MUMBAI – India’s best known stock investor, billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, doesn’t much like the moniker of ‘India’s Warren Buffett’.
“It’s not a fitting comparison. In terms of wealth and success and maturity, he’s far, far ahead,” says Jhunjhunwala in an interview at his office in a prime location in Mumbai overlooking the Arabian Sea.
Much like the famed Omaha investor, Jhunjhunwala has made a fortune from some savvy investments – Forbes magazine puts his net worth at $1.1 billion, ranking him 41st on India’s rich list – but the similarities end there. Dressed simply in a white shirt and grey pants, he draws heavily on a cigarette, burps loudly, tells ribald jokes and peppers his interview with the cliches and one-liners that have become his stock-in-trade.
The 51-year-old has the brash confidence of a self-made man – he built his fortune from an early bet on Tata Tea – and of a risk-taking investor.
“I’m not a clone of anybody. I’m Rakesh Jhunjhunwala,” he booms. “I’ve lived the world on my own terms. I do what I enjoy. I enjoy what I do.”
Unlike Buffett, Jhunjhunwala has been an advocate of leverage, which he has often used in his career and perhaps best defines his big, bold bet investment philosophy.
“See, I’m a risk taker,” he says. “If I feel very opinionated, I can really put the money on the table. I don’t think too much deep research is needed. I don’t go into analysis paralysis,” he says. “All you need is common sense.”
“Trend is your friend,” he quips, adding that at a time of intense global market volatility he is fully invested, yet cautious about adding too much risk. He has, however, extolled the virtue of risk and profited from being able to make big contrarian bets – as he did in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Markets, he says, have priced in a Greek exit from the euro zone, but the bigger concerns are about other vulnerable single currency members, a United States that’s “on steroids” and a “crisis of governance” in India. “When there’s doom and gloom, don’t forget there’s darkness before dawn,” he says.
Despite the concerns over weak governance, he’s still a believer in the India story that has made him rich. “When a child is sick, the mother is concerned. It doesn’t mean the child’s going to die,” he says.
In a country that reveres its gurus, Jhunjhunwala, with his large frame and small glasses, would be easy to parody – there is a fake blog that lampoons the investor’s life – but thousands hang on his every market move.
