Adistinguished IIT alumnus today, Prem Watsa migrated with big dreams but just $8 in his pocket. He set out modeling his rise on the world’s most successful and wealthiest investor. He is today known as ‘Canada’s Warren Buffett’. Watsa founded Fairfax Financial Holdings in 1985 and has taken the company to a market cap of over Rs 2,07,700 crore ($25.35 billion) in a career spanning over three decades.
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The Hyderabad-born Prem Watsa serves as the chairman and CEO of the Canada-based financial services giant. After schooling at Hyderabad Public School, he earned a degree in chemical engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. Watsa then migrated with just $8 dollars in his pocket to Canada.
He pursued an MBA from the University of Western Ontario, supporting his education by going door-to-door to sell furnaces and air conditioners. After MBA, Watsa started out as an investment analyst but soon opened a firm with his former boss. Then, the big turning point came in 1985.
Watsa acquired a small insurance company on the brink of bankruptcy. He renamed it Fairfax Financial Holdings and grew the business taking cues from Warren Buffett’s strategy. Like the US billionaire, Watsa expanded by acquiring more insurance firms and building one of the largest insurers in the US. The firm now has business interests across the world and holds stakes in big corporations like GE and BlackBerry.
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Watsa is a billionaire with net worth over Rs 10,600 crore ($1.3 billion). He became a Member of the Order of Canada in 2015. He was honored by the Indian government with the fourth highest civilian award Padma Shri in 2020.
