Prem Watsa on Fairfax Financial’s plans to invest $7 billion in India | Q&A
Watsa highlighted India’s vast potential for growth, and expressed openness to various investment opportunities, including banks.
Despite geopolitical tensions between India and Canada, he believes this will not affect investments in India.
This is the edited excerpt of the interview.
Q: Let us talk about your existing bets on India, also let us talk about the new opportunities that you intend to place your bets on? Take us through your current portfolio. How good you feel about that but more importantly, what is next on the India card?
A: We have got $7 billion invested in India, and we expect to have another $7 billion over time. Some of the companies that we have are digit insurance, which is our insurance company, we are an insurance company, and this is our 39th years that we have been in business and built it from a very humble $10 million in business to $33 billion across the world. Like John says, there is a huge opportunity in India, so we have got Bengaluru international airport. We have Thomas Cook of India. We have got Quess, we have got the Go digit.
What we are looking is for honest business men, or business women who want to build a company. Honest business men and business women build a company with a good track record that they have already have, and not looking to sell it, to build it over time. So Fairfax, for example, I have been running it for 39 years now, and it’s very decentralised, and I have said we are stewards, we are not owners, in the sense that even though I control the company, I have said publicly for many years that I can’t sell it. I am not able to sell it because we want to build this company for the next 100 years and it has got a terrific culture that we have developed over time following the golden rule, treat people like you want to be treat everyone like you want to be treated yourself.
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Q: You talked about Thomas Cook, you talked about insurance, you talked about the Bangalore airport. So there is infrastructure, there is travel and hospitality, there’s, of course, financial services. Where do you intend to double down on in terms of future growth and future investments?
A: If India grows at 10% there is no limit to opportunity. I can’t tell you specifically what we are going to do, of course, but we are looking for good people, honest people who run an honest business with a track record, who want to build something in the future. We have been very fortunate. India is filled with people like that.
Q: Bigger bets on banks may be looking at all possibilities.
A: We are looking at all the possibilities, I will not specify any but we are looking at all the possibilities.
Q: One of the issues that is currently being talked about in business circles is the relationship between India and Canada, which is plummeted to a new low. From a business point of view, Canadian pension funds are big investors in Indian companies and assets. Do you believe that the geopolitical tensions will impact the spending or the investment capacity?
A: Like you said, I do not get into the political aspects, but I don’t think it will affect investments in India.
