I am happy to announce a new permanent page to Value Walk. The page is devoted to Candian value investor, Prem Watsa, who has rightfully earned the nickname, “The Warren Buffett of Canada”. All content on my pages will be uniquie. Instead of putting up a paragraph from Wikipedia about Watsa’s bio and his investing philosophy, I have been combining my previous knowledgewith books, and online resources to build pages that have unique, and interesting content.
As I noted in a previous website announcement, I continue to plan on posting quality articles on a regular basis. Additionally, I will be putting more effort into expanding the archives of this site. I plan on updating the value investor section, adding in an “academics” section, which will consist of a (very) select group of professors, which I think offer great insight into value investing. I also have been updating timeless reading section on a regular basis.
Going forward; I plan to post several unique articles on Value Walk, post some exciting interviews, syndicate from some of our excellent contributors, cover conferences, do at least one thorough stock write up a month, and add several value investors to the resources. In addition, I will continue to write some unique content for Guru Focus, which will not appear on Value Walk.
This page can be found under current value investors, or at the following link- Prem Watsa
Without further to do, below is a brief excerpt from the new page:
Profile:
Prem Watsa was born in 1950 in Hyderabad, India he received his degree in Chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (ITT). His parents gave him a great education and encouraged him to pursue it further. Watsa has described himself as having won “the ovarian lottery”. After Watsa graduated college, he along with his brother moved to Canada with no money, at the urging of their father.
Watsa received an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business, which is located in Ontario, Canada. Watsa also is a CFA charter-holder, and is commonly called the Warren Buffett of Canada.
In 1974, Watsa started to work as analyst for an insurance company in Toronto. His boss gave him a copy of Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham. In 1983, Watsa left his company to join GW Asset Management (Gardiner Watson) as Vice President of asset management. In 1984, Watsa met legendary value investor Francis Chou at GW. In 1984, Watsa founded Hamblin Watsa Investment Counsel Ltd, an asset management firm.
In 1985, Prem Watsa borrowed money and took control of Markel Financial, a Canadian insurance company. In 1987, Watsa he re-organized Markel Financial Holdings Limited and re-named the company, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited. He wanted to run an insurance company along the lines of Berkshire Hathaway. Today, Watsa is the CEO and Chairman of Fairfax, which has a market cap of approximately $8 billion. The company has over 8,000 employees, and is engaged in a variety of insurance operations.
Read the rest-here
