Investing legend Warren Buffett once said that “success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. once you’re above the level of 125. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”

In an attempt to understand exactly what kind of temperament Buffett was talking about, Ronald W. Chan interviewed 12 value-investing legends from around the world, learning how their personal background, culture, and life experiences have shaped their investment mindset and strategy. The Value Investors: Lessons from the World’s Top Fund Managers is the result.

From 106-year-old Irving Kahn, who worked closely with “father of value investing” Benjamin Graham and remains active today, and 95-year-old Walter Schloss (described by Warren Buffett as the “super-investor from Graham-and-Dodsville”), to the co-founders of Hong Kong-based Value Partners, Cheah Cheng Hye and V-Nee Yeh, and Francisco García Paramés of Spain’s Bestinver Asset Management, Chan chose investment luminaries to help him understand the international appeal – and success – of value investing. All of these men became strong advocates of the approach despite considerable age and cultural differences. Chan finds out why.

In The Value Investors, readers will also discover how these investors, each of whom has a unique value perspective, have consistently beaten the stock market over the years. Do they share a trait that allows this to happen? Is there a winning temperament that turns the ordinary investor into an extraordinary one? This book answers these questions and more.

Ronald Chan