Book reveals the real Warren Buffett

The new biography of the world’s richest man, the investor Warren Buffett, may have been an attempt to paint the businessman in a sympathetic light but according to early reviews it has achieved the exact opposite. The book, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, was written by Alice Schroeder, an American insurance analyst. It was put together with Buffett’s cooperation - which makes it more of a mystery why such an unsavoury character should emerge.

Although Schroeder heralds Buffett’s philosophy in the book as "the triumph of straight thinking and high standards over flapdoodle, folly and flimflam", she still ends up painting a picture of a man utterly consumed by the pursuit of wealth. By the age of seven the young Buffett was already reading books about the bond market and boasting to his friends that he intended to become the richest man in America.

Buffett’s ruthless side is on show throughout the book. When he purchased the ailing Berkshire Hathaway textile company for next to nothing in the 1960s he bought up all the shares - even those belonging to former business partners of his. Even Schroeder admits this is “not exactly sporting conduct”.

He spent a lot of his career looking for what he calls "cigar butts". These are dying firms that he can buy large amounts of stock in and squeeze one last profit out of before he lets them go under.

For most investors these revelations are commonplace. Buffett, however, has always prided himself on being a more ethical, morally-driven man than the Gordon Gekko figures of Wall Street fame. Schroeder sums up Buffet’s business philosophy as "having more information than the other guy". Unfortunately the other guy still loses out.