Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s Partner and ‘Abominable No-Man,’ Dies at 99

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By Jason Zweig and Justin BaerFollow

(The Wall Street Journal) — No equal business partner has ever played second fiddle better than Charlie Munger.

Warren Buffett’s closest friend and consigliere for six decades, the billionaire vice chairman of  Berkshire Hathaway died Tuesday at age 99 in a California hospital. A news release from Berkshire confirmed his death.

In public, especially in front of the tens of thousands of attendees at Berkshire’s annual meetings, Munger deferred to Buffett, letting the company’s chairman hog the microphone and the limelight. Munger routinely cracked up the crowd by croaking, “I have nothing to add.”

In private, Buffett, who is 93, often deferred to Munger. In 1971, Munger talked him into buying See’s Candy Shops for a price equivalent to three times the chocolate stores’ net worth—a “fancy price,” Buffett later recalled, far higher than he was accustomed to paying for businesses.