Our Firm

OUR FIRM

Our Firm

Pāri Washington has both history and antecedents. The former comprises a subjective rendering of our backstory.

The latter outlines the myriad inspirations that propelled our incorporation.

EST.
2006

In Fact

Pāri Washington was established in 2006. We began operations out of a one room, temporary workspace, within the Chennai City Center. We quickly moved to our current location, a repurposed bungalow, set within the leafy, art and spirituality infused, seaside environs of Besant Nagar (named for Annie Besant, theosophist and first female president of the Indian National Congress). Our initial team comprised 4 people, all in equity research. We began serving as an institutional investment advisor. With operations in Port Louis, we began offering investment management services to institutional clients.

Our master-feeder structure, serving global endowments and foundations, was launched in 2011. Our CAT-III AIF, serving Indian families, institutions and our own employees, was launched in 2020. Even as we’ve expanded operations and headcount, our allegiance to Besant Nagar in Chennai has continued: We now operate out of three buildings in the area; we also operate out of Trianon.

In Spirit

We’re inspired to believe

Pāri Washington, as an idea, is pre-2006. It can be traced to two similar but distinct eras: the one, from over two millennia earlier, when poetry and philosophy—and war—represented the highest of callings in Tamilakam in ancient India; the other, from twelve score and 10 years prior, when individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness—and state power—took center stage in revolutionary America (see The Story Behind Our Name). We want for Pāri Washington to be an ongoing experiment: We’re inspired to believe.

We know that ordinary people, united by cause, can achieve extraordinary things. Pāri Washington’s cause is to advance our clients’ financial freedom by investing in excellent businesses, run by excellent people, at prices we deem reasonable. We aspire that our intellectual origins and journey be traced to Graham and Doddsville, that intellectual milieu of value investing, peopled by the likes of Tom Murphy, Charlie Munger, and Warren Buffett.

MISSION

  • 1 To build a firm that will outlast those that run it today
  • 2 To consistently operate at a degree of excellence, as measured by global standards
  • 3 To be a force of good within our community

Principles

With a
long-term lens

  • Our People are our Ultimate Assets

    We take great care to hire only those that are excellent at what they do professionally, as well as care deeply about our principles personally. The key attributes that our people bring to everything we do are our integrity, grit*, and our ability to work as a team. *Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Scribner, 2016

  • Be the First to Anticipate Change

    Change is life’s only constant. So, through a disciplined, research-intensive investment process, we seek to consistently anticipate business inflection points ahead of our peers. We seek to cultivate an environment where our people are rewarded to be innovative and assume calculated risks when making decisions, recognizing that many of these decisions can initially be contrary to prevailing views.

  • Client-First Investing

    Every assessment begins with the same question: Is this right for our clients? Our next question: Do we have a right to win? These simple presets guide the design of our products and services.

  • Returns Driven Profits

    Our investment philosophy and returns—not asset gathering—should be the basis for our profits.

  • Our Integrity Must Be Unimpeachable

    We believe in the phrase “let right be done.”* We will stand up for our principles and maintain the highest levels of ethical standards in everything we do. * Terrence Rattigan, The Winslow Boy, Thomas Hern Books, 1994