BILL Miller is so bullish on Bitcoin he’s invested half of his net worth into it.
But what is the story behind the market beating fund manager and what is his net worth?
Who is Bill Miller?
Bill Miller was born in 1950 in Laurinburg, North Carolina.
He graduated from Washington and Lee University with a degree in economics in 1972 before serving three years in the US army until 1975.
After leaving the Army, Miller worked in accounting while studying for a PHD in philosophy at Johns Hopkins University.
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Miller started his career as the treasurer of manufacturer J.E. Baker Company.
He then went on to join Legg Mason Capital Management in 1981 as a security analyst and qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
He climbed through the ranks and became the Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of the firm in 2007 – running the trust mutual fund.
While at Legg Mason, Miller became famous for making better returns than the S&P 500 Index for 15 years on the bounce, from 1991 to 2005.
Miller was an early investor in Amazon, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, as well as cryptocurrency.
He first invested in Bitcoin in 2014 when one BTC was valued at around $200 after hearing a talk by Wences Casares.
Casares became known as the ‘Patient Zero’ of Bitcoin for introducing it to Silicon Valley circles, at the annual Sun Valley media and tech conference.
Miller’s career hasn’t come without controversy, however.
In 2008, he placed huge leveraged bets on stocks that plummeted during the financial crisis and Legg Mason’s fund lost 55 per cent of its value.
Investors abandoned the firm as the assets under management dipped to just $800 million from its peak of $77 billion.
Miller then divorced, shrinking his net worth by 90 per cent.
Miller stepped down from Legg Mason in 2012.
After leaving Legg Mason, Miller founded Miller Value Partners.
Miller started buying more Bitcoin at $30,000, after the price fell from highs of $69,000 in 2021.
Miller believes Bitcoin is best thought of as “digital gold”.
He’s only recently allowed himself to be called a ‘Bitcoin bull’ as opposed to a ‘Bitcoin observer’ because he thinks it’s now developed into game-changing technology.
Miller said in 2021 one of his biggest regrets was selling his GameStop stock in 2018.
If he’d have held on to his stake it would have been worth $800 million in January 2021.
What is Bill Miller’s net worth?
Bill Miller has a net worth of $1.8 billion, however, this doesn’t include his real estate holdings, yacht named Utopia, and co-ownership of his private jet.
Around half of Miller’s net worth is held in Bitcoin.
Despite this, Miller’s advice for the average investors is to put 1 per cent of their net worth in Bitcoin, saying: “If you put 1 per cent of your portfolio in it for diversification, even if it goes to zero, which I think is highly improbable, but of course possible, you can always afford to lose 1 per cent.”
He added: “I think the average investor should ask himself or herself, what do you have in your portfolio that has that kind of track record – number one, is very, very under-penetrated; can provide a service of insurance against financial catastrophe that no one else can provide and can go up 10 times or 50 times? The answer is: nothing.”
In 2018, Bill Miller donated $75 million to Johns Hopkins University, saying: “Philosophy made a huge difference both to my life outside business and to the actual decisions I’ve made in investing.”
In 2021, he then donated $50 million to Johns Hopkins’s physics and astronomy department.
