In a recent interview with William Green’s “Richer Wiser Happier” podcast, Mohnish Pabrai (Trades, Portfolio) mentioned GuruFocus while reminiscing on his first meeting with renowned investor Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio), who has become his close friend and mentor.
Pabrai first discussed how the meeting with Munger came about.
It started when he, along with Guy Spier, won the annual charity auction with the coveted prize of a meal with Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, Financial)(BRK.B, Financial) CEO Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) in 2008.
During the lunch, Parbrai’s wife told the Oracle of Omaha that her true admiration was for Munger, to which he replied that his business partner is “a really boring guy.” This led to Buffett offering to arrange a lunch with Munger so they could see for themselves.
While he initially thought Buffett was joking, Pabrai received a message from the guru’s assistant the following week. They met for lunch in 2009 at the California Club.
Ironically, Pabrai said he felt the Munger lunch was better than the Buffett lunch.
“I remember Charlie came to that lunch and he reaches into his coat pocket and he pulls out this printout, which has like GuruFocus, you know, written on it and it has my U.S. portfolio. You know, the 13Fs get filed,” he said. “And he's looking at the portfolio, and, you know, this is 2009. Everything has crashed and burned. And he looks at Sears Holdings (SHLDQ, Financial), which was in my portfolio, and he just shakes his head like that. Quite extreme disapproval. And then, I remember we probably had some brief discussion on Sears. And the market was already closed that day when we met, but the next day I wiped Sears Holdings out of my portfolio, which was a great, I would say, instant take-home value from the lunch."
Listen to the full podcast here.
