Charlie Munger, an investment genius and right-hand man to Warren Buffett, has died at the age of 99, Berkshire Hathaway said in a statement posted on its subsidiary Business Wire website on Tuesday.

Charlie Munger died Tuesday, according to a press release from Berkshire Hathaway. The group said it was informed by Munger's family that he died peacefully at a California hospital on Tuesday morning.

Munger was born on January 1, 1924, just a month before his 100th birthday.

"Berkshire Hathaway would not have grown to its current position without the inspiration, wisdom and involvement of Charlie Munger," Buffett said in a statement.

Charlie Munger life: Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's golden partner, has the "behind-the-scenes brains" and "the last secret weapon" said, in the outside world has been very low visibility, low transparency, and its wisdom, value and contribution have been seriously underestimated by the world.

Born on January 1, 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, he graduated from Harvard Law School with honors in 1948, went straight to the California court as a lawyer, and began investing in securities and joint business activities with friends and clients, some of which have been incorporated into graduate programs at the business school.

After a successful buyout, Munger came to realize the huge profit potential of acquiring high-quality companies. "The difference between a well-qualified company and a struggling company is that the former makes easy decisions one after another, while the latter makes painful decisions every time."

Munger then dabbled in real estate investing and made his first million dollars in a project called The Self-Governing Community Project. Interestingly, Berkshire does not invest in real estate.
He has served as Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway since 1978.

In March 2022, Charlie Munger stepped down as chairman of the board of the Daily Journal after 45 years, and offered to donate $1 million in stock to the company and continue to serve as a director of the company.

In May 2022, Reuters reported that Munger was reappointed as Vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.
In addition to Berkshire, Charlie Munger is a real estate lawyer, chairman and publisher of the Daily Mail Company, and a member of the Costco board of directors.

According to Forbes, as of November 28, 2023, Munger was worth $2.6 billion.

Charlie Munger was chairman and CEO of Wesco Financial from 1984 to 2011, when Buffett's Berkshire bought the remaining shares of the Pasadena, California-based insurance and investment company. Buffett praised Munger for expanding his investment strategy from favoring troubled companies at low prices in hopes of making a profit to focusing on higher-quality but underpriced companies.

In 1972, Munger persuaded Buffett to agree to Berkshire's purchase of See's Candies for $25 million, even though the California candy maker had only about $4 million in annual pretax income, as an early example of the turnaround illustrates. Since then, the company has generated more than $2 billion in sales for Berkshire.

Charlie Munger is also a philanthropist. Charlie Munger donated hundreds of millions of dollars to educational institutions, including the University of Michigan, Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and often mandated that schools accept his architectural designs, even though he had no formal training as an architect.

"It was creepy how similar we thought," Buffett recalled in a 1977 interview. "He was the smartest, best person I've ever met."