(Reuters) – Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s witty and sardonic deputy who helped shape the strategy that transformed Berkshire Hathaway into a conglomerate, died on Tuesday at age 99.
His humorous one-liners endeared him to thousands of attendees at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meetings, and a generation of corporate America’s executives swear by his investing insights.
Here is a selection of some of his more memorable quotes:
* “Invest in a business any fool can run, because someday afool will. If it won’t stand a little mismanagement, it’s notmuch of a business. We’re not looking for mismanagement, even ifwe can withstand it.” * “All intelligent investing is value investing — acquiringmore than you are paying for. You must value the business inorder to value the stock.” * “It’s not that much fun to buy a business where you reallyhope this sucker liquidates before it goes broke.” * “The worshipping at the altar of diversification, I thinkthat is really crazy.” * “Capitalism without failure is like religion withouthell.” * “I don’t think you can trust bankers to controlthemselves. They’re like heroin addicts.” * “I think you would understand any presentation using theword EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, andamortization) if every time you saw that word, you justsubstituted the phrase ‘bullshit earnings’.” * “We recognized early on that very smart people do verydumb things, and we wanted to know why and who, so we couldavoid them.” * “You’ll do better if you have passion for something inwhich you have aptitude. If Warren had gone into ballet, no onewould have heard of him.” * “I’ve written my obituary the way I’ve lived my life.”
Source: Berkshire’s annual meetings, media reports
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Gareth Jones)
