T1B

Trampis wrote:Anyways, from Chapter 2, SunValley Idaho 1999 on page 12 we are informed that the richest dude on the planet is too manly for one woman. He has his wife of 47 years and a companion of 20 years. Nice.

Oh well, at least we still have that microsoft guy to look up to for money and morals.

Trampis wrote: a companion of 20 years. Nice.

Terry in Crapchester wrote:If you're looking for moral advice from the super-wealthy, you're looking in the wrong place. There is no correlation between material wealth and virtue.

Just sayin'.

It did not move markets, and Berkshire Hathaway shares barely budged, but the marriage of Warren E. Buffett, the Omaha billionaire, to his longtime companion, Astrid Menks, had the financial world all abuzz yesterday.

Mr. Buffett and Ms. Menks formalized a relationship of more than 20 years in a brief civil ceremony at his daughter’s house in Omaha Wednesday afternoon.

The new Mrs. Buffett, 60, has been the constant companion to the 76-year-old financier, even as he remained married to his first wife, Susan T. Buffett, who died in 2004.

The first Mrs. Buffett, who had lived apart from her husband since the late 1970’s, knew and approved of the relationship with Ms. Menks.

“She has been with my father all these years for all the right reasons,” Mr. Buffett’s daughter, Susie Buffett, said in a telephone interview. “I’m so thankful. She loves him and takes care of him. If Warren didn’t have a cent, she’d be with him.”

In his personal life, however, Mr. Buffett has been less conventional. His first wife, Susan, left the family home in Omaha in the late 1970’s, after raising the couple’s three children, and moved to San Francisco.

And she introduced a friend, Ms. Menks, to her husband and encouraged Ms. Menks to take care of Mr. Buffett.

The two women had become friends at an Omaha restaurant where Susan Buffett sang and Astrid Menks seated patrons.

“Unconventional is not a bad thing,” Susie Buffett said. “More people should have unconventional marriages.” She said her mother, who was also known as Susie, wanted to be known for who she was, especially as her father’s wealth and fame grew.

“She basically wanted a room of her own. They were very connected in a very deep way,” speaking frequently on the telephone and traveling together, Susie Buffett said. “They didn’t need to be in the same room.”

“Astrid and my mother were very close — really loved each other,” Susie Buffett said.

In an interview with Charlie Rose shortly before her death, the first Mrs. Buffett said of Ms. Menks’s relationship with her husband: “She takes great care of him, and he appreciates it and I appreciate it. She’s a wonderful person.”

Mr. Buffett and his new wife are both known for their frugality. He hunts for bargain stocks and lives simply for a man of his wealth. She often shopped in thrift stores for clothing, assembling fashionable outfits.

“They had a relationship that was so unusual, so fine, and so sophisticated — all three of those people,” said Cedric Hartman, an Omaha furniture maker and friend to the Buffetts for many years.

“We all got to know Astrid about the same time,” Mr. Hartman said. An immigrant from Latvia, “she appeared in town and you couldn’t miss her. She was smart, good-looking and had personal style — she would have been a standout anywhere.”

After she and Mr. Buffett became a couple, friends often received cards signed, “Warren, Susie and Astrid,” according to “Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist” (Random House, 1995), a biography by Roger Lowenstein.