Warren Buffett officially wins his bet that the S&P 500 index fund would beat selected hedge funds over the last 10 years. Fortune reported:
In 2007, Warren Buffett bet a million dollars that an index fund would outperform a collection of hedge funds over the course of 10 years. This week he won that bet, but the big winner in the wager is a charity called Girls Inc.
When he placed the bet a decade ago Buffett said he would hand over any proceeds from the victory to charity. The charity he chose was his local Girls Inc. affiliate, The Wall Street Journal reports. The charity provides after-school care as well as summer programs for girls ages 5 to 18.
Buffett officially “won” the wager on Friday, but said throughout 2017 that he was confident that he would win. Over the course of the bet the S&P 500 index fund returned 7.1% compounded annually, significantly more than the basket of funds selected by an asset manager at Protégé Partners. That basket only returned an average of 2.2%.