Charlie Munger, famed investor and partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway, is dead

Charles Munger, the legendary vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and business partner of Warren Buffett, has passed away at age 99. 

"Berkshire Hathaway could not have been built to its present status without Charlie's inspiration, wisdom and participation," Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the world's most famous investors, said in a press release statement Tuesday. 

Munger's family informed the firm that he "peacefully died this morning at a California hospital," the release said. 

Munger, who would have turned 100 on January 1, was a decades-long friend to Buffett and an icon in the wealth management and business world. He met Buffett in 1959 and the two became among the most prominent faces of a style of portfolio management known as value investing. 

At the firm's annual shareholder meeting in Omaha this spring, Munger seemed the epitome of good health as he traded good-natured jokes with Buffett onstage for hours. He warned wealth managers that many were in the industry for the wrong reason, though, and said they could contribute negatively to "American civilization."