|
Warren
Buffett
Main
Article page |
Beauty articles
|
Health page |
Computers|
Diseases |
Education |
Entertainment |
Family
Business |Fitness|
Fruits and Vegetables
|
Jobs |
General |
Personality|
Technology
|
Tourism |
Useful Tips
Biography Page|
Heroes & Incredible peoples
|
Inventions
Warren Edward Buffett
is an American investor, businessman, and philanthropist. He is one of the
richest men in the world. Buffett is called the "Oracle of Omaha"[ or
the "Sage of Omaha.
Warren Edward Buffett was born on August 30, 1930, in Omaha,
Nebraska state, USA. His father Howard Buffet was s stock broker and
Congressman. His mother Leila Buffet was a homemaker. He is the only son and
second of the three children.
Buffett
began his education at Rose Hill Elementary School in Omaha. In 1942 his father
was elected to the Congress and after moving with his family to Washington,
D.C., Warren finished elementary school, attended Alice Deal Junior High School,
and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School.
Even as a child Buffett
displayed an interest in making and saving money. He went door to door selling
chewing gum, Coca-Cola, or weekly magazines. For a while he worked in his
grandfather's grocery store. While still in high school, he carried out several
successful money-making ideas. When he was only 14 years old, he filed his
first income tax return. In 1945, in his sophomore (a student in the second
year of high school or college) year of
high school,
Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used
pinball
machine, which they placed in the local
barber shop.
Within months, they owned several machines in different barber shops.
 Buffett's interest in the
stock market and investing also dated to his childhood. On a trip to New York at
the age of ten he made a point to visit the New York Stock Exchange. And about
this same time he purchased shares of Cities Service for himself and his sister
at $38 per share. The stock quickly dropped to only $27, but Buffett held on
tenaciously until they reached $40. He sold his shares at a small profit, but
regretted the decision when Cities Service shot up to nearly $200 a share. He
later cited this experience as an early lesson in patience in investing.
While in high school he
invested in a business owned by his father and bought a farm worked by a tenant
farmer. By the time he finished college, Buffett had accumulated more than
$90,000 in savings measured in 2009 dollars.
Buffett initially attended
the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, then transferred to the
University of Nebraska. There he began his interest in investing after reading
Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. He obtained a Master's degree in
economics in 1951 at Columbia Business School, studying under Benjamin Graham.
Buffett wanted to work at Graham-Newman but was initially turned down. He went
to work at his father's brokerage as a salesman until Graham offered him a
position in 1954. Buffett returned to Omaha two years later, when Graham retired
In 1952 Buffett married
Susan Thompson and the next year they had their first child.
Buffett established Buffett
Associates, Ltd., his first investment partnership, in 1956. It was financed by
$100 from Buffett, the general partner, and $105,000 from seven limited partners
consisting of Buffett's family and friends. Buffett created several additional
partnerships which were later consolidated as Buffett Partnership Limited. He
purchased a five-bedroom stucco house in Omaha, where he still lives, for
$31,500.
Buffett, after several
years, decided to wind up the partnership, returning the lucky investors their
capital and their share of the profits, and bought an interest in Berkshire
Hathaway, a textile company.
Buffett’s early days at
Berkshire Hathaway were not great. The company was in an industry facing real
challenges from exports and high manufacturing costs. Warren Buffett had not,
however, forgotten what he had learned under Graham, and arranged for the
company to buy out two Nebraska insurance companies.
This was the start of
Buffett’s interest in insurance and the rise to financial fame of both himself
and Berkshire Hathaway. The insurance game is a hard one but under Buffett, the
company has become, not only a successful share investor, but a leading provider
of insurance.
Buffett struck up a
friendship with Charles T Munger, a lawyer and investor and Charlie Munger
eventually joined Warren at Berkshire Hathaway as his Vice-Chairman. Warren
Buffett is always the first to acknowledge the contribution that Charlie Munger
has made to Berkshire Hathaway
Under Buffett and Munger,
Berkshire Hathaway has become an investment giant that wholly owns a number of
successful companies.
Buffett married Susan
Buffett née Thompson in 1952. They had three children, Susie, Howard, and Peter.
The couple began living separately in 1977, although they remained married until
her death in July 2004. Their daughter, Susie, lives in Omaha and does
charitable work through the Susan A. Buffett Foundation . In 2006, on his
seventy-sixth birthday, Warren married his never-married longtime-companion,
Astrid Menks, who was then sixty years old. She had lived with him since his
wife's departure in 1977 to San Francisco. It was Susan Buffett who arranged for
the two to meet before she left Omaha to pursue her singing career. All three
were close and holiday cards to friends were signed "Warren, Susie and Astrid".
He lives in the same house
in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500,
today valued at around $700,000 (although he also does have a $4 million house
in Laguna Beach, California
He remains an avid player of
the card game
bridge
and plays with
Bill Gates.
He spends twelve hours a week playing the game. In 2006, he sponsored a bridge
match for the
Buffett
Cup.
In addition to other
political contributions over the years, Buffett has formally endorsed and made
campaign contributions to Barack Obama's presidential campaign
The majority of Buffett's
considerable fortune was amassed through Berkshire Hathaway, a company for which
he is the largest shareholder and CEO.
His children will not
inherit a significant proportion of his wealth. These actions are consistent
with statements he has made in the past indicating his opposition to the
transfer of great fortunes from one generation to the next. Buffett once
commented, "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they
could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing
In June 2006, Buffett made an
announcement that he would be giving his entire fortune away to charity,
committing 85 percent of it to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This
donation became the largest act of charitable giving in United States history..
In 2008 he was ranked by
Forbes as the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of
approximately US$62 billion.
Articles:
| 
