Back ground of Professor Glen Arnold
He was Professor of Finance of Salford University, UK, and author of the UK’s bestselling investment book and bestselling corporate finance textbook.
He is still writing online investment newsletters three times per week. He used to give advice to Schroders in London, one of the world’s largest investment houses.
His latest book is called “The Deals of Warren Buffett”, in which he tells the story of how the world’s greatest investor over five decades made his first $100m. This book explains the reasoning behind each investing milestone on that journey, tracks the deals he made and shows how they added to his wealth.
Without much of an idea about investing in shares at the beginning, Buffett had to develop his investment philosophy, and learn through success and failure how to select companies worth backing. It was not all plain sailing, with many mistakes along the way; and there were long periods of frustration with the market.
The fact that Buffett made errors is quite reassuring for other investors. The key is to learn from them, and to accept with evenness of temper the many bumps in the road.
How I knew the Professor?
In 1983 when China gave notice to the British Government to recover the sovereignty of Hong Kong, the stock market crashed. The Hang Seng Index plunged below 1,000. There were so many cheap shares. With only Rm 200,000, I took advantage and bought aggressively and as the value of my holding went up I bought more shares using margin finance.
It was so easy to make money because there were so many cheap sales. All I needed was bravery to buy shares in spite of the fear that the Communists were going to rule Hong Kong soon.
As soon as the Chinese Government gave the 50 years extension to the British Government, the stock market rebounded. All the shares shot back to their original prices before the crash.
Within 3 years I made so much money that I bought 46% of a medium size stock broking company called Kaiser Stock and Shares Co. Ltd.
After having taken an easy ride during the crash, finding good stocks during normal times was not so easy. So, I began to read books on Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch and other gurus. The average number of pages of each book is about 800 pages. It was not so easy to read all these books.
About 10 years ago, I read Professor Glen Arnold’ book called “Valuegrowth Investing” (now “The Financial Times Guide to Value Investing”). It is about 333 pages and contained the essence of what I needed to know about Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch and other gurus.
I wrote to the Professor to tell him that if he had written the book 30 years ago, I would have saved a lot of my time. He responded and that is how we became friends.
I have the honour to be asked to endorse Professor Glen Arnold’s latest book.
(The book is to be published soon by Harriman House)