Warren Buffett is becoming accustomed to wearing the mantle of the richest man in the world after the billionaire investor ended Microsoft mogul Bill Gates' 13-year reign earlier this year.

In February, Forbes magazine named Buffett the world's richest man with a net worth of around $62-billion. Shortly afterwards, Buffett was quoted "I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute".

Besides having an addiction to luxury air travel, he is a man of simple tastes and prudent habits. He neither spends his money nor gives much of it away except to charities. In June 2006, he donated $30.7-billion (in Berkshire Hathaway shares) to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest charitable donation in history.

No inheritance

He has also been consistent with statements he made about the inheritance of his three children, saying, "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing".

Buffett purchased a five-bedroom house for $31 500 at the age of 27 and it is reported that he still stays in the same house, 50 years later. It was also reported that he does not carry a cell phone, does not have a computer at his desk and drives his own Cadillac.

At the age of 13, Buffett filed his first income tax return, deducting his bicycle as a work expense for $35. At the age of 15, Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in a barber shop. Within months, they owned three machines in different locations.

In 1962, at the age of 32, Warren Buffett made is first-million after his partnerships had in excess of $7 178 500 of which over $1 025 000 belonged to him. In the same year, Buffett discovered a textile manufacturing firm, Berkshire Hathaway and he started to purchase shares in the company at $7.60 per share.

After aggressively purchasing Berkshire Hathaway's shares over the next three years, Buffett took control of the company in 1963 and replaced the ailing board of directors.

Sunshine and rain

In 1977 Buffett's personal life took a blow when his wife, Susan left him to pursue her singing career in San Francisco even though they remained married. Buffett said "Susie has been the sunshine and rain in my garden".

In 1979, Berkshire Hathaway began to acquire stock in ABC, boosting the company's stock price to $1310 by the end of that year and ballooning Buffett's net worth to $620-million, placing him on the Forbes 400 list for the very first time. However, he still lived on his salary of $50 000 per year.

Buffett started buying shares in The Coca-Cola Company in 1988. Within a few months, Berkshire owned seven percent of the company, or $1.02-billion worth of the stock.

By 1989, Berkshire Hathaway was trading at $8000 a share. Buffett was then worth more than $3.8-billion and before the next ten years were through, his net worth had swollen to ten times that amount.

In 2004, estranged wife Susan died unexpectedly and in 2006, at the age of 76, Buffett married his longtime-companion, Astrid Menks.

Berkshire now owns 63 companies covering candy production, retail, home furnishings, encyclopedias, vacuum cleaners and jewelry sales.

Buffett, one of the greatest stock market investors of modern times, summed up the chances of his retirement thus: ''The problem I've got with doing anything else except what I'm doing is that there is nothing remotely as fun as running Berkshire,'' he says. ''I'm selfish that way.''