I read the book Intelligent Investor, for the first time in circa 2003, when I was in grad school pursuing a Ph.D. in Physics. As the saying goes, you either get it or you don't and I solely fell in the camp of I got it and was never able to let go of the thrill of finding 50-cent dollars and investing in businesses as opposed to pieces of paper traded in public markets. Never a professional trader or a money manager, it took a long-time for me to finesse my style of investing-- contrarian value--, i.e., the art of buying quality businesses when under distress with the conviction to hold on for the long haul! 

The idea of one day being a professional money manager took hold in my mind circa 2015. To do so, I needed two things: (a) Be self-sufficient and (b) Establish a track record to demonstrate to myself that I have the skills to offer as a private money manager who is unconstrained by limits imposed on professional money managers, many of whom are primarily focused on asset gathering and chasing relative performance, indexed to a benchmark.

The Financially Independent movement became the mantra for me to achieve self-sufficiency and real-time experimentation of my investment acumen for contrarian value strategy through a self-funded IRA account became the venue for me to develop my track record. Starting from Oct.  2017 through the end of Oct. 2022, my investments have compounded at the rate of ~17.6 % annualized. During the same period, S&P 500 index has produced an annualized return of ~10.5 %, and those of the MSCI World Index are ~6.4 %. Up to date  performance numbers can be found under "Performance FactSheet" link.

26 Value Partners LP was conceived with the idea that I could do better for myself and my partners (mostly friends and family) with the high watermark aim of double digits long-term sustainable wealth compounding. If we manage to sustainably compound wealth at 10 % for businesses bought at 50 cents on a dollar, in 5 years, we should expect 26 % annualized returns. Continue doing so every five years for another 25 years and a dollar invested in the partnership would grow to $1000 in 30 years!