Li Lu
From Tiananmen Square exile to the only Chinese fund manager endorsed by Buffett and Munger, the Himalaya Capital helmsman who opened China to value investing
Li Lu was born in 1966 in Tangshan, China. He survived the 1976 Tangshan earthquake and suffered family persecution during the Cultural Revolution. In 1989, as a student leader at Peking University, he participated in the Tiananmen Square protests, then fled overseas and eventually reached the United States. He simultaneously completed degrees in economics, law, and business at Columbia University, receiving systematic training in the value investing tradition founded by Benjamin Graham. In 1997 he founded Himalaya Capital Management, and through deep research and long-term holding of quality Chinese assets, he discovered and invested in BYD around 2003 and introduced this opportunity to Charlie Munger, facilitating Berkshire Hathaway's historic investment in BYD. Munger publicly stated that among everyone he knew, Li Lu was the only external fund manager to whom he would entrust his money. Li Lu is also a pioneering thinker in systematically introducing Western value investing into the Chinese context.
Methodologies
- Civilizational Evolution Investment Judgment Method - Before making long-term investment judgments on a country or industry, first assess its modernization trends through a civilizational history lens; short-term political noise cannot change the direction of civilizational evolution — this is the macro anchor for value investing.
- First Principles Value Analysis Method - Disregard analyst reports and market sentiment; start only from first-hand sources — visit companies in person, read original financial reports, interview competitors — to build independent judgment of a company's intrinsic value.
Key decisions and timeline
- 1966 Born in Tangshan, Experienced Cultural Revolution and Earthquake in Childhood - The most difficult childhoods often nurture the most profound thinkers
- 1989-06 Led Tiananmen Square Protest, Then Fled Overseas - Political failure does not mean mission failure — changing battlefields can equally advance civilizational progress
- 1990 Entered Columbia University, Encountered Value Investing - Truly great philosophical systems can find their most suitable inheritors in the most unexpected places
Beliefs and mental models
- Belief 1 - Li Lu is a faithful inheritor of the Graham-Buffett-Munger value investing tradition. He believes that buying quality assets below their intrinsic value and holding long-term is the only reliable path to certain returns in an uncertain world. This conviction drove him to systematically seek undervalued quality Chinese companies when others were ignoring the China market.
- Belief 2 - Li Lu believes that to understand China's investment opportunities, one must go beyond quarterly earnings perspectives and view China's modernization process from the height of civilizational history and social system evolution. He places China's rapid economic growth against the backdrop of thousands of years of civilizational accumulation and modern humiliation, seeing China's modernization as an irreversible historical trend — an insight that allowed him to see value when others were pessimistic.
- Belief 3 - Inheriting Graham's core doctrine, Li Lu believes buying at prices far below intrinsic value is the best strategy for defending against all uncertainties. This principle allowed him to maintain above-market long-term returns in China's extremely volatile market environment.
- Model 1
- Model 2
- Model 3