Omaha, Nebraska | At the Hilton Hotel opposite Berkshire Hathaway’s annual general meeting, a quiet, 94-year-old man shuffles across the lobby by himself weary of decades spent at the so-called Woodstock for capitalists.

His name is Jim Pattison, a long-time friend of Warren Buffett and the third-richest Canadian, worth $US9.9 billion ($14.6 billion). The legendary investor who owns everything from Ripley’s Believe It or Not on the Gold Coast to 40 per cent of Canada’s largest forest products company, is delighted to chat with The Australian Financial Review.