Bill Miller's net worth

Bill Miller's net worth is estimated to be more than $1.8 billion, but it fluctuates with the stock and crypto markets.

Early life

Bill Miller was born in 1950 in Laurinburg, North Carolina, the son of a terminal manager of a trucking company.

Education

Miller graduated with honors from Washington and Lee University with a degree in economics in 1972.

He served in the U.S. Army from 1972 to 1975. After leaving the Army, Miller worked part-time in accounting while pursuing graduate studies in philosophy in the Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University.

Family life

Bill Miller has a son, Bill Miller IV, and is divorced. He lives in Orchid, Florida.

How did Bill Miller build his net worth?

Bill Miller is a legendary, market-beating fund manager and famed Bitcoin investor. His wealth is derived from salaries and bonuses at Legg Mason and Miller Value Partners and by applying his value investing strategies to his personal investment portfolio.

Depending on the market, his stock portfolio is worth approximately $1.79 billion. However, this valuation does not include his real estate holdings, yacht, and his co-ownership of a private jet. As he revealed, Bitcoin comprises around half of his investment portfolio.

Bill Miller started his career as the treasurer of the J.E. Baker Company, a manufacturer. He later joined Legg Mason Capital Management in 1981 as a security analyst and qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). He became the Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of the firm in 2007. He was tasked with running the value trust mutual fund. Miller handed over the reins of the fund to Sam Peters in 2012.

While at Legg Mason, Bill Miller beat the S&P 500 Index for 15 years, from 1991 to 2005. He has made significant personal investments, which continue to pay off, boosting his net worth.

Miller's savvy investment strategy focused on value investments, stocks sold at an intrinsic discount with future growth potential.

Using the value investing philosophy, Bill Miller became an early investor in Amazon, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and crypto. These investments have rewarded early investors with the wisdom to buy and hold for the long term, ignoring fluctuations in business cycles and the stock market.

Miller continues to invest heavily in Bitcoin, with crypto making up 50% of his investment portfolio. His initial Bitcoin investments began in 2014 when it was valued at around $200 per Bitcoin.

But his legendary career is not without mega-sized mistakes. In 2008, in the wake of the developing financial crisis, Bill Miller placed huge leveraged bets on Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, and other stocks that had taken a particularly hard beating, counting on the Federal Reserve to backstop the failing institutions. He was proved wrong, and his hitherto flagship fund lost 55% of its value in fairly short order. Investors abandoned Legg Mason in droves as the assets under management dipped to a humbling $800 million from its peak of $77 billion. Miller's divorce settlement further eroded his net worth, shrinking it by 90%.

After leaving Legg Mason, Miller founded Miller Value Partners and serves as the Chairman, Chief Investment Officer, and co-Portfolio Manager for its "Opportunity Equity" and "Income Strategy" funds.

Miller salvaged his net worth with investments in Bitcoin and the good luck of having held on to his Amazon stock, exercising call options in 2008. Even after he sold off some shares, he remained one of the top individual investors in Amazon. By mid-2021, Miller's Bitcoin holdings were worth more than his Amazon stake.

Miller said in 2021 that one of his regrets was selling off his GameStop stock in 2018. Had he held on, his stake would have been worth $800 million in January 2021 after the Wallstreetbets rally.

Today Bill Miller is a billionaire thanks to just two stocks, a strategy that fellow investor Charlie Munger expounds. While it works for Miller, this is not something people should do on their own since diversification is a fundamental principle of investing.

The big lesson we can all learn from Bill Miller is to persevere. Whenever you fail, get back up quickly, try again, and keep going.

How has Bill Miller spent his wealth?

In 2018, Bill Miller donated $75 million to the philosophy department at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, stating that philosophy "made a huge difference both to my life outside business... and to the actual decisions I've made in investing". Miller's donation is considered the largest gift ever given to a philosophy department.

In 2021, he donated $50 million to support Johns Hopkins's physics and astronomy department.

In 2017 Bill Miller bought and renovated a large mansion north of Baltimore. He owns a yacht named Utopia and co-owns a Bombardier Challenger 350 private jet.

FAQs

How rich is Bill Miller?

Bill Miller has an estimated net worth of over $1.8 billion.

Is Bill Miller a millionaire?

Bill Miller is a billionaire with a stock portfolio exceeding $1.8 billion and other assets, including a luxury house, yacht, and co-ownership of a private jet.