July 13: Ajit Jain, a publicity-shy IIT Kharagpur alumnus who heads the US-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s insurance group, has donated to his alma mater an unspecified quantity of his stock holding in employer Warren Buffett’s conglomerate.
Jain has transferred the stocks to the trading account of the IIT KGP US Foundation, a gesture that the institute described as “unique” because “it is a rare for an alumnus to make a contribution in stocks”.
A release from IIT Kharagpur said today: “Till now, the institute has been receiving only monetary donations. However, in a recent initiative, IITKGP has been encouraging donation of stocks and shares to the institute.”
The donation is in line with the philosophy of Berkshire Hathaway boss Buffett, a philanthropist who has already given billions of dollars to charity. In a 2016 letter to Berkshire shareholders, Buffett, the chairman of the board, had said of Jain: “If there were ever to be another Ajit and you could swap me for him, don’t hesitate. Make the trade!”
Jain, a graduate in mechanical engineering from the IIT-K batch of 1972, had been named a “distinguished alumnus” in 2016. Friends describe him as unassuming, and there is little available about his personal life in the public domain except that he had moved to the US in 1978 and did his MBA at Harvard. He joined Berkshire Hathaway in 1986.
“Ajit is very close and dear to Warren Buffett. Warren considers him like his own son. We are proud to have our alumni so valuable to Warren Buffett,” said Vinod Gupta, another distinguished alumnus who pioneered big-ticket alumni contributions to IIT Kharagpur with a $2 million-plus donation in the Nineties.
“He is going to give more money. Ajit is going to do a lot of big things for IIT Kharagpur. He is not going to leave his money to his children. He is going to give his money to charity,” Gupta told Metro from Omaha (see interview).
IIT Kharagpur receives several crores of rupees from alumni every year, but Jain’s contribution has been hailed as a “special” one. “We are very happy and proud,” the institute’s director, Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, said.
Jain keeps a very busy schedule and could not attend the IIT convocation where he would have been formally bestowed the honour of “distinguished alumnus”. He could not even make it to a New York event that had been hosted to make it easier for him to attend.
“But he left a message for the gathering when we told him that ‘whenever you visit India, please come to IIT Kharagpur’,” said Siddhartha Mukhopadhyay, dean of alumni affairs and international relations.
Jain’s response? “It’s very high on my agenda.”
Berkshire chairman Buffett, who has committed almost all his personal wealth to charity, had recounted in the letter to shareholders how Jain made a mark in his company. “When Ajit entered Berkshire’s office on a Saturday in 1986, he did not have a day’s experience in the insurance business. Nevertheless, Mike Goldberg, then our manager of insurance, handed him the keys to our small and struggling reinsurance business. With that move, Mike achieved sainthood: Since then, Ajit has created tens of billions of value for Berkshire shareholders.”
