巴菲特英文介绍.docVIP

He’s just like you and me, except for the ￡31bn fortune PROFILE: Warren Buffett When F Scott Fitzgerald observed that “the very rich are different from you and me”, the novelist was clearly not thinking of people like Warren Buffett. Proclaimed the world’s richest man last week, the American investment strategist eats at his local grill and drives to work from the modest home that he bought in unfashionable Omaha, Nebraska, in 1958, which is today valued at about ￡350,000. Such is the frugality of the 77-year-old “sage of Omaha”, whose wealth increased by ￡5 billion last year to ￡31 billion, that when he married in 2006 he bought a discount ring from his own jewellery company. He has vowed to pass on only a small chunk of his fortune to his children, Susie, Howard and Peter. He wants them to have “enough to do anything but not to do nothing”. His advice has enriched more investors than anyone else in history, but Buffett pays himself a mere ￡50,000 a year and prefers such ordinary fare as steaks and hamburgers, washed down with Cherry Coke. Not for him the bright lights of New York, even though he owns a private jet, his one extravagance: “I have everything I need and am very comfortable right here at home in Omaha. I feel sorry for people who are consumed by possessions.” Known for his wry homilies, Buffett has bet his house in jest against that of his friend and bridge partner Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder now relegated from first to third place in the zillionaire stakes, according to Forbes magazine. They used to meet for games at a Holiday Inn near Buffett’s home, but of late they play online - Buffett’s only concession to newfangled technology - under the user names “T-bone” (Buffett) and “Challenger X”. Buffett’s ranking may seem puzzling, given that in 2006 he announced he was donating his fortune to charity, with about ￡15 billion going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, dedicated to combating Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. The donations a