5 shares Li Lu’s Himalaya Capital owns

Li Lu is a Chinese-born American value investor, businessman, and philanthropist who founded Himalaya Capital Management in 1997.

Lu was born and grew up in Tangshan, China. In 1985, he attended Nanjing University and majored in Physics, but later transferred to Economics.

He was a student leader in the Tiananmen Square protests. After the crackdown on his movement, he fled to New York City, where he enrolled at Columbia University.

Lu was one of the first in Columbia’s history to receive three degrees simultaneously – a B.A. in economics, an MBA, and a J.D.

He was inspired to get into investing after attending a lecture by Columbia alumnus and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.

Lu described Buffett’s lecture on the principles of investing in the stock market as “concise, logical and convincing.” He began investing in stocks shortly afterwards.

After graduating from Columbia University, he founded Himalaya Capital, managing both a hedge fund and a venture capital fund.

Himalaya Capital has a disciplined and value-oriented approach to investing, in line with Buffett’s way of running Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger, said Li Lu is the only outside manager he’s ever invested with and described him as the “Chinese Warren Buffett.”

An interesting part of Li’s agreement with Munger was that the fund would be closed to new investors.

It remained closed to new investors from 2004 to 2013 and did not charge a management fee.

Today, Himalaya Capital Management has around $19 billion in assets under management (AUM).

Himalaya Capital share portfolio

Li Lu’s Himalaya Capital’s most recent SEC filing shows that it has only five companies in its portfolio – Micron Technology, Bank of America, Alphabet, Berkshire Hathaway, and Apple.