructure.
While Gates is best known for co-founding Microsoft, the foundation’s top public-stock exposure points to a broader investment approach—one that also appears sensitive to valuation, capital returns, and operating execution inside each business.
Key takeaways
- Portfolio weights: Berkshire Hathaway represents 22.5% of the Gates Foundation’s reported equity assets, followed by Canadian National Railway at 19.7% and WM at 17.8%.
- Catalyst: Quarterly reporting requirements provide transparency into holdings and, by extension, what managers may be emphasizing as markets and operating performance evolve.
- Investment implication: The largest positions emphasize cash generation and shareholder returns, but investors should still monitor valuation and policy risks—particularly trade-related uncertainty affecting rail.
- Concentration risk: With the top three holdings accounting for a large share of the equity portfolio, performance swings in a small set of companies can materially affect overall returns.
What the disclosures show about Gates’ public-stock strategy
According to the Gates Foundation’s quarterly equity reporting, the foundation maintains a trust with an investments portfolio that includes publicly traded U.S. stocks. The disclosures provide a window into how the foundation’s investment managers allocate capital—an approach that differs from the tech-centric headlines associated with Microsoft.
Berkshire Hathaway is the largest position in the portfolio
Berkshire Hathaway is the top holding in the foundation’s equity portfolio at 22.5% of assets. The report notes that for 20 years, Berkshire has been funded through an annual donation from Warren Buffett, structured with stipulations about deploying the donation value plus an additional amount over the following year to qualify for the next donation.
Despite that framework, the Gates Foundation still holds a significant stake. The report links the company’s appeal to its performance across insurance and its broader investment engine. It also points to insurance underwriting trends during the first half of the year: underwriting income grew by about 4.5% through the first six months, even as pricing pressure persisted. Operating margin improved from 29.7% in the first half of the prior year to 30.8% this year, according to the article.
Beyond operations, the report emphasizes Berkshire’s investment portfolio as a key driver of investor attention. It states that Berkshire has roughly $720 billion in investable assets across equities, cash, and Treasuries. It also highlights that Berkshire increased its position in Alphabet, which has become a third- or fourth-largest equity holding depending on the day, with the article noting there was no Alphabet exposure until the third quarter of last year.
On valuation and trading behavior, the report says Berkshire shares have traded sideways so far in 2026. It attributes potential interest to the view that buybacks—carried out only when both management and Buffett believe the stock trades below intrinsic value—suggest confidence in longer-term worth rather than short-term momentum.
Canadian National Railway: growth paired with trade risk
Canadian National Railway accounts for 19.7% of the foundation’s equity holdings. The report describes CN’s tri-coastal rail network and says that, despite headwinds from tariffs and an escalating trade war, revenue rose 11% year over year in the second quarter.
According to the article, tariff impacts were most visible in shipments tied to forest products and fertilizers and in international intermodal volumes, while auto imports were weak. The report also notes that management offset part of that weakness with Canadian market demand.
Looking forward, the article states that escalating trade tensions could affect operations in the back half of the year, but management raised full-year earnings per share guidance alongside second-quarter results. In terms of capital discipline, it says CN generated $1.8 billion in Canadian dollars in free cash flow through the first half and plans to return C$2.8 billion to shareholders via dividends and buybacks, including C$1.3 billion in repurchases already made in 2026.
The report also flags how valuation has responded to that execution. It states that CN trades at 30 times free cash flow from the previous 12 months and suggests investors may want to wait for a better entry point given uncertainty around U.S.-Canada trade negotiations.
WM’s cash-flow profile and shareholder returns
WM is the third-largest disclosed holding at 17.8%. The report characterizes the company—formerly Waste Management—as a leader in waste collection and disposal, supported by landfill network advantages that are difficult to replicate due to regulatory constraints around new landfill development.
According to the article, this structure supports fee collection from third parties and provides benefits from vertical integration. It also cites operating improvements: adjusted operating margin rose by 40 basis points year over year last quarter, and cash flow from operations increased by 12%. Management’s focus, as described in the report, is to reduce low-margin, low-growth businesses to improve cash flow and return excess capital to shareholders.
On growth quality, the report calls WM a steady revenue compounder with pricing power and stable operating costs. It notes that acquisitions can extend the platform—citing the 2024 purchase of Stericycle—and expects mid-to-high-single-digit revenue growth. The article adds that a recent share price pullback pushed WM’s enterprise value relative to EBITDA to near 13, which it characterizes as a fair valuation level for a steady grower.
What to watch next for investors
Investors tracking the Gates Foundation’s disclosures should focus on how the underlying businesses evolve as markets shift: insurance pricing and capital allocation at Berkshire Hathaway, trade policy effects and free-cash-flow momentum at Canadian National Railway, and margin consistency plus capital return cadence at WM. The foundation’s next quarterly reports may also show whether managers add, trim, or rotate positions—particularly if valuation gaps widen or macro uncertainty persists around tariffs and trade negotiations.
