<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="429" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AA1kWCq1-820x429.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-432579" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AA1kWCq1-820x429.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AA1kWCq1-300x157.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AA1kWCq1-160x84.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AA1kWCq1-768x402.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AA1kWCq1-1536x804.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/AA1kWCq1.jpg 1910w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Traffic_analyzer | Istock | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Gold prices notched a new record on Monday for a second day in a row — with spot prices touching $2,100 as the global rush for bullion appears set to continue.



Gold prices are on course to hit fresh highs next year and could remain above $2,000 levels, analysts said, citing geopolitical uncertainty, a likely weaker U.S. dollar and possible interest rate cuts.



Prices of the yellow metal have risen for two consecutive months with the Israel-Palestinian conflict boosting demand for the safe-haven asset, while expectations of interest rate cuts have provided further support. Gold tends to perform well during periods of economic and geopolitical uncertainty due to its status as a reliable store of value.



“The anticipated retreat in both the USD and interest rates across 2024 are key positive drivers for gold,” UOB’s Head of Markets Strategy, Global Economics and Markets Research, Heng Koon How, told CNBC via email. He estimated that gold prices could reach up to $2,200 by the end of 2024.



Similarly, another analyst is bullish on bullion’s outlook.



“There is simply less leverage this time around vs 2011 in gold &#8230; taking prices through $2,100 and putting $2,200/oz in view,” said Nicky Shiels, head of metals strategy at precious metals firm&nbsp;MKS PAMP.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-all-that-glitters-is-gold"><a></a>All that glitters is gold</h2>



Spot gold prices rose to a new record high of $2,110.8 per ounce Monday before giving up some gains. It is currently trading at $2,084.59.



On Friday, gold touched $2,075.09 to surpass a precious intraday record high of $2,072.5 on Aug. 7, 2020, according to LSEG data.



Bart Melek, head of commodity strategies at TD Securities, expects gold prices to average $2,100 in the second quarter of 2024, with strong central bank purchases acting as a key catalyst in boosting prices.



According to a recent survey by the World Gold Council, 24% of all central banks intend to increase their gold reserves in the next 12 months, as they increasingly grow pessimistic about the U.S. dollar as a reserve asset.



“This means potentially higher demand from the official sector in the years to come,” Melek said.



A possible policy pivot by the Fed in 2024 could also be on the cards, he added. Lower interest rates tend to weaken the dollar and a softer dollar makes gold cheaper for international buyers thus driving up demand.



The Fed started its steady stream of rate hikes in March 2022 as inflation climbed to its highest in 40 years, diminishing gold’s appeal. 



Higher interest rates hurt demand for gold, which does not pay any interest, as assets such as bonds become more lucrative due to their higher yields.



On Nov. 29, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he envisioned easing policy if inflation data continues to ease over the next three to five months, prompting analysts to forecast a spike in gold prices.



On Friday, while Fed Chairman Jerome Powell pushed back on expectations for aggressive interest rate cuts ahead, his remarks indicated the Fed may at least be done hiking for now.



“We believe the main factors buoying gold in 2024 will be interest rate cuts by the U.S. Fed, a weaker U.S. dollar and high levels of geopolitical tension,” BMI, a Fitch Solutions research unit, said in a recent note.

AA1kWCq1

Gold soars past $2,100 to new record — and analysts don’t expect it to stop there

How America Racked Up A $1 Trillion Credit Card Bill

Inside Paris most exclusive suite

Why Mining Giant Rio Tinto Is Benefitting From The EV Boom

4 questions to Stella McCartney

Inside An Apple Lab That Makes Custom Chips For iPhone And Mac

Inside Slush – Europe’s biggest global startup and tech event.

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bill-Gates-delivers-a-speech-on-Oct.-11-2023-in-Brussels-Belgium-820x462.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-431529" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bill-Gates-delivers-a-speech-on-Oct.-11-2023-in-Brussels-Belgium-820x462.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bill-Gates-delivers-a-speech-on-Oct.-11-2023-in-Brussels-Belgium-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bill-Gates-delivers-a-speech-on-Oct.-11-2023-in-Brussels-Belgium-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bill-Gates-delivers-a-speech-on-Oct.-11-2023-in-Brussels-Belgium-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bill-Gates-delivers-a-speech-on-Oct.-11-2023-in-Brussels-Belgium.jpg 929w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Bill Gates delivers a speech on Oct. 11, 2023 in Brussels, Belgium. Thierry Monasse | Getty Images News | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES —&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/MSFT/">Microsoft</a>&nbsp;co-founder Bill Gates on Friday shared his “big hope” for this year’s U.N. climate conference and said he was “definitely glass half-full” when it comes to preventing the worst of what the climate crisis has in store.



Speaking as world leaders convened in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates on the second day of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/cop28/">COP28 summit</a>, Gates said he believed there were many encouraging climate solutions but that these projects required the necessary support from policymakers and business leaders.



“Now, we need to take what looks very promising and scale it up, build the pilot plants, prove those out,” Gates told CNBC’s Tania Bryer on Friday. “And that requires government policies, it requires the big corporations to come in and so all these different communities that have to come together, they are represented here.”



COP28 is the United Nations’&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/29/cop28-climate-summit-a-showdown-is-brewing-over-money-oil-and-carbon.html">biggest and most important annual climate conference</a>. The two-week long summit got underway on Thursday, with more than 160 world leaders expected to attend — alongside an estimated 70,000 delegates.



It is regarded as a pivotal opportunity to accelerate action to address the climate crisis at a time when global temperatures are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/08/climate-scientists-warn-2023-likely-to-be-the-hottest-year-on-record.html">hitting record highs</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/04/south-america-argentina-and-chile-gripped-by-extreme-mid-winter-heat.html">extreme weather events</a>&nbsp;are affecting people worldwide.



“You know, I think 70,000 people and it seems like wow, do we need that many? But in fact, a lot of meetings here will be where those companies get the backing and the kind of experience of big companies, the government help and these entrepreneurs are going to come together,” Gates said.



“And so, facilitating the speed of innovation and the speed of the scale up, that’s my big hope for COP28.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-magic-of-invention-and-scale-up"><a></a>‘Magic of invention and scale-up’</h2>



Asked about criticism of conferences such as COP28, given that some feel they are often&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/05/greta-thunberg-says-cop26-climate-summit-is-a-failure-and-a-pr-event.html">all talk and no action</a>, Gates defended the platform as a means to help drive progress across the globe.



“The collaboration between those sectors has improved a great deal,” Gates told CNBC.



“We are falling short of our aspirations in many areas and coming and saying, you know, how do we catch up? Can we do better in one area? Which countries are doing particularly well? Are there models from that?”



“It is a super important issue,” he continued. “It’s definitely glass half-full.”



“We haven’t gone as fast as we’d like and yet particularly, if you see in the innovation pavilion, these smaller companies, the ideas cover all the areas of emissions. And there’s hope that many of these clean approaches given time won’t cost extra,” Gates added.



The billionaire philanthropist said the costs of solar electricity and EV batteries have come down.



“And so, that same magic of invention and scale up, if we apply that broadly &#8230; I have hope that despite these delays and incredible complexity that the message coming out of these meetings does help drive progress,” Gates said.

Bill-Gates-delivers-a-speech-on-Oct.-11-2023-in-Brussels-Belgium

Bill Gates shares his ‘big hope’ for COP28 as world leaders gather for climate talks

This is the first deal approved at COP28

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Countries-at-COP28-approve-climate-disaster-fund-deal-details-in-early-breakthrough-820x462.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-431341" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Countries-at-COP28-approve-climate-disaster-fund-deal-details-in-early-breakthrough-820x462.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Countries-at-COP28-approve-climate-disaster-fund-deal-details-in-early-breakthrough-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Countries-at-COP28-approve-climate-disaster-fund-deal-details-in-early-breakthrough-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Countries-at-COP28-approve-climate-disaster-fund-deal-details-in-early-breakthrough-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Countries-at-COP28-approve-climate-disaster-fund-deal-details-in-early-breakthrough.jpg 929w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A man wearing a thawb walks past flags of nations participating in the UNFCCC COP28 Climate Conference the day before its official opening on November 29, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Countries at the U.N. COP28 summit on Thursday agreed on deal details for a disaster fund to help nations reeling from damages caused by the climate crisis.



This agreement, struck on the opening day of the conference in the United Arab Emirates, builds on a deal for a loss and damage fund brokered at COP27 in Egypt last year — widely seen as a historic breakthrough and potential turning point in the climate crisis.



Many key arrangements were left unresolved at the time, such as who should pay into the fund, how large should it be and who should administer the money.



The operationalization of the fund on Thursday prompted a standing ovation from delegates in the audience.



So far, the pledges to the fund include $100 million from Germany, $100 million from the United Arab Emirates, $17 million from the U.S. and $10 million from Japan. The U.K. has also pledged sums into the fund.



Payments are made into the fund on a voluntary basis, and all developing countries are eligible to directly access the resources. The World Bank will be the interim host to the fund for a period of four years — an issue that has previously fueled tensions between high-income and low-income countries.



In emailed comments, Friederike Roder, vice president of sustainable development advocacy group Global Citizen, described the announcement of a loss and damage fund as a “historic decision,” but added that “a fund is worthless without any dollars in it” and urged wealthy countries to step and announce significant pledges.



“The needs for loss and damage and other climate finance will continue to increase. This is why we also need, additionally, to tap into other financing sources, such as international taxes,” Roder said.



High-income countries, which account for the bulk of historical greenhouse gas emissions, have long opposed the creation of a loss and damage fund to compensate low-income nations.



Advocates argue that the fund is required to account for climate impacts — including hurricanes, floods and wildfires or slow-onset impacts such as rising sea levels — that countries cannot defend against, either because the risks are unavoidable, or because they lack the financial resources to do so.



Avinash Persaud, special climate envoy to Barbados, said that the deal reflects “a hard fought historic agreement.”



“It shows recognition that climate loss and damage is not a distant risk but part of the lived reality of almost half of the world’s population and that money is needed to reconstruct and rehabilitate if we are not to let the climate crisis reverse decades of development in mere moments,” he added.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-boost-to-momentum">A boost to momentum?</h2>



 In Dubai, Alex Scott, an analyst at environmental think tank E3G, described the deal to establish a loss and damage fund as a “massive” breakthrough that reflected “a huge show of global cooperation.”



“There is often a lot of skepticism at these multilateral spaces because they are often getting every country to agree, so they always end up being the lowest common denominator and end up with diplomatic speak that doesn’t really make sense to people,” Scott told CNBC.



“But this is very clear. This is a decision to establish the fund that they agreed they would try to establish last year. I think it will be a good momentum boost for the rest of the negotiations.”



Policymakers will now need to reflect on how much they are willing to put into the fund, Scott said.



Low-income countries have previously called for sums of at least $100 billion a year by 2030, to be put toward the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis.



“I would expect some countries might hold back their pledges and wait until the very end, as part of the negotiating tactics to bring the final package together,” Scott said.

Countries-at-COP28-approve-climate-disaster-fund-deal-details-in-early-breakthrough

Countries at COP28 approve climate disaster fund deal details in early breakthrough

Why burying power lines is an effective

Why burying power lines is an effective, but very expensive way to prevent wildfires #Shorts

Olympic champion on finding your calling

How Nespresso Is Taking On Keurig In The U.S. Coffee Pod Market

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107338543-1700826590772-gettyimages-1808236454-dji_20231122104648_0051_d_odwns4n3-820x462.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-430869" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107338543-1700826590772-gettyimages-1808236454-dji_20231122104648_0051_d_odwns4n3-820x462.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107338543-1700826590772-gettyimages-1808236454-dji_20231122104648_0051_d_odwns4n3-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107338543-1700826590772-gettyimages-1808236454-dji_20231122104648_0051_d_odwns4n3-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107338543-1700826590772-gettyimages-1808236454-dji_20231122104648_0051_d_odwns4n3-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107338543-1700826590772-gettyimages-1808236454-dji_20231122104648_0051_d_odwns4n3.jpeg 929w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">In this aerial view water vapour and exhaust rise from the steel mill of Salzgitter AG, one Europe’s largest steel producers, on November 22, 2023 in Salzgitter, Germany. Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Policymakers and business leaders from across the globe are set to arrive in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for the world’s biggest and most important annual climate conference.



The COP28 summit, which starts on Thursday and is scheduled to run through to Dec. 12, will provide a critical forum for government officials, business leaders and campaign groups to accelerate action to tackle the climate crisis.



The pressure to deliver is immense. Global temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions continue to break records, with no continent left untouched by more frequent and intense extreme weather events.



Here’s a look at what’s at stake at COP28.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-money"><a></a>Money</h2>



Climate finance is always a hotly debated talking point at the U.N. summit and COP28 promises to be no different. It refers to the financing needed to support efforts to both significantly reduce emissions and adjust to the effects of climate change.



Talks in Bonn, Germany earlier in the year became gridlocked over this issue of finance and support, with some low-income countries refusing to talk about slashing emissions unless there was an equal focus on how wealthy nations would provide cash to them.



It laid the groundwork for what one environmental group expects to be a “huge fight” between high-income and low-income nations at COP28.



Data published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in mid-November, however, showed that rich countries had finally fulfilled their promise to provide $100 billion a year to low-income countries — albeit two years after the deadline. It is hoped that this could go some way to fostering goodwill at the summit.



“COP28 has a massive role to play in setting the political direction for a transformational shift in climate ambition. But without finance and economic confidence, countries won’t be able to act at the pace and scale needed,” said Alex Scott, program lead at E3G, an independent climate think tank.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>Loss and damage</h2>



Another major financial issue will be to operationalize the so-called “loss and damage” fund, arguably the main legacy of last year’s COP27 summit in Egypt.



Rich countries, despite accounting for the bulk of historical greenhouse gas emissions, have long opposed the creation of a fund to compensate low-income countries for the loss and damage they’ve caused.



Advocates argue, however, that it is required to account for climate impacts — including hurricanes, floods and wildfires or slow-onset impacts such as rising sea levels — that countries cannot defend against because the risks are unavoidable, or the countries cannot afford it.



The establishment of the loss and damage fund at COP27 was seen as a historic breakthrough and potential turning point in the climate crisis, although many key details were left unresolved — such as who should pay into the fund, how large should it be and who should administer the money.



Countries reached a consensus on how to approach loss and damage payments during tense discissions that ran into overtime earlier this month. Yet it remains to be seen whether this fragile agreement can hold for countries to successfully operationalize the fund in the UAE.



“Billions of people, lives and livelihoods who are vulnerable to the effects of climate change depend upon the adoption of this recommended approach at COP28,” Sultan al-Jaber, president-designate of COP28, said in a statement on Nov. 5.



Al-Jaber was seen as a controversial choice to lead COP28 discussions in Dubai given that he also works as the head of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.



Climate activists criticized his appointment saying his position as an oil executive reflects a clear conflict of interest — akin to “putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.” His office has said he will play a pivotal role in the intergovernmental discussions to build consensus at the event.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>Fossil fuels</h2>



Melanie Robinson, global climate program director at the World Resources Institute, said COP28 will be the biggest accountability moment for climate action in history — and fossil fuels will be at the heart of the talks.



She anticipated three main debates around the use of oil, gas and coal — the burning of which is the chief driver of the climate crisis.



“So, one is this ‘phase out’ or ‘phase down’ [of fossil fuels]. Actually, for us at WRI, since neither of those has got a timeline, the most important thing for us is that whatever language they agree to, it needs to send a really strong signal that the world is rapidly shifting away from fossil fuels and it will do so equitably,” Robinson told CNBC via telephone.



“The second, but perhaps slightly linked, issue is whether it is ‘abated’ or ‘unabated.’ There’s a whole debate about the role of carbon capture technology abating emissions and there are certainly some oil companies and producer countries who would try to have us believe that with CCS [carbon capture and storage] we can continue to burn fossil fuels and still achieve our climate goals,” she continued.



“We think the science suggests that is simply not true. There is no credible scenario where CCS will allow continued use of fossil fuels, let alone expanding oil and gas. So, for us, it is important that COP28 acknowledges the limited role CCS will play.”



Abated fossil fuels refer to the process in which emissions are captured and stored with carbon capture and storage technologies. The definition of unabated fossil fuels lacks clarity, despite the term cropping up in several climate commitments, but it is said to refer to fossil fuels produced and used without interventions to substantially reduce the amount of emitted greenhouse gases.



Robinson said the third talking point on fossil fuels was that there is a risk Dubai “could become a platform celebrating pledges from the oil and gas industry that fail to curb the emissions of their products.”



She warned that any net zero pledge from the oil and gas industry that doesn’t involve so-called Scope 3 emissions would not be significant. Scope 3 emissions refer to the emissions produced from across a company’s entire value chain, and often account for the lion’s share of a firm’s carbon footprint.



“For us, it’s a bit like a cigarette company saying that whatever happens to cigarettes after they leave the factory gate has got nothing to do with them. So, that I think we have to watch,” Robinson said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>A course correction?</h2>



One unique component of the Dubai climate talks is the conclusion of the first global stocktake since the landmark Paris Agreement — the 2015 accord that aims to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.



The world has already warmed by around 1.1 degrees Celsius, scientists say, after over a century of burning fossil fuels as well as unequal and unsustainable energy and land use. Indeed, it is this temperature increase that is fueling a series of extreme weather events around the world.



The stocktake is the main tool through which progress under the Paris Agreement is assessed. According to the U.N. global stocktake synthesis report released in early September, only transformational change will be enough to get the world back on track to meeting its climate goals.

107338543-1700826590772-gettyimages-1808236454-dji_20231122104648_0051_d_odwns4n3

A showdown is brewing over money, oil and carbon. Here’s what’s at stake at the COP28 climate summit

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GettyImages-1124907100-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-430859" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GettyImages-1124907100-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GettyImages-1124907100-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GettyImages-1124907100-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GettyImages-1124907100-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GettyImages-1124907100-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GettyImages-1124907100-scaled.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., speaks during the Daily Journal Corp. shareholder meeting in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Munger discussed investing, banks, China, and health care at the meeting. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Billionaire Charlie Munger, the investing sage who made a fortune even before he became Warren Buffett’s right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway, has died at age 99.



Munger died Tuesday, according to a press release from Berkshire Hathaway. The conglomerate said it was advised by members of Munger’s family that he peacefully died this morning at a California hospital. He would have turned 100 on New Year’s Day.



“Berkshire Hathaway could not have been built to its present status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom and participation,” Buffett said in a statement.



In addition to being Berkshire vice chairman, Munger was a real estate attorney, chairman and publisher of the Daily Journal Corp., a member of the Costco board, a philanthropist and an architect.



In early 2023, his fortune was estimated at $2.3 billion — a jaw-dropping amount for many people but vastly smaller than Buffett’s unfathomable fortune, which is estimated at more than $100 billion.



During Berkshire’s 2021 annual shareholder meeting, the then-97-year-old Munger apparently inadvertently revealed a well-guarded secret: that Vice Chairman Greg Abel “will keep the culture” after the Buffett era.



Munger, who wore thick glasses, had lost his left eye after complications from cataract surgery in 1980.



Munger was chairman and CEO of Wesco Financial from 1984 to 2011, when Buffett’s Berkshire purchased the remaining shares of the Pasadena, California-based insurance and investment company it did not own.



Buffett credited Munger with broadening his investment strategy from favoring troubled companies at low prices in hopes of getting a profit to focusing on higher-quality but underpriced companies.



An early example of the shift was illustrated in 1972 by Munger’s ability to persuade Buffett to sign off on Berkshire’s purchase of See’s Candies for $25 million even though the California candy maker had annual pretax earnings of only about $4 million. It has since produced more than $2 billion in sales for Berkshire<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-buffetts-sees-candies-deal-173114333.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">.</a>



“He weaned me away from the idea of buying very so-so companies at very cheap prices, knowing that there was some small profit in it, and looking for some really wonderful businesses that we could buy in fair prices,” Buffett told CNBC in May 2016.



Or as Munger put it at the 1998 Berkshire shareholder meeting: “It’s not that much fun to buy a business where you really hope this sucker liquidates before it goes broke.”



Munger was often the straight man to Buffett’s jovial commentaries. “I have nothing to add,” he would say after one of Buffett’s loquacious responses to questions at Berkshire annual meetings in Omaha, Nebraska. But like his friend and colleague, Munger was a font of wisdom in investing, and in life. And like one of his heroes, Benjamin Franklin, Munger’s insight didn’t lack humor.



“I have a friend who says the first rule of fishing is to fish where the fish are. The second rule of fishing is to never forget the first rule. We’ve gotten good at fishing where the fish are,” the then-93-year-old Munger told the thousands of people at Berkshire’s 2017 meeting.



He believed in what he called the “lollapalooza effect,” in which a confluence of factors merged to drive investment psychology.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-son-of-the-heartland"><a></a>A son of the heartland</h2>



Charles Thomas Munger was born in Omaha on Jan. 1, 1924. His father, Alfred, was a lawyer, and his mother, Florence “Toody,”<a href="https://www.economist.com/media/globalexecutive/damn_right_e_02.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> </a>was from an affluent family. Like Warren, Munger worked at Buffett’s grandfather’s grocery store as a youth, but the two future joined-at-the-hip partners didn’t meet until years later.



At 17, Munger left Omaha for the University of Michigan. Two years later, in 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, according to Janet Lowe’s 2003 biography “Damn Right!”



The military sent him to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena to study meteorology. In California, he fell in love with his sister’s roommate at Scripps College, Nancy Huggins, and married her in 1945. Although he never completed his undergraduate degree, Munger graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1948, and the couple moved back to California, where he practiced real estate law. He founded the law firm Munger, Tolles &amp; Olson in 1962 and focused on managing investments at the hedge fund Wheeler, Munger &amp; Co., which he also founded that year.



“I’m proud of being an Omaha boy,” Munger said in a 2017 interview with Dean Scott Derue of the Michigan Ross Business School. “I sometimes use the old saying, ‘They got the boy out of Omaha but they never got Omaha out of the boy.’ All those old-fashioned values — family comes first; be in a position so that you can help others when troubles come; prudent, sensible; moral duty to be reasonable [is] more important than anything else — more important than being rich, more important than being important — an absolute moral duty.”



In California, he partnered with Franklin Otis Booth, a member of the founding family of the Los Angeles Times, in real estate. One of their early developments turned out to be a lucrative condo project on Booth’s grandfather’s property in Pasadena. (Booth, who died in 2008, had been introduced to Buffett by Munger in 1963 and became one of Berkshire’s largest investors.)



“I had five real estate projects,” Munger told Derue. “I did both side by side for a few years, and in a very few years, I had $3 million — $4 million.”



Munger closed the hedge fund in 1975. Three years later, he became vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-we-think-so-much-alike-that-it-s-spooky"><a></a>‘We think so much alike that it’s spooky’</h2>



In 1959, at age 35, Munger returned to Omaha to close his late father’s legal practice. That’s when he was introduced to the then-29-year-old Buffett by one of Buffett’s investor clients. The two hit it off and stayed in contact despite living half a continent away from each other.



“We think so much alike that it’s spooky,” Buffett recalled in an interview with the Omaha World-Herald in 1977. “He’s as smart and as high-grade a guy as I’ve ever run into.”



“We never had an argument in the entire time we’ve known each other, which is almost 60 years now,” Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick in 2018. “Charlie has given me the ultimate gift that a person can give to somebody else. He’s made me a better person than I would have otherwise been. &#8230; He’s given me a lot of good advice over time. &#8230; I’ve lived a better life because of Charlie.”



The melding of the minds focused on value investing, in which stocks are picked because their price appears to be undervalued based on the company’s long-term fundamentals.



“All intelligent investing is value investing — acquiring more than you are paying for,” Munger once said. “You must value the business in order to value the stock.”



But during the coronavirus outbreak in early 2020, when Berkshire suffered a massive $50 billion loss in the first quarter, Munger and Buffett were more conservative than they were during the Great Recession, when they invested in U.S. airlines and financials like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs hit hard by that downturn.



“Well, I would say basically we’re like the captain of a ship when the worst typhoon that’s ever happened comes,” Munger told The Wall Street Journal in April 2020. “We just want to get through the typhoon, and we’d rather come out of it with a whole lot of liquidity. We’re not playing, ‘Oh goody, goody, everything’s going to hell, let’s plunge 100% of the reserves’ [into buying businesses].” 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>The philanthropist/architect</h2>



Munger donated hundreds of millions of dollars to educational institutions, including the University of Michigan, Stanford University and Harvard Law School, often with the stipulation that the school accept his building designs, even though he was not formally trained as an architect.



At Los Angeles’ Harvard-Westlake prep school, where Munger had been a board member for decades, he ensured that the girls bathrooms were larger than the boys room during the construction of the science center in the 1990s.



“Any time you go to a football game or a function there’s a huge line outside the women’s bathroom. Who doesn’t know that they pee in a different way than the men?” Munger told The Wall Street Journal in 2019. “What kind of idiot would make the men’s bathroom and the women’s bathroom the same size? The answer is, a normal architect!”



Munger and his wife had three children, daughters Wendy and Molly, and son Teddy, who died of leukemia at age 9. The Mungers divorced in 1953.



Two years later, he married Nancy Barry, whom he met on a blind date at a chicken dinner restaurant. The couple had four children, Charles Jr., Emilie, Barry and Philip. He also was the stepfather to her two other sons, William Harold Borthwick and David Borthwick. The Mungers, who were married 54 years until her death in 2010, contributed $43.5 million to Stanford University to help build the Munger Graduate Residence, which houses 600 law and graduate students.



Asked by CNBC’s Quick in a February 2019 “Squawk Box” interview about the secret to a long and happy life, Munger said the answer “is easy, because it’s so simple.”



“You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment, you don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles. You deal with reliable people and you do what you’re supposed to do. And all these simple rules work so well to make your life better. And they’re so trite,” he said.



“And staying cheerful &#8230; because it’s a wise thing to do. Is that so hard? And can you be cheerful when you’re absolutely mired in deep hatred and resentment? Of course you can’t. So why would you take it on?”



— CNBC’s Yun Li contributed reporting.

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger Speaks At Daily Journal’s Annual Meeting

Charlie Munger, investing genius and Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, dies at age 99

How homeowners associations became so powerful #Shorts

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="720" height="405" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107332768-1699881235282-gettyimages-1775227723-SHEIN_IPO.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-430663" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107332768-1699881235282-gettyimages-1775227723-SHEIN_IPO.jpeg 720w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107332768-1699881235282-gettyimages-1775227723-SHEIN_IPO-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/107332768-1699881235282-gettyimages-1775227723-SHEIN_IPO-160x90.jpeg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A Shein pop-up store inside a Forever 21 store in Times Square in New York on Nov. 10, 2023. Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Shein has confidentially filed to go public in the U.S. as the Chinese-founded fast-fashion juggernaut looks to expand its global reach with a long-rumored initial public offering, CNBC has learned.&nbsp;



The retailer was last valued at $66 billion and could be ready to start trading on the public markets as soon as 2024, people familiar with the matter said Monday.&nbsp;



It is unclear how much the company is currently worth, but its valuation has been a central point of debate among Shein and the advisors it’s working with, people familiar with the matter said.&nbsp;



A confidential filing is common, as it allows companies to communicate with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and make any necessary adjustments to their filings in private. Over the next few months, Shein will likely make tweaks to its paperwork and answer numerous questions from the agency. The filing will be made public once the company is ready to move forward with its IPO. At that point, those communications with the SEC and any adjustments to its paperwork will be released as well.



Shein has been on a meteoric rise over the past few years after it won over consumers across the globe with its fashion-forward designs, endless assortment and dirt-cheap prices. But Shein has faced a series of challenges along the way and faced accusations of using forced labor in its supply chain, violating labor laws, harming the environment and stealing designs from independent artists.



The company is currently under investigation by the newly formed House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and has faced scrutiny over its ties to Beijing. Numerous lawmakers, including 16 Republican attorneys general, have called on the SEC to ensure Shein isn’t using forced labor in its supply chain before it’s allowed to start trading in the U.S.



In October, Marcelo Claure, the company’s newly minted group vice chair and former SoftBank CEO, told CNBC in an interview that Shein is cooperating with lawmakers and taking time to meet with them to explain the business. He said, “there’s no such thing as forced labor” in the Shein factories that he has visited. But the company has repeatedly acknowledged that forced labor has been found in its supply chain and noted that it’s taking steps to fix it.



As Shein grew from an obscure Chinese retailer into a global behemoth with headquarters in Singapore, it largely stayed in the shadows. It said and did very little publicly until this year, when it began to open up in an apparent attempt to prepare for a U.S. IPO.



With Chinese CEO Sky Xu still at the helm, Shein tapped former Bear Stearns investment banker Donald Tang to be its executive chair and public face earlier this year.&nbsp;It has hosted a series of well-publicized pop-up events, sent influencers to its Chinese factories in a poorly received public relations campaign and courted the business press with splashy parties that featured its independent designers and other friends of the company.



Shein has worked hard to beat the many negative accusations that have come to define the company and has made its executives available for interviews as it worked to change the narrative.



Recently, it acquired about one-third of Sparc Group — a joint venture that includes brand management firm Authentic Brands Group and mall owner Simon Property Group — and in doing so, made a powerful U.S. ally that could help legitimize the company in the eyes of U.S. regulators.



As part of the deal, Shein has partnered up with former rival Forever 21 to unveil a co-branded clothing line that will see Shein design, manufacture and distribute the clothes primarily on its website. Shein has been hosting pop-up events inside of Forever 21′s stores.



Shein still has more work to do before it can win the trust of U.S. regulators. Beyond its myriad of issues, its CEO remains a mysterious figure who doesn’t give interviews or speak publicly about the company. The practice is a major departure from other firms that are publicly traded in the U.S., which regularly make their CEOs available. In October, the company did not tell CNBC whether Xu is still a Chinese citizen.



The company has tapped Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley to be the lead underwriters on the offering, the people said. 



Shein declined to comment. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley did not comment.



Earlier Monday, Chinese media reported on Shein’s filing.

CNBC

Gold soars past $2,100 to new record — and analysts don’t expect it to stop there

How America Racked Up A $1 Trillion Credit Card Bill

Inside Paris most exclusive suite

Why Mining Giant Rio Tinto Is Benefitting From The EV Boom

4 questions to Stella McCartney

Inside An Apple Lab That Makes Custom Chips For iPhone And Mac

Inside Slush – Europe’s biggest global startup and tech event.

Bill Gates shares his ‘big hope’ for COP28 as world leaders gather for climate talks

This is the first deal approved at COP28

Countries at COP28 approve climate disaster fund deal details in early breakthrough

Why burying power lines is an effective, but very expensive way to prevent wildfires #Shorts

Olympic champion on finding your calling

How Nespresso Is Taking On Keurig In The U.S. Coffee Pod Market

A showdown is brewing over money, oil and carbon. Here’s what’s at stake at the COP28 climate summit

Charlie Munger, investing genius and Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, dies at age 99

How homeowners associations became so powerful #Shorts

Shein files for U.S. IPO as fast-fashion giant looks to expand its global reach

News Tips

Advertise With Us

CNBC

Gold soars past $2,100 to new record — and analysts don’t expect it to stop there

How America Racked Up A $1 Trillion Credit Card Bill

Inside Paris most exclusive suite

Why Mining Giant Rio Tinto Is Benefitting From The EV Boom

4 questions to Stella McCartney

Inside An Apple Lab That Makes Custom Chips For iPhone And Mac

Inside Slush – Europe’s biggest global startup and tech event.

Bill Gates shares his ‘big hope’ for COP28 as world leaders gather for climate talks

This is the first deal approved at COP28

Countries at COP28 approve climate disaster fund deal details in early breakthrough

Why burying power lines is an effective, but very expensive way to prevent wildfires #Shorts

Olympic champion on finding your calling

How Nespresso Is Taking On Keurig In The U.S. Coffee Pod Market

A showdown is brewing over money, oil and carbon. Here’s what’s at stake at the COP28 climate summit

Charlie Munger, investing genius and Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, dies at age 99

How homeowners associations became so powerful #Shorts

Shein files for U.S. IPO as fast-fashion giant looks to expand its global reach

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Newsletters