The Dhandho Investor: The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns

by Mohnish Pabrai

The Patels and the Ismailis have been a very entrepreneurial community for centuries, and, over the ensuing decades (with their soon-to-be-revealed Dhandho techniques), they came to control a large proportion of the businesses in Uganda. General Idi Amin came to power in Uganda as a dictator in 1972. He declared that “Africa was for Africans” and that non-Africans had to leave. Amin wasn’t a big fan of the Patels who controlled most of his economy. The fact that most of these “non-Africans” like the Patels and the Ismailis were born in Uganda, had been there for generations, had no other home, and had all their businesses and property in Uganda meant nothing to Amin. For him, it was simple: Africa was for Africans. Amin revoked the residency permits of all Asians regardless of whether they had any natural homeland to return to. The Ugandan state seized all their businesses and nationalized them—with no compensation to the owners. A total of 70,000 Gujaratis were thus stripped of virtually all their assets and thrown out of the country toward the end of 1972.