Snapshot · My First Million
When Pabrai bought Reysas, the exchange rate was 5 lira to the dollar; seven years later it was 45 lira to the dollar — a 90% currency collapse. Yet in dollar terms, Pabrai was still up 90x because the underlying assets were inflation-indexed.
Where this was said
At 1:00:30 · chapter starts 51:27
This is the episode's centrepiece: the story of how multiple mental models converged simultaneously on a single Turkish warehouse company [1] — Mohnish Pabrai "Reysas Logistics had a $15-16 million market cap against $800 million in liquidation value. Nobody cared because the lira was collapsing. P…" 51:25 . Reysas had a $15-16 million market cap against roughly $800 million in liquidation value — land, cement, steel, and paint in prime Istanbul locations. Nobody cared because the Turkish lira was collapsing and inflation was rampant. That was the signal, not the warning. Pabrai applied the thermonuclear event test: after a global catastrophe killing 99% of humanity, someone will still start producing Coke concentrate because the surviving 70 million humans will trade 15 minutes of labour for a Coke. A prime Istanbul warehouse is the same: it's not denominated in lira, it's denominated in human need. Costs were in lira (cheap), revenues were in euro or real asset terms (durable). Pabrai bought every share he could find, including 5% of the company from Templeton Funds who were exiting Turkey entirely for $1 million. The exchange rate went from 5 to 45 lira to the dollar over 7 years — a 90% lira collapse. In dollars, Pabrai is up 90x. The second great Turkey bet, TAV Airports, had all revenues in euros and all costs in lira — an automatic currency tailwind. Four models at once, no competition, and a return mathematically unavailable anywhere else.
Before starting his funds, Pabrai invested $10,000 in one company that grew 140x to $1.4 million, and another investment that grew more than 100x to over $10 million.
Pabrai bought Turkish warehouse operator Reysas at roughly 3% of its liquidation value (~$15-16M market cap vs ~$800M liquidation value) and is now up 90x in dollar terms despite the lira losing 90% of its value.
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