This is part of a series of articles sponsored by NIC bank. NIC will be having a rights issue starting 27th August. Read more about their rights issue here.

Born on August 30^th 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska and the middle-child of three, the only son of former US politician Howard Buffet is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20^th century. Investing by 11, the “Oracle of Omaha” was running a small business by 13 and has never looked back.

As a child, Warren Edward Buffet displayed a passion for making and saving money. This passion was so strong that he literally went door to door selling chewing gum, Coca Cola sodas or weekly magazines. He also often worked in his grandfather’s grocery store for some extra dollars. At the tender age of 11, the only son of Howard Buffet a politician and Leila Stahl Buffet a housewife made his first investment. Old-man Buffet had a small stockbrokerage outlet and every now and then Warren would visit his father’s establishment and chalk down the stock prices on the blackboard in the office.

Wise young Warren bought himself three shares of Cities Preferred Stock at $38 per share. He bought another three shares for his younger sister. The share price quickly dropped to $27 but displaying a little of that grit and tenacity that has seen him make money year in year out, in times of economic recession and boom, he held on until they reached $40 and sold his shares at a small profit. This proved to be a lesson for the boy, teaching him the importance of patience in investing: the Cities Preferred Stock later shot up to $200!

High School

While in high school, the need to expand and diversify his income saw him delivering newspapers, selling golfballs and stamps and detailing cars among other ventures and that year, 1944, he filed his first tax returns, claiming his bicycle as a $35 tax deduction. At 13 years old. In 1945, in his second year of high school, Buffet and a friend spent $25 to buy a second-hand pinball machine which thy placed in a Washington D.C. barber shop. Within months, the profits from the machine allowed them to expand their business and they bought another two machines and set them up in different barber shops in the area. They later sold the business to a war veteran for $1,200.

In 1947 Buffet enrolled into the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 16 to study business at the very prestigious Wharton Business School. He studies there for two years, 1947-1949, before transferring to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and with over $10,000 in savings from his childhood businesses. He then enrolled at Columbia Business School after learning that two well-known analysts worked there.

Buffet had a stint working as an investment salesman at Buffet-Faulk & Co. between 1951 and 1954 before moving on to Graham-Newman Corp. from 1954-1956 as a securities analyst. In 1956, shortly after his graduation, Buffet formed Buffet Partnership and in 1957 he operated three partnerships. The number grew to five by 19958 and he purchased the 5 bedroom house he currently lives in that year too.  In 1959 he added a sixth partnership to his repetoire and was introduced to long-time buddy and business partner Charlie Munger. In 1962, Buffet became a millionaire. His partnerships had an excess of $7 million in January 1962, of which over $1 million was his. Buffet merged all partnerships into one and invested in and took control of textile manufacturing firm Berkshire Hathaway.

A Billionaire

Buffet became a billionaire (on paper) when Berkshire Hathaway started selling its class A shares on May 29 1990 when the market closed at $7,175 a share. His 2006 annual salary was about $100,000, which is minute compared to senior executive remuneration in comparable companies. In fact, hundreds of his employees at Berkshire Hathaway are probably paid more than that. In 2007 and 2008, he earned a total compensation of $175,000, which included a base salary of $100,000. He lives in the same house in the central Dundee neighbourhood of Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500, today valued at over 20 times that initial amount.

In October 2008, Buffett invested in new energy automobile business by paying $230 million for 10% of BYD Company which runs a subsidiary of electric automobile manufacturer BYD Auto. In less than one year, the investment has reaped him over 500% return of profit.

Investment advice from the guru? “Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”as quoted in The Real Warren Buffett : Managing Capital, Leading People (2002) by James O'Loughlin

As of March 2012 Warren Buffet was valued at USD 44 Billion.