Lunch with Ronald, Founder of Chartwell Capital

Founder of Chartwell Capital Ronald Chan is a prominent Value Investor, who wrote a book with and on Warren Buffet. Thank you Ronald for the lunch and your valuable sharing from the technical side of Value Investing to fun facts about how Warren Buffet handles his emails!

This lunch has raised over 75 volunteer hours to Tinbergen Business Cohort Community, REDbird Program, IMC Sunday School and more.

Our volunteer Le Peng Tee shares his experience below:

How is banking industry like? I don’t know, but I can’t help to associate it with the shady image of Jordan Belfort in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and the many scandals in the financial industry, namely, Jeffrey Skilling of Enron scandal and Bernard Madoff who ripped 65 billion USD off his investors. As a business student, banking industry might intersect with my life path in the future, so I deem it wise to learn more about this industry, especially first-hand from an experienced person. And, today I had the honour to do so in a lunch meeting which I gained access via Time Auction Hong Kong.

Together with five participants, I had a lunch with Mr. Ronald, the founder of Chartwell Capital that manages assets and funds. The first thing I need to so say is Mr. Ronald totally does not match with the stereotypical banker I have in mind! The fact that he is willing to spend his precious 2.5 hours and to share his hard-earned knowledge is enough to prove this point. Mr. Ronald is a keen learner; to gain best education, he has personally met Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and interviewed world’s top investors, which he did in the quest of publishing two books related to investing. And, in the lunch, he was generous to share the knowledge that he tirelessly garner. One point I find enlightening is the concept of value investing. He pointed out that the world investors could be subsumed under two categories — momentum investor (the majority) and value investor (one of the embodiments is Warren Buffet). Value investing emphasises on comprehensive understanding of a company, especially its core value. While Mr. Ronald commented that today’s financial markets are simply not cut out for value investors, thus, hard to implement, I think this philosophy could be applied in my life.

This echoes with Albert Einstein’s quote that sounds ‘Try not to be a man of success, but a man of value.’ Yes, I think I should make it goal to live a life of value, such as being a man of integrity, diligence and kindness. I believe, just how it has served Warren Buffett, I would lead a sustainably fulfilling life out of it.

by Le Peng Tee, HKUST Time Auction Ambassador