Charlie Munger – Billionaire

Charles Thomas Munger (born January 1, 1924) is an American investor, businessman, and philanthropist. He is vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett. Buffett has described Munger as “[his] partner.” Munger served as chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 through 2011. He is also the chairman of the Daily Journal Corporation, based in Los Angeles, California, and a director of Costco Wholesale Corporation.

Early life and education

Munger was born in Omaha, Nebraska. As a teenager he worked at Buffett & Son, a grocery store owned by Warren Buffett’s grandfather. After enrolling in the University of Michigan, where he studied mathematics, he never returned to Omaha except to visit. In early 1943, a few days after his 19th birthday, he dropped out of college to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he became Second Lieutenant. He continued his studies in meteorology at Caltech in Pasadena, California, the town he was to make his home. Through the GI Bill he took a number of advanced courses through several universities; without an undergraduate degree, he entered Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude with a J.D. in 1948. At Harvard he was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. In college and the Army he developed “an important skill”: card playing. “What you have to learn is to fold early when the odds are against you, or if you have a big edge, back it heavily because you don’t get a big edge often. Opportunity comes, but it doesn’t come often, so seize it when it does come.”

Investment career

He moved with his family to California, where he joined the law firm Wright & Garrett (later Musick, Peeler & Garrett). In 1962 he founded and worked as a real estate attorney at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. He then gave up the practice of law to concentrate on managing investments and later partnered with Otis Booth in real estate development. He then partnered with Jack Wheeler to form Wheeler, Munger, and Company, an investment firm with a seat on the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. He wound up Wheeler, Munger, and Co. in 1976, after losses of 32% in 1973 and 31% in 1974.

Although Munger is better known for his association with Buffett, he ran an investment partnership of his own from 1962 to 1975. According to Buffett’s essay, “The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville,” published in 1984, Munger’s investment partnership generated compound annual returns of 19.8% during the 1962–75 period compared to a 5.0% annual appreciation rate for the Dow.

Munger was previously the chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. It began as a savings and loan association, but eventually grew to control Precision Steel Corp., CORT Furniture Leasing, Kansas Bankers Surety Company, and other ventures. Wesco Financial also held a concentrated equity portfolio of over US$1.5 billion in companies such as Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, US Bancorp, and Goldman Sachs. Munger believes that holding a concentrated number of stocks, that he knows extremely well, will in the long term produce superior returns.

Wesco is based in Pasadena, California, Munger’s adopted hometown. Pasadena was also the site of the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting, which were typically held on the Wednesday or Thursday after the more famous Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. Munger’s meetings were nearly as legendary in the investment community as those he co-hosts with Buffett in Omaha. Such meetings were often perfunctory, but Munger interacted with the other Wesco shareholders at considerable length, sometimes speculating about what his hero Benjamin Franklin would do in a given situation. Meeting notes have been posted on the Futile Finance? website, but no updates exist beyond 2011.

Summary

Source:wikipedia