Still Modest!

Billionaire Warren E. Buffett was paid more than $490,000 in 2008, on the heels of slumping profits at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
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Last year, he kept his $100,000 annual salary, which has remained the same for the past 25 years and which the billionaire investor doesn’t expect to increase in the near future. Mr. Buffett didn’t collect a bonus.
Although the Omaha, Neb.-based company doesn’t provide Mr. Buffett, its chief executive, with company cars or aircraft for personal use, it did foot the bill for $315,709 in personal and home security services, according to Berkshire Hathaway’s proxy statement, filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He also received $75,000 in director’s fees from non-subsidiary companies in which Berkshire Hathaway has “significant investments.”
Separately, Fitch Ratings Ltd. of New York cut Berkshire Hathaway’s issuer default rating to AA+ and its senior unsecured debt ratings to AA late yesterday. Previously, both were AAA-rated.
Berkshire Hathaway’s earnings and capital volatility, and the company’s unhedged market exposures, are inconsistent with the stability necessary for the AAA rating, Fitch’s highest, the ratings agency said in its report. The company’s exposures include concentrated equity investments and exposure to equity and credit markets via derivative contracts, and Berkshire’s attempts to diversify that exposure aren’t sufficient to keep the company at AAA, Fitch said.
Berkshire Hathaway’s ability to rack up strong long-term investment results and its ability to select attractive companies is also “intimately tied” to Mr. Buffett, creating a “key man” risk to the firm and warranting a downgrade, Fitch said.
Berkshire Hathaway’s earnings were walloped in 2008, though it still ended the year in the black. Profits fell 62%, to $4.99 billion, or $3,224 a share, compared with $13.21 billion, or $8,548 a share in 2007.