Prime Transcripts

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Ramesh Damani is a member of the Bombay Stock Exchange and one of the most successful investors in India. A proponent of the Buffett style of value investing, Mr. Damani is one of the most well-read and erudite investors I’ve known in India. He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from HR College in Mumbai, and a master’s degree in business administration from California State University. Charlie Munger has been quoted as saying, I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy, does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you. Mr. Damani is among the smartest investors India has seen. He’s also one of the most diligent and he is a learning machine. In fact, he’s a wizard par excellence of Dalal Street.

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Samit Vartak is the founding partner and Chief Investment Officer of SageOne Investment Managers. Samit is a CFA charter holder, and MBA from Olin School of Business of the Washington University in St. Louis, and holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree with honors from Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai University. I have known Samit for the past five years and have had tremendous respect for not just as money management skills, but for the kind of person he is. It’s like if I were a money manager, I would have wanted to be like him, hardworking, talented and successful, yet quiet and composed at all times. And also as physically fit as he is despite the stresses of his work.

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Rajiv Thakkar is the Chief Investment Officer and director at PPFAS Asset Management. Rajeev started his career in the investment banking business in 1994. Then moved to fixed income before landing in the equity space at PPFAS, where he has been working for the last 20 plus years. He is a chartered accountant, cost accountant and CFA charter holder. Rajiv is a strong believer in the School of value investing, and is heavily influenced by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger is approach. I have known him for the past eight years, and apart from his investing insights, I look up to him for his calm demeanour and meditative approach, which though is unusual for money managers of his stature, but looks normal, given the school of thought he comes from, which is value investing.

Kuntal Shah is a partner at Oaklane Capital, co-founder at Needle.ai, and a board member at Flame University. An electronics engineer by qualification, Kuntal bhai is a first-generation entrepreneur, a business leader and a prominent value investor with three decades of experience spanning various aspects of the capital market.

I look up to him as a fountain of knowledge and wisdom, especially when it comes to investing, business analysis and the economy. I’ve had the opportunity to learn from him and his experiences, through his various talks and presentations, and I must thank him for all the wisdom he has shared over the years.

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William Green is the author of Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life. Over the last quarter of a century, William has interviewed many of the world’s best investors, exploring in depth the question of what qualities and insights enable them to achieve enduring success. He has written extensively about investing for many publications and has been interviewed about the greatest investors for magazines, newspapers, podcasts, radio, and television. He has also given many talks about the lessons we can learn from the most successful investors, not only about how to invest but about how to improve our thinking.

Born and raised in London, William was educated at Eton College, studied English literature at Oxford University, and received a Masters degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

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Vinod Sethi served as Managing Director of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, until February 2001 and served as its Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager for 12 years. He is a graduate in Chemical Engineering and holds a degree in B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai and an MBA in Finance from Stern School of Business, New York University.

Vinod has maintained a low public profile all these years, but he is a veteran in the Indian equity investment space with an experience of more than three decades. The little I have read and known about him, I find a man who has not been just a multidisciplinary thinker but also a true Karmayogi who has combined his inner voice at a number of times with mindful decisions and rightful efforts.

When I was studying about Vinod’s life and experience, I could remember a 1910 speech delivered by the former US President, Theodore Roosevelt and which was titled The Man in the Arena. Roosevelt said and I quote, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”