Francis Chou (Trades, Portfolio), fund manager of Chou Mutual Funds, has agreed to answer questions from GuruFocus’ readers. We plan to compile a list of questions and submit them to him a week from now. This is a golden opportunity for you to ask him questions about investing.
What would you like to know? Submit your questions in the comments section below by Friday, Oct. 31. We’ll put together a list of questions, submit them to Chou and publish his answers here.
About the guru
It isn’t necessarily a rags-to-riches story, but it’s close.
Born in India to Chinese parents, Chou, then 19, immigrated to Canada in 1976 with $200 to his name. His brother had immigrated there three years earlier. Without a college degree, Chou was qualified only for blue-collar jobs and found employment as a telephone repairman for Bell Canada. He was introduced to the writings of Benjamin Graham, who is widely regarded as the father of value investing, and, in 1981, pooled his resources with some co-workers to form an investment club.
Today those co-workers – and, in some cases, friends and family members who also invested in the club – are millionaires. And Chou, through the consistent application of value investing principles in good times and bad, now manages hundreds of millions of dollars for his investors.
In 1984, Chou joined GW Asset Management and worked with Prem Watsa (Trades, Portfolio). Chou was the one who encouraged Watsa to invest in Markel Financial of Canada, now Fairfax Financial Holdings, of which Watsa is chairman and CEO.
The largest stakes in his current portfolio are 5 million shares in Nokia (NOK, Financial), 4.1 million shares in Resolute Forest Products Inc. (RFP, Financial), 1.1 million shares in JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Financial), nearly 1.1 million shares in MBIA Inc. (MBI) and nearly 1 million shares in Wells Fargo (WFC, Financial).
He also owns shares in Bank of America (BAC, Financial), Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD, Financial), Overstock.com (OSTK, Financial), BlackBerry (BBRY, Financial) and Citigroup (C, Financial).
Don’t forget to submit your questions for Chou in the comments section below.
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