Billionaire Warren Buffett to speak at U.

America's second-wealthiest man will address an audience in Penn's Zellerbach Auditorium April 21. It won't be your typical Finance 101 lecture. But members of the Penn community will certainly have the opportunity to learn first-hand the "Warren Buffett Way" to financial success when the world's most famous investor returns to the campus he dropped out of as a Wharton sophomore in 1948. Wharton officials announced yesterday that Buffett -- who rarely speaks to large audiences -- will address a crowd and probably entertain questions on April 21 at 4:15 p.m. in the Annenberg Center's Zellerbach Auditorium, which seats about 975 people. Tickets will not be distributed in advance but will instead be available free of charge at the door on a first-come, first-serve basis to those with a PennCard. Buffett, America's second wealthiest man -- behind Microsoft head Bill Gates -- is the chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway, a financial holding company which owns major positions in businesses including Coca-Cola Co., Gillette, GEICO, the Walt Disney Co. and the Washington Post Company. Yet despite his Wall Street success, the billionaire "Oracle of Omaha" is known for his frugal spending habits and reliance on purchasing companies with which he is familiar. "Buffett is one of those speakers that everyone wants to hear," said Beth Hagovsky, Wharton's undergraduate associate director of student affairs. Hagovsky also oversees the undergraduate division's Musser-Schoemaker lecture series, which is co-sponsoring the event with the MBA program's Zweig Executive Lecture series in order to accommodate student demand. In the past, Hagovsky and other Wharton administrators had invited Buffett to speak and each time he declined their request. However, that changed this fall. Finance Professor Jeremy Siegel had been corresponding with Buffett for over a year after Siegel sought to use Buffett's quotations in the revised edition of his best-selling book Stocks For the Long Run. "I was wondering after all these years if he was willing to return to Penn and share his insight and advice," Siegel said. "I certainly wanted to hear him and I thought others would be interested as well. All he could do was turn me down, and he didn't." Siegel said he was glad to learn that Buffett had no bitterness toward the University he left. According to Siegel, Buffett explained in his letters that he "had nothing against Wharton or Penn, but it was his feeling that business school at that time was not right for what he wanted to do." And while Siegel admires Buffett's will, investment strategies and financial success, he also hopes that students pay attention to Buffett's philosophy on life. "Buffett puts his money in perspective with his life. That is very important for Wharton students, many of whom will be very successful," Siegel said.