He was a school dropout at 14 and homeless for a spell, but as a driven investor and chief of Dole he became a billionaire. Later came another quest: to extend life through better nutrition.

David H. Murdock, who rose from hardscrabble beginnings to become a billionaire investor, real estate mogul, corporate raider and philanthropist, and whose late-in-life devotion to healthy nutrition led him to announce that he planned to live to 125, died on Monday at his ranch in the Southern California city of Thousand Oaks. He was 102.

His death was confirmed by Tracy Murdock, one of his former wives.

Mr. Murdock, who dropped out of school at 14 and was briefly a homeless veteran of World War II, made his first fortune in real estate and then acquired controlling stakes in a variety of public companies, including the Dole Food Company and the textile manufacturer Cannon Mills.

He gained a reputation

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