Warren Buffett
Biography
Born in Nebraska in 1930, Warren Buffett demonstrated keen business abilities at a young age. He formed Buffett Partnership Ltd. in 1956, and by 1965 he had assumed control of Berkshire Hathaway. Overseeing the growth of a conglomerate with holdings in the media, insurance, energy and food and beverage industries, Buffett became one of the world's richest men and a celebrated philanthropist.
Education
In 1947, Warren Buffett graduated from high school when he was 17 years old.
It was never his intention to go to college; he had already made $5,000 delivering newspapers (this is equal to $42,610.81 in 2000). His father had other plans, and urged his son to attend the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Buffett only stayed two years, complaining that he knew more than his professors.
When Howard was defeated in the 1948 Congressional race, Warren returned home to Omaha and transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Despite working full-time, he managed to graduate in only three years.
Warren Buffett approached graduate studies with the same resistance he displayed a few years earlier. He was finally persuaded to apply to Harvard Business School, which, in the worst admission decision in history, rejected him as "too young". Slighted, Warren then applied to Columbia where famed investors Ben Graham and David Dodd taught - an experience that would forever change his life.
Career
He worked at his father’s company, Buffett-Falk & Co. from 1951 to 1954 as an investment salesman. By the age of 20, he had already amassed savings worth almost $10,000 in 1950 — this showed what an astute investor he was.
He was appointed at a starting salary of $12,000 a year at Benjamin Graham’s partnership in 1954. His boss was a difficult man to work with and expected strict adherence to conventional rules of investing which Buffett’s young mind questioned.
Benjamin Graham retired and closed his partnership in 1956. By this time Buffett had a large amount of personal savings with which he opened Buffett Partnership Ltd., an investment partnership in Omaha.
He started operating several other partnerships and by the end of the decade he had seven partnerships operating. He became a millionaire in 1962 as a result of his earnings from all his partnerships.
He merged all the partnerships into one and invested in a textile manufacturing firm called Berkshire Hathaway. He began purchasing the shares of Berkshire Hathaway aggressively during the early 1960s and eventually took over the control of the company.
During the late 1960s he shifted the business from textile into the insurance sector and by 1985 the last of the textile mills under Berkshire Hathaway had been sold off.
Berkshire Hathaway purchased a 12% stake in Salomon Inc. in 1987 and became its largest shareholder; Buffett became its director. Following a scandal in 1990, John Gutfreund the CEO of Salomon Brothers left the company in 1991. Buffett took over as chairman till the crisis passed.
Buffett began buying stocks in Coca-Cola Company in 1988 eventually purchasing up to 7% of the company for $1.02 billion. It would prove to be one of Berkshire’s best ever investments.
He entered in $11 billion worth of forward contracts to deliver U.S. dollars against other currencies in 2002. He had earned over $2 billion by April 2006.
In June 2006, Buffett made an announcement that he would be gradually giving away 85% of his Berkshire holdings to five foundations, the largest contribution of which would go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
He became the richest person in the world in 2008 with a total net worth estimated at $62 billion by Forbes, overtaking Bill Gates who had been the No.1 on Forbes list for the past 13 years. The very next year, Gates regained the first position and Buffett moved to second place.
