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Mohnish Pabrai’s funds invested about $70 million in Fiat and collected about $260 million from Fiat Chrysler and Ferrari. He traced the idea to a stock in two other investors’ portfolios: General Motors. Pabrai, the fund manager and author of The Dhandho Investor, had hated the car business until he saw investors he respected committing money to it. [1][2][3]
- 2012 · General Motors
“Why would these smart guys want to do this?”
Public 13F filings showed GM among Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings and as a major position for David Einhorn, who ran the hedge fund Greenlight Capital. Pabrai respected their judgment enough to investigate an industry he disliked. Berkshire’s buyer was investment manager Ted Weschler, as Pabrai later confirmed with him. [1][2]
- Four months of research
He read the new union contract and studied the industry after GM and Chrysler’s bankruptcies. He concluded that the reorganizations had relieved costs and liabilities that had made Detroit a punishing place to build cars. Studying competitors brought him to Fiat and its chief executive, Sergio Marchionne. Pabrai saw a company valued by the stock market at about $5 billion, with a manager forecasting more than that in annual cash flow within five years. He spent roughly four months reading about the companies and Marchionne before committing money. [2]
- Fiat’s Ferrari shares
Owning Fiat also gave him a stake in Ferrari. When Fiat Chrysler separated the sports-car maker, shareholders received one Ferrari share for every ten Fiat Chrysler shares. [4] In his 2025 account, Pabrai said Ferrari supplied about $100 million of the $260 million his funds collected. He also regretted selling it: he believed Ferrari had become too expensive, then watched it keep appreciating. By 2025, he estimated that his Ferrari stake alone would have been worth about $640 million had he kept it. [3]
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