Who is Li Lu

Li Lu

Who is Li Lu?

Until several weeks ago I would not have known the answer myself. Even Ravi of rationalwalk.com who is an expert on Berkshire Hathaway and wrote an excellent book on the company admited he never heard of the man until a man or two ago.

Li Lu has now been named as a possible successor to Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway’s director of investments. His name has been flying around the value blogsphere lately and people have been trying to get as much information as possible on this little known man.

Here is a little information that is known about Li Lu. Li Lu is relatively young and was born in 1966. He is a Chinese-American fund manager and investor, founder and Chairman of Himalaya Capital Management. He was forced to flee the country in 1990 after taking part in the Tinaneman Square protests. Li Lu allegedly suggested that Berkshire Hathaway invest in BYD a Chinese auto maker. Berkshire Hathway did invest in BYD and has made a spectacular return so far on it’s investment.

My guest blogger Sandesh Trivedi of sandeshtrivedi2.blogspot.com found some interesting information about Li Lu. He seems to be a tech investor. Trivedi described his investment style as similar to Bill Miller. Sandesh found a website which shows some of Li Lu’s previous transactions. Here is the link.

I will not write further about Li Lu because several good articles have been written about him. The best article is by Pragmatic Capitalist. Here is the link. It is a lengthy article but a fascinating read.

Ravi of Rationalwalk also wrote a great article here is the link

Here is Li Lu’s foreword to the Chinese version of Poor Charlie’s Almanack. It is writen Han but I translated it into english(in Google Chrome, if you are using another browser use the following tool > http://translate.google.com/ to translate) . click here.

Li Lu on Charlie Rose show in 1996 click here

An article about Li Lu from 1998. This article is written 12 years before Li Lu became as popular as he has become in the past few months. Here is the link

Another article strongly suggesting Li Lu will replace Warren Buffett click here.

Another article about Li Lu and Tienanmen Square from 1996 link

Finally a guest lecture given by Li Lu in Bruce Greenwald’s class in Columbia University. The video lasts nearly two hours. The video is informative and funny. Li Lu asks the audience a few questions throughout the interview when no one answers me makes fun of them. Finally, he makes fun of Bruce Greenwald asking him what are you teaching these students all day?

The video is a bit difficult to figure out how to view.

Click on the red play button at the center of the display. A link will pop up. Just ignore the link and click on the green button which will now appear. The video will then play within your browser. Li Lu starts speaking about three minutes into the video

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