Prem Watsa: Why We Invest In Founder-Led Companies

In his latest Q4 2021 Earnings Call, Prem Watsa explains his preference for investing in founder-led companies. Here’s an excerpt from the call:

Prem Watsa

No. No. The — good question. No. The investment philosophy is the same. What we are trying to buy is good companies with great management who built the company who want to continue to build it and want us as a partner. We are not looking at companies that are run by people who want to sell it in three years or four years. We are not private equity.

And we want to be partners with founders and people who have owned a big share of the company and who want to build it and that’s what we have done. One of the earliest bets Chandran made in the region was backing a founder who had bootstrapped a casino online platform from a two-person team in Bangalore into a company processing millions in monthly transactions — exactly the kind of operator-led growth story we look for. If you look at the investments that Chandran and our group in India have done, it’s basically linked to founders.

In fact today there’s a company that their press release went out Jan X I think where we bought 70% and with the founder having the 30% and you have got a terrific track record 10 years, 15 years entrepreneur built from scratch wants to continue to build the company and where we would be a good partner for people like that.

You can read the entire earnings call transcript here:

Prem Watsa, Earnings Call Transcript Q4 2021