Aryaman Dalmia was so inspired by the gurus of investment that he wrote a book.
My first attempt to meet the author of soon-to-be-released book Graham, Buffett & Me has to be postponed because he has just finished his exams. Not the excuse one expects from authors of books on investment and business. But then Aryaman Dalmia is all of 13 years.
It is not surprising that Aryaman should have displayed an interest in investing — its something that runs in his blood. His father, Gaurav Dalmia, is the CEO and managing director of Landmark Holdings, and a veteran private equity investor. The House of Dalmia was set up by Ramakrishna Dalmia (Aryaman is the great-grandson of his younger brother, Jaidayal Dalmia) who made his first million at 18 in Kolkata from trading in silver. At one time, Ramakrishna Dalmia was the richest Indian after JRD Tata and Ghanshyam Das Birla. He fell from grace after Independence when he was jailed for financial impropriety.
But Aryaman, a student of Vasant Valley School in New Delhi, had sufficient drive to turn what began as notes for himself after his interest in billionaire-investor Warren Buffett was ignited by his father’s comment about him (“the ultimate guru”) into a book. Graham, Buffett & Me thus deals with the basic tenets of investment, as espoused by Buffett and Benjamin Graham, considered to be the pioneer of scientific investing.
Aryaman has also benefitted from being his father’s son in that he has been able to include real-life examples, insights and analyses from conversations with people such as investor Chaitanya Dalmia and Bennett, Coleman & Co Vice-Chairman Samir Jain (both his uncles), MDI Professor Sanjay Bakshi, Morgan Stanley’s former head of emerging markets, Madhav Dhar, and his father, Gaurav Dalmia, which make for interesting reading. These range from analyses and comments on the India portfolio of a leading global hedge fund, which finally had to let go of its India team, thanks to reckless investments (If excitement is what you crave, there are cheaper ways of getting it: Gaurav Dalmia) to comments from Samir Jain in the chapter on what to look for in a good investment (“The number one newspaper in most India cities makes a lot of money, the number two newspaper a little bit of money and everyone else loses money”).
The book is being published by Times Group Books. For the record, Bennett, Coleman & Co, the flagship of Times Group, was at one time owned by Ramakrishna Dalmia. When he was in financial distress, he sold it to his son-in-law, Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain.
When I finally meet Aryaman at his house on a Sunday, a couple of weeks ahead of the launch of his book, he tells me Graham, Buffett & Me is for everyone, not necessarily a professional investor — “after all, I wrote it,” he says, candidly. “I wrote what I understood.” True enough — I found the book an easy, lucid read. We are sitting and talking in the large sunlit living room of the Dalmias. Aryaman comes across not as an aggressive teenager but more like someone who is quietly confident. (When he is told the photographer will shoot while we talk, he insists his parents leave the room but his mother feels they should stay, at least for moral support.) His father gave him a mock interview earlier, which is perhaps why a couple of his remarks sound a bit rehearsed, but for the most part, he is like any slightly awkward teenager.
Aryaman began writing the book last July, finishing it in January, though his interest in investing began a couple of years ago. His mother, Sharmila, tells me later that Gaurav Dalmia helped him a lot, especially with editing, but it was Aryaman’s wish to stay the course and finish it. This seems to fit in with what he tells me are the most important lessons for success that he has learnt from Buffett — objectivity, simplicity and drive. He plans to begin investing in July after finishing a book on accounting, though he hasn’t identified any stock yet.
He doesn’t read business papers regularly, though he has a choice of two business dailies at home. “As Buffett says, when investing, you don’t need to follow the market; you just need to look at the return on capital.” But his youth peeps through when I ask him what he feels are the main problems the country faces: “Many people aren’t very educated… People don’t have enough drive; they play too many video games.” Fair enough, considering this must be the India he is familiar with.
Aryaman is as yet unsure about his career plans, though he thinks it might, understandably, be in finance. Sharmila adds that it is a passion with him and that he even asks whether he can leave school and start investing straight away. He has also asked his mother to let him handle her garment business for at least three months, “because her shipments don’t leave on time, etc.” In his free time, when he is not working on his book, the ninth-grader is playing cricket for his school team, jamming with fellow-members of rock band “Graffiti”, reading or playing video games. Twin sister Aanya is more interested in table tennis and painting as is elder sister Devanshi who has already conducted a solo art exhibition and is currently studying for a degree in management at Wharton. Aanya has read and approved of the book, and Devanshi, parts of it.
I ask Aryaman how he spends his pocket money and he says he doesn’t get any. “We just give them what they need which is easy because they are not demanding. They know my account PIN and can take whatever they want but I know they are sensible,” says Sharmila. The Dalmia children were allowed to use air-conditioners just a year ago, to help them learn to live simply (which might be a task when you are living in a mansion on Prithviraj Road, one of the Capital’s best neighbourhoods.)
So which are the most common mistakes investors make? “Investors tend to follow market sentiment, buying when the going is good and selling when it is not. They don’t do their homework, and instead follow one or two so-called experts. Another mistake is in the way they control management; you should let the managers work for the company, not for themselves,” says Aryaman. Warren Buffett would approve.
