Mohnish Pabrai (Dalal Street) 13F HR

[Aurelius]

Pabrai knows how to make money! Great marketer! 

I like his lectures.

Seems to me he is living life on his own terms. Good for him. More people should do that.

 

I remember a few years back being very surprised his returns weren't better than they actually are.

 

Does anyone have his 5-10-15-20 year returns? 

 

[maxthetrade]

7 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

What do you think? 

 

A fool an his money will soon be parted.

[CorpRaider]

I have to say that I did not see 30% being in coal stocks after reading pages 1-10.  

[Gregmal]

Yea obviously coal is high conviction for him(I think Horsehead was too) and the launch point is basically just hoping to catch a massive year or two out of the gate and then be able to market this for the next decade or two as an “outperformer”. 

[Stuart D]

8 x staff members seems like a lot:

- 1 x CEO

- 2 x vice presidents

- 1 x office manager

- 3 x Office assistants

- 1 x office assistant Team leader

 

I suppose maybe some of them are part time. 

[Rod]

2 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Yea obviously coal is high conviction for him(I think Horsehead was too) and the launch point is basically just hoping to catch a massive year or two out of the gate and then be able to market this for the next decade or two as an “outperformer”. 

That's a good point. Isn't that pretty much what he did by accident in the 1990s? Took a couple yolo bets on dotcoms as a raw beginner and got lucky then used that to form the base of a "market beating" long term record. I guess after 20+ years those initial yolo gains are wearing off.

[Parsad]

11 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

New Pabrai Fund : Pabrai Wagons Fund.

 

Investor Presentation : Link.

 

What do you think? 

 

Mohnish is a very good friend.  I'm sure retail investors for years have been clamoring to find a way to invest with him, and this is probably the solution for those that aren't accredited and/or can't get a slot in any of the original Pabrai Funds.  Good for those investors and good for Mohnish.

 

That being said, for most investors, they would be better off just buying a cheap S&P500TR index and averaging in money each year.  Buying into Pabrai Wagon Fund or the Chou Funds or McElvaine Trust...all really good friends of mine...for non-accredited investors, it is the only way to get access to those managers.  But mutual funds with high expense ratios generally won't outperform the market index over the long-term. 

 

At the very least, if you are insistent on access to these managers, maybe hedge the bet and put half your money into them and half into an index fund.   

 

Cheers!

[RadMan24]

3 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

Mohnish is a very good friend.  I'm sure retail investors for years have been clamoring to find a way to invest with him, and this is probably the solution for those that aren't accredited and/or can't get a slot in any of the original Pabrai Funds.  Good for those investors and good for Mohnish.

 

That being said, for most investors, they would be better off just buying a cheap S&P500TR index and averaging in money each year.  Buying into Pabrai Wagon Fund or the Chou Funds or McElvaine Trust...all really good friends of mine...for non-accredited investors, it is the only way to get access to those managers.  But mutual funds with high expense ratios generally won't outperform the market index over the long-term. 

 

At the very least, if you are insistent on access to these managers, maybe hedge the bet and put half your money into them and half into an index fund.   

 

Cheers!

Yea but there are times when mutual funds are out of favor that generally outperform over the longer term if an investor has patience and long-term framework. 

[Gregmal]

I think the issue with ‘Nish is really one with a lot of finance dudes. If we just called a spade a spade and that’s it, I doubt people would care. Guys an entrepreneur, and a good one. Opening a fund is about one thing, make money for himself. Nothing wrong with that. He’s gonna market it. Nothing wrong with that. Except in the finance world, you get these guys, who can’t just admit the simple truth, but rather need to feed the monstrous egos too.

 

A dentist or a warehouse owner makes their money but they don’t go around lecturing everyone on how alpha male they are or how unique they are; they just have their businesses and make money from it and everyone knows B is because of A.
 

In finance, you get these guys making tons of money, doing things that aren’t even that hard, like charging AUM fees, and then they go around acting like because they have a lot of money or because they run a fund, that they’re visionaries and elite investors LOL. Essentially trying to convince people that B is because of 1/8d+TK^3. That’s kinda the issue imo.

 

The best example I can think of are investment bankers. At the core, they’re glorified real estate agents or car salesmen who spent way more time in school. But they don’t do anything special they just charge % fees after convincing someone to move money around.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Gregmal

[CorpRaider]

What happened to them ETFs?

[oscarazocar]

8 minutes ago, CorpRaider said:

What happened to them ETFs?

 

What happened to that other long thread on Pabrai cataloging his various shenanigans over the years?  Was it taken down for some reason?

[hasilp89]

SMH listen to this at the 29 min mark. The human reciprocation tendency used to get people to invest in his fund. 

Not that anyone cares what I think but I find it extremely disingenuous and disrespectful to preach Buffett / Munger and then act this way. 

 

 

[Spekulatius]

MP basically has become the Dave Ramsey of stock investing.

[John Hjorth]

40 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

MP basically has become the Dave Ramsey of stock investing.

 

Dave Ramsey as a radio host is by now pretty much already steamrollled  by guys like Morgan Housel, I think. So much for that. Not even one original thought.

[Parsad]

6 hours ago, oscarazocar said:

 

What happened to that other long thread on Pabrai cataloging his various shenanigans over the years?  Was it taken down for some reason?

 

It went from criticisms to some downright nasty things...the thread had to go.  Please keep things to critiques on this thread.  Cheers!

[Stuart D]

On 11/16/2023 at 6:57 AM, Parsad said:

 

It went from criticisms to some downright nasty things...the thread had to go.  Please keep things to critiques on this thread.  Cheers!

Re: the previous Pabrai thread deletion

 

Is there a way to keep the previous thread, whilst removing the posts of concern?

 

I say that because the Pabrai thread was essential reading for anyone thinking of sending him money or even those of us who spent some time watching his videos.

 

With the rest of the investment industry, (right up to Charlie Munger himself), swooning to MP, it was nice to have an alternate view here on CoBF.

[Luke]

11 hours ago, Stuart D said:

Re: the previous Pabrai thread deletion

 

Is there a way to keep the previous thread, whilst removing the posts of concern?

 

I say that because the Pabrai thread was essential reading for anyone thinking of sending him money or even those of us who spent some time watching his videos.

 

With the rest of the investment industry, (right up to Charlie Munger himself), swooning to MP, it was nice to have an alternate view here on CoBF.

I also dont understand why that thread was removed, why not just delete the nasty comment? Was quite the valuable thread if i remember correctly

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, Luca said:

I also dont understand why that thread was removed, why not just delete the nasty comment? Was quite the valuable thread if i remember correctly

 

The thread went completely off the rails...it wasn't criticisms, but just punchlines and nasty comments.  I wasn't going to waste my time deleting tens of nasty posts.  Keep it to criticisms and you don't have to worry.  Cheers!

[Vish_ram]

Kudos to Pabrai for launching this fund. 

 

But the ugly truth

 

1) Triple digit cumulative underperformance over S&P 500 in last 20 years

2) Shamelessly creating a presentation that shows Buffett & his success for several pages and hinting that it applies to his fund

[coc]

So let me get this straight. After 25 years in business for himself, Pabrai is starting a new fund by pitching...Berkshire? And after comparing his approach to Warren Buffett and "circling the wagons" around very long term compounders, his initial allocation is to put a third of the fund in coal companies?

 

How deep is the well of suckers?

[Malmqky]

I for one like the AMR investment. Not sure if it fits his wagon analogy, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a fine investment. I think that’s the last thing he should be criticized for here.
 

Really, if he lowered his management fee to 0.25-0.5% and got rid of the team, I don’t think there’d be anything valid to criticize him for, except for perhaps the BRK name dropping. I’m split on that one however.

 

We’ll see if he takes too many moonshots like he usually does, but the portfolio seems solid to me and if he doesn’t experience thesis drift and actually buys and holds forever…well this should do ok, ignoring the fees. Lots of ifs though.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Malmqky

[Spekulatius]

Holding coal stocks forever probably won't yield great results. MP is going to do what he has been doing all along going for deep value bet's and churning them quickly.

 

Regarding fee structure, one can't run an small international small cap value fund on 0.25-0.5%. I think 1% is the minimum I would expect and 2% while high isn't exactly unheard of either.

[Whensthepaintdry?]

Would he be able to buy very small Turkish companies that he may be a majority shareholder in already with this new fund?

[Munger_Disciple]

1 hour ago, Malmqky said:

We’ll see if he takes too many moonshots like he usually does, but the portfolio seems solid to me and if he doesn’t experience thesis drift and actually buys and holds forever…well this should do ok, ignoring the fees. Lots of ifs though.

 

It appears that MP's fund already drifted from "Circle the Wagons" style and permanent holding philosophy of Berkshire & Nick Sleep who he quotes a lot with 30% allocation to coal stocks. 

[Cevian]

On 11/15/2023 at 9:11 AM, CorpRaider said:

What happened to them ETFs?

 

All the funds, other than the Pabrai funds, appear to be listed here.

https://www.dhandhofunds.com/