To many people, becoming wealthy is a lifetime goal. While many spend lots of time and energy to make this goal a reality, others enjoy what can be termed as overnight success. While it is not easy to ascend to billionaire status, men like Stewart Horejsi have challenged this concept and moved from being an unknown-regular person to a billionaire.
Stewart’s story is not only interesting, but it also provides valuable lessons that most of us can apply to building personal wealth.
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Who is Stewart Horejsi?
Stewart Horejsi is an investor with an estimated current net worth of $2.5 billion according to Forbes. His journey to success began when he graduated from the University of Kansas in the 1960s to join his family’s welding company named Brown Welding Supply LLC in the city of Kansas. He later took over the company but ran into major challenges in the 1980s after a number of competitors moved into Kansas.
Business went south and doubts began to surface about whether the company could survive.
It was during this period that Horejsi read the book – The Money Masters written by John Train. The book summarized the habits and strategies of some of the world’s most successful investors, such as John Templeton, Benjamin Graham, etc. It influenced his decision to buy his first 40 Berkshire Hathaway shares at $265 per share, for a total of $10,600.
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Purchasing these stocks changed his life forever. Gradually, as his family’s welding business began to weather the storm and pick up, Stewart Horejsi ploughed the firm’s profit into buying more Berkshire Hathaway stocks. At a time, he owned as much as 5,800 of the company’s shares.
Each of those stocks which he purchased at under $500 is now worth $420,000, at the time of writing this article.
Stewart Horejsi became a billionaire just by holding the stocks of one major company. In one interview, the billionaire said: “I kept running the [family] business, but I just kept buying Berkshire. I can’t really believe I put so much into one issue, though.”
He admits to admiring and emulating Berkshire Hathaway’s Chairman and CEO, Warren Buffet. He also patterns his lifestyle after Buffet’s, choosing to measure his success by the simple philosophy that: “If the people you want to love you, love you, then you are a success.”
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What you should know about Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company with Warren Buffet as Chairman and CEO. The conglomerate, which has its headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska wholly owns several businesses with significant stakes in public companies as well.
As of the time of writing this article, Berkshire Hathaway had a market capitalization of $638.73 billion, making it one of the largest publicly traded companies worldwide.
The company has two classes of stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange namely Class A and Class B. Its class A shares are among the most expensive on the stock market.
