Big Ambitions, Bold Ideas

Forbes India’s Hidden Gems features eight companies that have shunned the limelight despite an impressive show and strong fundamentals

- Varsha Meghani

At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meet in Omaha in 1996, an eager shareholder took to the podium to ask chairman and CEO Warren Buffet about the virtues of a diversified portfolio. The billionaire investor heard him out patiently and then replied: “Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense if you know what you are doing.”

Buffet went on to talk about investing in companies “you really know”, and those he said, might not be more than three. To know a company, according to Buffet, is to understand its economic characteristics over the long term. Does the business have a durable competitive advantage? Does it have a management you can trust? Does the price make sense?

While Buffet was referring to publicly listed businesses, his filters for hunting value among companies hold true even for privately-held ones. It is such companies with strong fundamentals that the Forbes India Hidden Gems 2018 attempts to uncover.