Warren Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on 30th August 1930. Despite being one of the world’s most successful investors with a fortune to rival the world’s most famous billionaires, Buffett has kept a much lower public profile than other accumulators of great wealth. However, for those in the know Buffett is considered one of the most knowledgeable and respected investors currently active in the markets. 
Having graduated from the University of Nebraska Buffett took his first steps on the road to immense financial success by enrolling in for a Masters in economics at Columbia University. It was there that he the influential value investor Benjamin Graham, who would go on to have a profound impact on Buffet’s career.
It was whilst working for Graham at “Graham-Newman” after leaving Columbia University that Buffett developed several stock market investor skills that would make him a legend, nicknamed “the Oracle of Omaha” for his savant-like accurate predictions of the markets, in later years. Graham had devoted his expertise to developing a system by which investors could make informed decisions whether to invest in companies by comparing stock prices to a calculated intrinsic price, and after his retirement it was this work that Buffett built on to create his investment empire.
On returning to Omaha Buffett began a limited investing fund partnership with a number of associates, named the “Buffett Partnerships Ltd” fund. The fund was incredibly successful, yielding returns for its investors 10 times higher than the Dow Jones Industrial average over the same 10 year period. Buffett liquidated the fund at its peak, and used the capital to take control of the textile company Berkshire Hathaway.
After a difficult period of time for the textile industry Buffett wound up all the textile activity of Berkshire Hathaway, but kept the company name for his portfolio of investments and companies.
Initial investments of Berkshire Hathaway were mainly centred on the insurance industry, but quickly spread across sectors to any company he calculated as being undervalued. Companies such as American Express, Coca-Cola, The Washington Post and Gillette are all example of the many and varied investments Berkshire Hathaway holds, with an interest of at least 5% in each.
As well as receiving continuous praise for cherry-picking excellent investment opportunities, Buffett is also revered for his innate sense of stocks to avoid. He correctly predicted the demise of the dotcom industry and consequentially didn’t lose money when many did, he was criticised for allocating capital too early during the US subprime crisis of 2007-2008, but still ended 2008 ranked as the world’s wealthiest man.
As fantastic an investment career as Buffett has undoubtedly had, perhaps the greatest investment career of all time, his personal life and philanthropic personality are potentially even more revered. Despite being ranked as the world’s wealthiest man in 2008 (and the world’s third wealthiest man in 2011, with a wealth estimated at $39bn) he is renowned for his frugality and dedication to investment philosophy, and has lived in the same house in Omaha for over 50 years. He has been dedicated to charity, pledging millions to various causes across decades, and has promised to give away 99% of his wealth in his will via close friend Bill Gates’ charity “The Gates Foundation”.
Buffett is still as actively involved in investment as ever, and revealed in November 2011 that he had bought 64 million shares of International Business Machine Corp (IBM) stock, valued at around $11bn. The move, which raised Buffett’s stake in the company to 5.5%, was unexpected, particularly in light of the fact that he had warned against technology investment previously. However, for those who thought that the financial crisis might have dampened a desire to take on the investment world and come out on top, Buffett served a timely reminder that it doesn’t matter what you’ve achieved, for the investment enthusiast finding the next big opportunity that keeps you motivated.
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