The Patels succeeded so mightily in the motel business by gaining an unbreakable competitive advantage through a simple formula: If it worked out, the rewards were potentially huge… which they were. If the motel went broke, they could simply work for several months to save up capital to make the bet once again because the capital investment was so low, and since the Patels didn’t have any money to their name, the personal guarantee to the financing bank was meaningless. To the Patels, this investment was a no-lose situation. Everyone in the family could work doing all the cleaning, maintenance, and management. And since they would live and work in the same place, there’s was no need for a car. The family would live at the motel, thus eliminating any rent expenses. These depressed prices encouraged the decision for poor, newly arrived Patels to acquire distressed motels with limited invested capital. At the time, many motels were selling at distressed prices, in some cases by banks that had foreclosed on them. economy got hit by the Arab oil embargo, and the motel sector got hit especially hard, directly affected by the availability of disposable income and sky-high gas prices. motel industry starting with no capital and education? So how did they manage to dominate the U.S.
Here are my personal notes on topics from the book followed by the key takeaways: This is the second time I finished reading The Dhandho Investor. I recently quit my job as portfolio manager to pursue this kind of life. He’s a master at enjoying life to its fullest and is one of the main reasons why I myself decided to avoid a long-term career in the conventional financial industry to start my own businesses and read, write, think, and invest independently. Not only for his incredible achievements as an investor, businessman, and philanthropist but largely due to his uncommonly successful approach to how he lives his life and conducts relationships. I’ve been a big admirer of Mohnish for years. So he and his wife founded the Dakshana Foundation a non-profit operating with the same principles that made him a wildly successful value investor, using checklists and simple metrics to help educate Indians living in slums. In 2005, Mohnish came to the conclusion that poverty is driven by lack of education.
He decides very meticulously how to conduct his day, who to cultivate relationships with, and what to read and think about independently. The fund and every investment decision are solely managed by Mohnish.
Today, Pabrai Funds manage over $500 million.Īt Pabrai Funds, there are no armies of investment managers and analysts. Starting with $1 million in capital backed by 8 families at inception and a firm value investing approach, the Pabrai Funds has since achieved an annual return of about 13.3% after fees compared to the S&P 500’s 6% return as of the end of June 2019. Since then, he has knocked it out of the park. The year before selling, he started Pabrai Funds following the same principles and structure (no management fee) behind Warren Buffett’s early partnership from 1956-1968. 9 years later, he sold the company for several million dollars. with $100,000 including $70,000 in credit card debt. In 1991, Mohnish started an IT consulting and systems integration company, TransTech, Inc. But first, In case you don’t know Mohnish Pabrai, here’s a short introduction of him: We’ll get back to the Patels and the Dhandho framework later in this summary. The Dhandho way of doing business is the pillar behind Mohnish’s own investing approach at Pabrai Investment Funds, and in The Dhandho Investor, he wonderfully distills the framework for how the Dhandho principles can be applied successfully in the stock market. The answer is that they simply outcompeted everyone using the principles of what author Mohnish Pabrai calls “Dhandho” a low-risk, high-return approach to business stemming from the Gujarati word meaning endeavors that create wealth. motel assets worth well over $50 billion.Īnd after conquering motels, The Patels went upmarket and started trumping high-end hotels such as the Marriotts, the Hyatts, and the Hiltons applying the same principles which allowed them to gobble up a dominating position in the motel business. population but has ended up owning well over 50% of all U.S. Today, this small sub-part of Indians makes up only about 0.1% of the U.S. In the 1970s, a small ethnic group from India named the Patels first began arriving in the United States as poorly educated people with no money to their name.