Charlie Munger was obsessed with Costco. Here's why the billionaire called himself a 'total addict.'
Nov 30, 2023, 02:58 IST
- The late billionaire investor Charlie Munger loved Costco, and called himself a "total addict."
- He served on the company's board of directors, and owned more than 187,000 shares of Costco stock.
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With the death of billionaire investor Charlie Munger on Tuesday, Costco is losing one of its most ardent fans.Munger famously declared himself a "total addict" of the company on whose board he served for more than a quarter century."I love everything about Costco," Munger said last year. "I'm never going to sell a share."Indeed, he was Costco's second-largest individual stockholder after outgoing CEO Craig Jelinek, owning 187,180 shares as of last November, worth more than $110 million today."He was a legend to me," Jelinek said in a statement after Munger's death. "A tremendous asset to Costco."Munger was effusive in his praise of the wholesale club's operations too."I wish everything else in America was working as well as Costco does," he said in early 2022. "Think what a blessing that would be for us all."Munger told CNBC his only quibble with Costco was that its share price was a bit higher than an investor like himself would buy."Other than that, it's a perfect damn company and it has a marvelous future," he said.Costco was notoriously slow to move to e-commerce. But even compared to Amazon, Munger thought Costco had an advantage."People really trust Costco to be delivering enormous values," he said."Costco presents some danger to Amazon — because they've got a better reputation for providing value than practically anybody including Amazon," Known to many as the confidante and righthand man to Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Munger was unquestionably a financial genius in his own right."Berkshire Hathaway could not have been built to its present status without Charlie's inspiration, wisdom and participation," Buffett said in a statement.