Charlie Munger

For all those who are like who the heck is this Charlie?And there are many who would ask the question where I come from. Charles Thomas (Charlie) Munger is an investment manager. He is Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation and Warren Buffett’s long term associate. Munger is also the chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation, based in Pasadena, California. Wesco Financial is an 80.1%-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. It began as a savings and loan association, but now controls Precision Steel Corp., CORT Furniture Leasing, Kansas Bankers Surety Company, and other ventures. Wesco Financial has an equity portfolio of over $1.5 billion dollars that is concentrated in Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, US Bancorp, and Goldman Sachs.

Buffett has often publicly stated that he regards Charlie Munger as his partner.  In fact Charlie Munger owns enough Berkshire Hathaway stock to be a bona fide billionaire in his own right. There are many similarities between these two long time friends.However the lesser known Charlie Munger is not a carbon copy of Warren Buffett.There are distinct differences in the way in which the two long -time friends think .Ofcourse what is so fascinationg is how both these people’s thoughts mesh to create a better whole.Also Warren Buffett is known to devote his time almost exclusively to his business, while Charlie Munger, who does not involve himself in the day-to-day operations of Berkshire, is a generalist for whom investment is only one of a broad range of interests.

Charlie Munger is a great admirer of Benjamin Franklin.His thoughts are compiled in a 500 odd pages tomb called “Poor Charlie’s Almanack”.

Charlie Munger believes in thinking about things by inverting. So to understand how to be happy in life, Charlie will study how to make life miserable; to examine how businesses become big and strong, Charlie first studies how businesses decline and die; most people care more about how to succeed in the stock market, Charlie is most concerned about why most have failed in the stock market. Read more of this post