Warren Buffet’s sidekick at Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger, passes dead at age 99

Charlie Munger passed dead. He assisted Warren Buffett in turning Berkshire Hathaway into a dominant player in the investing world. His age was 99. Munger passed away on Tuesday at a hospital in California, according to a statement released by the business. For many years, Munger assisted Buffett in leading Berkshire as its vice chairman and acted as his sounding board for financial and commercial choices.

Munger often downplayed his contributions to Berkshire’s extraordinary success, preferring to remain in the background and let Buffett be the company’s face. However, Buffett always acknowledged that Munger helped him get beyond his first value investing approaches and acquire outstanding companies.

In 2008, Buffett said, “Charlie has taught me a lot about valuing businesses and about human nature.” Buffett’s early achievements stemmed from the lessons he acquired from Ben Graham, a former professor at Columbia University. He would purchase stock in businesses that were trading for less than the value of their assets, then sell the shares when the market recovered.

Although Buffett and Munger resided almost 1,500 miles apart for the duration of their working relationship, Buffett said he would phone Munger in Los Angeles or Pasadena to receive advice on each significant choice he made. Though the two men worked at the grocery business that Buffett’s grandpa and uncle owned, Munger and Buffett did not meet when they were young. Munger grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, roughly five blocks away from Buffett’s present residence.

Buffett was managing an investment firm in Omaha, while Munger was practicing law in Southern California when the two men first met in 1959 at a dinner party. The bio in Munger’s book “Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger” states that Buffett and Munger hit it off at that first encounter and remained in contact via long letters and numerous phone conversations. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the two men exchanged financial ideas and sometimes made investments in the same firms. They bought See’s Candy, the Buffalo News, and Wesco by way of their joint venture in Blue Chip Stamp Co., a trade stamp manufacturer, where they rose to become the two largest stockholders. In 1978, Munger was appointed vice chairman of Berkshire, and in 1984, he was named chairman and president of Wesco Financial.

Countless Berkshire stockholders will recall the sardonic remarks Munger made when he and Buffett answered questions at the annual meetings. At the Berkshire meetings, Munger was infamous for repeatedly saying, “I have nothing to add,” after several of Buffett’s lengthy responses. However, Munger also often provided incisive responses that got right to the point, as the guidance he provided in 2012 on identifying a wise investment.

“Don’t bother looking at it if it has a really high commission,” he said. Munger was well-known for being an avid reader and an expert on human behavior. To assess possible investments, he used an array of models drawn from fields such as mathematics, physics, and psychology.

Munger attended the University of Michigan in the 1940s to study mathematics, but he left school early to work as an Army Air Corps meteorologist during World War II. Then, despite never having completed his bachelor’s degree, he went on to graduate from Harvard University in 1948 with a law degree.

At one time, Munger amassed a fortune of more than USD 2 billion, placing him on the list of the wealthiest Americans. However, as he became more involved in charity, his wealth began to decline. Munger has made large donations to the Huntington Library, Stanford University Law School, University of Michigan, Harvard-Westlake, and other charitable organizations. After his wife passed away in 2010, he also left his eight children with a sizeable percentage of his Berkshire shares.

In addition, Munger was a board member of the prestigious Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles and Good Samaritan Hospital. Munger also held the positions of chairman of the Daily Journal Corp. and member of the board of Costco Wholesale Corp.