Unit Three How Bill Gates Invests His Money(国际经贸高级英语复旦大学).pptVIP

Unit ThreeHow Bill Gates Invests His Money TEXT Tending the Investment Pools As Gates converts billions of dollars of Microsoft stock into philanthropic tender, Michael Larson will be shepherding the funds every step of the way. He will manage the foundation portfolios until the dollars are expended on syringes, scholarships, and software. “People have no idea the kind of pressure that Michael Larson operates under, says Roger McNamee. “For one thing, he’s running money for two of the largest foundations in the world. The better he does, the more good works can be done. Unit ThreeHow Bill Gates Invests His Money Here’s how Larson’s job works. He’s in charge of three large pots of money: the two foundations and the $5 billion or so in Gates’ personal portfolio, which is mostly invested through Cascade, though there are other smallish accounts also under Larson’s auspices. Each of these three pools is discretely managed, with its own objectives and investments. And there’s one thing both Gates and Larson want to make perfectly clear. “Michael and I talk regularly about general investment matters, but he has full discretion over the portfolio. Gates says. Larson, his usual grin gone for a second, says, “I wish everyone understood that. When people find out that Cascade has made an investment in something, that’s not Bill Gates. I’ll call Bill about something I’m buying if he needs to know, but Bill might not have any idea what Cascade owns. (There are exceptions to this rule. For instance, Gates makes his own investments in biotech－more on that later.) Unit ThreeHow Bill Gates Invests His Money So what’s in the portfolios? The Learning Foundation is the simplest. Because Patty Stonesifer and her crew have a fairly constant need for cash, Larson keeps this portfolio mostly in short-maturity U.S. government and corporate fixed-income securities. The William H. Gates Foundation is a littl