Mohnish Pabrai is an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

businessman, investor, and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

. He was born in Bombay (Mumbai), India, on June 12, 1964.

Career

Pabrai worked with Tellabs between 1986–91, first in its high speed data networking group, and then in 1989, joined its international subsidiary, working in international marketing and sales. In 1991 he started his IT consulting and systems integration company, TransTech, Inc. with about US$30,000 from his own

401(k) In the United States, a 401(k) plan is an employer-sponsored, defined-contribution, personal pension (savings) account, as defined in subsection 401(k) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Periodical employee contributions come directly out of the ...

account and US$70,000 from credit card debt. He sold the company in 2000 to

Kurt Salmon Associates Kurt Salmon was a global management and strategy consulting firm formed by the merger of Ineum Consulting and Kurt Salmon Associates (KSA) in January 2011: *Ineum Consulting was formed as a spin-off from Deloitte France's consulting division, ...

for US$20 million. Today he is the managing partner of the Pabrai Investment Funds (a family of

hedge funds A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as ...

inspired by Buffett Partnerships), which he founded in 1999.

Books

Pabrai has high regard for

Warren Buffett Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net w ...

and admits that his investment style is copied from Buffett and others. He has written a book on his investing style: ''The Dhandho Investor: The Low - Risk Value Method to High Returns''. In June 2007 he made headlines by bidding US$650,100 with

Guy Spier Guy Spier (born February 4, 1966) is a Zurich-based investor. He is the author of ''The Education of a Value Investor''. Spier is the manager of the Aquamarine Fund with $350 million in assets. He is well known for bidding US$650,100 with Mohnis ...

for a charity lunch with Buffett. Another book by Pabrai is ''Mosaic: Perspectives on Investing''. In this book Pabrai has distilled the Warren Buffett method of investing down to a few points. These points are made in a series of articles he authored for various newsletters and web sites between 2001 and 2003 (the book reprints these articles in reverse chronological order). Pabrai's approach to life is covered extensively in Guy Spier's book, ''The Education of a Value Investor,'' in particular in a chapter titled "Doing Business the Buffett-Pabrai Way".

Dakshana Foundation

In 2005, Pabrai and his wife, Harina Kapoor started the Dakshana Foundation (Infinite good) with the goal of recycling most of their wealth back to society. Their starting point is to give back approximately 2%, or US$1 million every year. The initial goal is the alleviation of poverty in India. The tool that has been chosen is to provide tutoring services to some of the least privileged members of Indian society, and to enable them to attend some of the elite institutions of higher learning. Pabrai credits Anand Kumar, the founder of Ramanujan School of Mathematics (also known as the Super 30) with originating this idea.

References

External links

PabraiFunds.com
Pabrai Investment Funds - Official Site

The Dhandho Investor: The Low - Risk Value Method to High Returns
Interview With Mohnish Pabrai

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pabrai, Mohnish Living people American chief executives American financiers American investors American hedge fund managers American money managers American people of Indian descent American philanthropists American stock traders Businesspeople from California Businesspeople in information technology People from Irvine, California Stock and commodity market managers 1964 births Indian investors