This week saw Warren Buffett¡¯s long-term friend and business partner Charlie Munger?pass away?at the age of 99. Known across the business world as an investment genius, Munger was much more than just?Warren Buffett¡¯s right-hand man. He played a key role in helping Warren Buffett build Berkshire Hathaway into the nearly $800 billion market-cap business empire that it is today.
But an untold story about?Munger?is about a Chinese-American entrepreneur named Li Lu, whom Charlie once called China¡¯s Warren Buffett.
American-Chinese entrepreneur Li Lu is the founder and chairman of Himalaya Capital Management, a value investing firm where he has been managing its principal fund since 1997. He has been?known as the man who introduced the Chinese battery and electric car maker?BYD Company?to Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. He is an informal advisor to Tesla rival BYD.
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Charlie Munger had met Li at a Thanksgiving lunch in 2003 and was so impressed by him that when Li Lu launched a new fund in 2004, Munger backed him with his own money.
Munger and Li struck up a conversation about stocks and were still talking a few hours later. It was the beginning of a partnership that would last 20 years, as per the Financial Times report. ¡°He was a very intelligent, self-confident young man,¡± Berkshire's vice chairman Munger had said, adding, "He so liked being a principal instead of being an agent working for somebody else. That was immediately obvious to me, and, of course, that¡¯s how I am. So, I naturally had considerable sympathy for him. I tried to get him to work at Berkshire, but I was fighting against nature.¡±??
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At a Daily Journal meeting in 2019, Munger described Li Lu as "the?Chinese?Warren Buffett" and lauded him for focusing on?Chinese?stocks instead of the oversaturated American market. Both are investors in the Ben Graham mould of value investing, and both are wildly famous in China for their ability to generate enormous amounts of wealth.
Charlie Munger had reportedly handed nearly $90 million of his family's fortune to Li Lu in the early 2000s. Li Lu?has already grown the sum to roughly $400 million since then, as per Business Insider.
Munger had also said that?Li is the only outsider he's ever trusted with his money, and he once predicted that Li would eventually take a leading role in Berkshire.
The connection between?Li Lu and Warren Buffett can be traced back to Lu's student days at Columbia University, where he was deeply influenced by Buffett's investment. Li had decided to pursue an investing career after listening to a Buffett lecture at Columbia University in 1993. However, as per the Quartr report, it was through Charlie Munger, Buffett's long-time business partner and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, that Lu first came into contact with Buffett.??
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