Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's right-hand man who helped the latter build Berkshire Hathaway into an investment powerhouse, has passed away at a California hospital on Tuesday at the age of 99, the company revealed in a statement.
Munger, who was the vice chairman of Berkshie Hathaway for several decades, helped Buffett decide on crucial investments and business deals but he stayed away from the limelight and was reluctant to take credit for the company's accomplishments.
However, Buffett always said that it was Munger who pushed him to buy big businesses. "Charlie has taught me a lot about valuing businesses and about human nature," Buffett said back in 2008.
Despite working closely on major business decicions, Buffett and Munger had a long-distance relationship of sorts with the duo living more than 1,500 miles apart.
Munger and Buffet first met when they worked at a grocery store on Nebraska's Omaha. Years later, Munger was a lawyer in Southern California and Buffett was running an investment partnership in Omaha when they met again in 1959.
Buffett and Munger kept in touch through letters and phone calls, the latter says his book Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. They invested in same companies during the 1960s and '70s becoming the biggest shareholders in one of their common investments, trading stamp maker Blue Chip Stamp Co., and through that acquired See's Candy, the Buffalo News and Wesco.
Munger was appointed Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman in 1978. and later he became the chairman and president of Wesco Financial from 1984. He was also a board member of Good Samaritan Hospital and the private Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles as well as Costco Wholesale Corp. He was also the chairman of the Daily Journal Corp.
Though Munger pursued mathematics at the University of Michigan in the 1940s he dropped out to serve as a meteorologist in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He went on to earn a law degree from Harvard University in 1948 but he hadn't completed any bachelor's degrees.
- with inputs from agencies
