Mohnish Pabrai

Mohnish Pabrai was born in India and moved to the United States for his education, studying computer engineering. He founded an IT consulting company, TransTech, which he later sold for approximately $20 million. With the proceeds he founded Pabrai Investment Funds in 1999, modelling the fund structure explicitly on Warren Buffett's early partnerships — charging no management fee and a 25% performance fee on profits above a 6% hurdle. His investment approach is highly concentrated value investing inspired by Buffett, Charlie Munger, Benjamin Graham, and the concept of "Dhandho" — a Gujarati word meaning business endeavours that create wealth. His 2007 book "The Dhandho Investor" articulates this philosophy: finding situations with low downside risk and high upside potential, investing in companies with strong competitive moats, and being patient. Pabrai achieved outstanding early results: his funds reportedly generated approximately 1,200% cumulative returns net of fees from 2000 to 2012, substantially outperforming the S&P 500. He became widely known outside traditional investment circles for paying $650,100 in a charity auction to have lunch with Warren Buffett. He subsequently co-ordinated to also bring Guy Spier — another Buffett-inspired investor. The lunch motivated Pabrai to relocate his firm from Dallas to Southern California to be closer to Buffett and Munger. He is an active public communicator about value investing through his blog, talks, and writings.