Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th century. He is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

Warren Buffett was employed from 1951–54 at Buffett-Falk & Co., Omaha as an investment salesman, from 1954–1956 at Graham-Newman Corp., New York as a securities analyst, from 1956–1969 at Buffett Partnership, Ltd., Omaha as a general partner and from 1970 – Present at Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Omaha as its Chairman, CEO.

In 1954, Buffett accepted a job at Benjamin Graham's partnership. His starting salary was $12,000 a year. There he worked closely with Walter Schloss. In 1956, Benjamin Graham retired and closed his partnership. At this time Buffett's personal savings were over $174,000 and he started Buffett Partnership Ltd., an investment partnership in Omaha.

In 1957, Buffett had three partnerships operating the entire year. In 1959, the company grew to six partnerships operating the entire year. By 1960, Buffett had seven partnerships operating: Buffett Associates, Buffett Fund, Dacee, Emdee, Glenoff, Mo-Buff and Underwood.

In 1962, Buffett became a millionaire because of his partnerships, which in January 1962 had an excess of $7,178,500, of which over $1,025,000 belonged to Buffett. Buffett merged all partnerships into one partnership. Buffett invested in and eventually took control of a textile manufacturing firm, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett's partnerships began purchasing shares at $7.60 per share. In 1965, when Buffett's partnerships began purchasing Berkshire aggressively, they paid $14.86 per share while the company had working capital of $19 per share. This did not include the value of fixed assets. In 1966, Buffett closed the partnership to new money.

In 1969, following his most successful year, Buffett liquidated the partnership and transferred their assets to his partners. Among the assets paid out were shares of Berkshire Hathaway. However, he lived solely on his salary of $50,000 per year, and his outside investment income. In 1979, Berkshire began the year trading at $775 per share, and ended at $1,310. Buffett's net worth reached $620 million, placing him on the Forbes 400 for the first time.

In 1979, Berkshire began to acquire stock in ABC. Capital Cities announced $3.5 billion purchase of ABC on March 18, 1985 surprised the media industry, as ABC was four times bigger than Capital Cities at the time. Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett helped finance the deal in return for a 25% stake in the combined company. The newly merged company was known as Capital Cities/ABC.

In 1987, Berkshire Hathaway purchased a 12% stake in Salomon Inc., making it the largest shareholder and Buffett the director. In 1988, Buffett began buying stock in Coca-Cola Company, eventually purchasing up to 7% of the company for $1.02 billion. It would turn out to be one of Berkshire's most lucrative investments, and one which it still holds.

Buffett became a billionaire on paper when Berkshire Hathaway began selling class A shares on May 29, 1990, when the market closed at $7,175 a share. In 2002, Buffett entered in $11 billion worth of forward contracts to deliver U.S. dollars against other currencies. By April 2006, his total gain on these contracts was over $2 billion. In 2006, Buffett announced in June that he gradually would give away 85% of his Berkshire holdings to five foundations in annual gifts of stock, starting in July 2006. The largest contribution would go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In 2008, Buffett became the richest man in the world, with a total net worth estimated at $62 billion by Forbes, dethroning Bill Gates, who had been number one on the Forbes list for 13 consecutive years. In 2009, Gates regained the position of number one on the Forbes list, with Buffett second. Their values have dropped to $40 billion and $37 billion, respectively, Buffett having lost $22 billion in 12 months during 2008/2009.

In 2009, Warren Buffett invested $2.6 billion as a part of Swiss Re's raising equity capital. Berkshire Hathaway already owns a 3% stake, with rights to own more than 20%. In 2009, Warren Buffett acquired Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. for $34 billion in cash and stock. The reason for the purchase was to diversify Berkshire Hathaway from the financial industry. Measured by market capitalization in the Financial Times Global 500 Berkshire Hathaway as of June 2009 was the eighteenth largest corporation on earth.

In November 2011, it was announced that over the course of the last 8 months, Warren Buffett had bought 64 million shares of International Business Machine Corp (IBM) stock, worth around $11 billion. This unanticipated investment raised his stake in the company to around 5.5 percent—the largest stake in IBM alongside that of State Street Global Advisors.

In May 2012, it was announced that Warren Buffett had acquired Media General, owner of 63 newspapers in the south-eastern United States. It was the second news print purchase made by Buffett in one year.

In 1999, Buffett was named the top money manager of the Twentieth Century in a survey by the Carson Group. In 2007, he was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in the world. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. He was ranked as the world's wealthiest person in 2008. In 2009, after donating billions of dollars to charity, Buffett was ranked as the second richest man in the United States with a net worth of US$37 billion. He was the third wealthiest person in the world as of 2011. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Most recently, Buffett was named the most influential global thinker in Foreign Policy's 2010 report.

In addition to other political contributions over the years, Buffett has formally endorsed and made campaign contributions to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. On July 2, 2008, Buffett attended a $28,500 per plate fundraiser for Obama's campaign in Chicago. Buffett backed Obama for president.

Buffett was finance advisor to California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during his 2003 election campaign.

In June 2006, Buffett announced a plan to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He pledged about the equivalent of 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (worth approximately US$30.7 billion as of June 23, 2006), making it the largest charitable donation in history.

Numerous books have been written about Warren Buffett and his investment strategies. In October 2008, USA Today reported that there were at least 47 books in print with Buffett's name in the title. The CEO of Borders Books said that the only other living persons named in as many book titles were U.S. presidents, major world political figures.