Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's close friend and the godfather of value investing, and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, passed away on the 28th (local time) at the age of 99, the company announced that day. Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire, paid tribute to him in a brief statement, saying, "Without Munger's inspiration, wisdom, and involvement, Berkshire would not have reached its current position."
Munger, who shares the same hometown as Buffett, was born in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, in 1924. During his childhood in the 1940s Great Depression, he worked part-time at a grocery store run by Buffett's grandfather, establishing a connection with the Buffett family. He later dropped out of the University of Michigan and served as an Air Force officer during World War II. In 1948, he graduated from Harvard Law School and worked as a real estate specialist lawyer at the Los Angeles law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson.
Buffett and Munger first met in 1959, and in 1978, Munger joined Berkshire, the investment company founded by Buffett, becoming Buffett's right-hand man and leading Berkshire for 45 years. During this period, the two achieved an average annual return of 20%.
The combination of Buffett and Munger is regarded by foreign media as one of the most successful cases in business history. He sat side by side with Chairman Buffett on the podium at Berkshire's annual shareholder meetings every year but did not enjoy taking the forefront in answering investors' questions, often saying, "I have nothing to add."
He, who helped establish the framework of value investing principles with Buffett, has said, "All wise investments are value investments." Every word he spoke exerted a powerful influence on the capital markets. He also published a book titled Poor Charlie's Almanack, which contains his investment methods, value investing philosophy, perspectives on companies, and investment psychology.
Buffett said that the investment approach of buying valuable companies at a ‘reasonable’ price was passed down from Munger. Buffett conveyed that Munger taught him the principle that "simply trying to buy cheaply does not make big money."
In his final interview during his lifetime, Munger warned about the bad loans on commercial real estate by American banks. In an interview with a British media outlet at the end of April, he said, "American banks are loaded with bad loans on commercial real estate," and warned that this could lead to a massive storm.
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