Invisible Stock God: Managed $5 billion and achieved an annualized return of 20% for 16 years—this performance can be considered godlike, outperforming 99.9% of fund managers.

But before writing *Investment Knowledge I Learned from Darwin*, he was almost unknown.
Prasad founded Nalanda Capital in 2007, investing only in Indian stocks and focusing on small and mid-sized companies. By 2023, the annualized return after fees was 20.3%.
His investment philosophy has three keywords:
1. Eliminate (Avoid). Turn the focus of investment decision-making from "what to choose" to "what not to choose."
Clearly excluded categories include: state-owned enterprises, highly leveraged companies, merger-and-acquisition addiction types, distressed turnaround types, automobile companies, airlines, contract manufacturers, textile OEMs, and rapidly changing technology industries.
Prasad would rather make the second-order mistake of "missing good companies" than ever make the first-order mistake of "buying wrong companies." In his book, he explains this brilliantly using Bayesian theory.
2. High ROCE (Buy). The only core screening metric is historical ROCE (Return on Capital Employed), sustained for 10+ years at ≥20%.
No forward-looking forecasts—only competitive advantages that have been proven by time. He prefers industries that are simple, boring, predictable, and change extremely slowly (paints, underwear, electrical products).
3. Perpetual holding (Hold). He calls himself a "permanent owner" rather than a speculator, and his motto is "Don't be lazy—be especially lazy."
In 16 years, he exited only 9 companies, holding each for an average of 11-14 years. He sells only in three situations: when management integrity is fundamentally compromised, when capital allocation deteriorates fundamentally, or when the initial investment judgment was wrong. He never sells just because the valuation is too high.
Prasad’s methodology is: like the natural world, the capital market only lets the most "robust" species survive long term. He extracts three key concepts from evolution—eliminate the unfit (avoid losers), identify the fit (buy winners), and patiently wait for compound interest (hold forever)—as the three pillars of investing.
In his book, he uses lots of biological metaphors: sea urchins surviving for millions of years (robustness), bees’ foraging strategy (being satisfied rather than optimal), and the silver fox domestication experiment (the observability of management character).
But I found a secret: the heavy-position accumulation period of Nalanda Capital was the 2008 financial crisis. During that time, the Indian market fell by 60%. That’s a huge starting advantage. So, it’s his methodology and timing working together that create his “myth.”
Also, after reaching a peak in 2024, in 2025 Nalanda Capital’s net asset value shrank significantly, and returns since its founding may fall to 15-17%.
And Prasad is also selling stocks—never casually say “forever.”
What ruthless mean reversion! Put them side by side, and indeed only Buffett is a “true god,” even though he later also reverted to index returns.
So, using Prasad’s methodology, which companies in China would he buy?
I built a framework with Claude, researched it, and the answer is:
None.
The closest is Kweichow Moutai, because it’s a state-owned enterprise, so he wouldn’t touch it; Tencent is okay, but the business is too complex.
If we lower the standards, the AI version of Prasad only barely takes a liking to NetEase.