Charlie Munger, the ‘Oracle of Pasadena’ and Warren Buffett’s business duo, dies at 99

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He would have turned 100 years old on January 1, but passed away peacefully in a California hospital, as reported by Berkshire Hathaway. The cause was not disclosed. Charles Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, in Los Angeles, in 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson Charlie Munger, longtime vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and number two in command of the conglomerate run by Warren Buffett, has died this Tuesday morning (28). Munger was 99 years old and would have turned 100 on January 1st. He passed away peacefully in a California hospital, Berkshire reported. The cause was not disclosed. “Berkshire Hathaway would not have achieved its current status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom and participation,” Buffett, Berkshire chairman and CEO, said in a statement. Munger was Berkshire’s vice chairman since 1978, working closely with Buffett on the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate’s capital allocation and being quick to point out when he made a mistake. “It’s a shock,” said Thomas Russo, a partner at Gardner Russo & Quinn in Lancaster, Pa., a longtime Berkshire shareholder. “It will leave a huge void for the investors who shaped thoughts, words and activities around Munger and his ideas.” Munger’s death comes a week after Buffett donated about $866 million in Berkshire stock to four of his family’s charities, and told shareholders he felt “fine” as he nears the end of his illustrious career. investment career. Union with Buffet Charles Munger earned 20 cents an hour working for Warren Buffett’s grandfather during the 1929 Crisis, and later became Buffett’s right-hand man and a reference at Berkshire Hathaway for more than four decades. Munger’s union with Buffett is among the most successful in business history. Together, they turned Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire into a multibillion-dollar conglomerate with dozens of business units. Yet the partnership that began formally when they joined in 1975 at Berkshire — where Buffett was chairman, with Munger vice chairman from 1978 — has prospered despite sharp differences in style and even investment. Known almost universally as Charlie, Munger presented a more frank form of reflections, often in laconic phrases, about investments, economics and the weaknesses of human nature. He compared bankers to uncontrollable “heroin addicts,” called bitcoin “rat poison,” and told CNBC that “gold is a great thing to sew into your clothes if you’re a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I think civilized people don’t buy gold. They invest in productive businesses.” Munger was no less incisive when talking about Berkshire, which made him and Buffett billionaires and also made many early shareholders rich. “I think part of Berkshire Hathaway’s popularity is that we look like people who have found a trick,” Munger said in 2010. “It’s not about brilliance. It’s just avoiding stupidity.” Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation Charlie Munger speaks to Reuters during an interview in Omaha in 2013. REUTERS/Lane Hickenbottom/File Photo Expanding Buffet’s horizons Munger and Buffett differed politically, with Munger a Republican and Buffett a Democrat. They also had divergent personal interests. For example, Munger had a passion for architecture, having designed buildings such as a huge dormitory building for the University of California, Santa Barbara known as “Dormzilla”, while Buffett claimed not to know the color of the wallpaper in his room. However, at Berkshire, they became inseparable, complementing each other’s ideas and, according to Buffett, never had an argument. “I’m a little less optimistic than Warren,” Munger said at Berkshire’s 2023 annual meeting, drawing laughter after Buffett expressed his familiar optimism about America’s future. “I think the best path to human happiness is to wait less.” Like Buffett, Munger was a fan of famous economist Benjamin Graham. However, Buffett credits Munger with encouraging him to focus Berkshire on buying wonderful companies at fair prices rather than fair companies at wonderful prices. “Charlie pushed me in the direction of not just shopping for bargains, as Ben Graham had taught me,” Buffett said. “It was the power of Charlie’s mind. He expanded my horizons.” Oracle of Pasadena Fans nicknamed Buffett the “Oracle of Omaha,” but Munger was equally respected by his followers, who called him the “Oracle of Pasadena,” in reference to his adopted city in California. Munger reserved many of his public comments for Berkshire’s annual meetings; its investment vehicle Wesco Financial, which Berkshire bought in 2011; and the Daily Journal, a media outlet he presided over for 45 years. To admirers, Munger was both the expert psychiatrist and the famous investor. Many of his observations were collected in the book “Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger”, with a foreword by Buffett. “I was raised by people who considered it a moral duty to be as rational as possible,” Munger told Daily Journal shareholders in 2020. “That notion has served me enormously well.” In 2009, during the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression, he tried to reassure his followers. “If you wait until the economy is working properly to buy shares, it will almost certainly be too late,” he said at Wesco’s annual meeting. After that meeting, Los Angeles Times columnist and Wesco investor Kathy Kristof wrote of Munger: “He gives us hope.” Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger arrives to kick off the company’s 2013 annual meeting in Omaha. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo Tête-à-tête Born on January 1, 1924, Munger, as a child, worked part-time at the Omaha grocery store run by Buffett’s grandfather, Ernest. Buffett also worked there, although he and Munger, who was 6 1/2 years older, did not work together. Munger later enrolled at the University of Michigan, but dropped out to work as a meteorologist in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. Munger graduated from Harvard Law School in 1948. He then practiced law in Los Angeles, co-founding the law firm now known as Munger, Tolles & Olson, before turning in the 1960s to investment management. in shares and real estate. Munger was successful, handily outperforming the general market between 1962 and 1975 in his investment partnership Wheeler, Munger & Co. According to Buffett biographer Alice Schroeder, Munger met Buffett in Omaha in 1959, where, in a private room at the Omaha Club, they “fell into a tête-à-tête” after being introduced. More conversations followed, and soon they were talking on the phone for hours on end. “Why are you paying so much attention to him?” Munger’s second wife, Nancy, reportedly asked her husband. “You don’t understand,” Munger replied. “He is no ordinary human being.”

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