Ajit Jain

Ajit Jain (अजित जैन) (born, JULY 23,1957 in Jallundur, India) is a businessman who currently heads several reinsurance businesses for Berkshire Hathaway and has been touted as a possible successor to Warren Buffett.

Jain's potential rivals to head up Berkshire when Buffett departs are David Sokol, Chairman of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company; Richard Santulli, who runs NetJets Inc., an operator of private jets; and Tony Nicely, chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway's GEICO Corp.

Current job

As of July 2006, Jain was overseeing about 30 employees at Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, located in the First Stamford Place office complex near downtown Stamford, Connecticut. That 30-employee group, according to an article by Bloomberg News reporter Rob Urban, "generated float, the pool of premiums insurers invest before they need to pay out claims, of $16.23 billion as of 2005. That was more than double the $6.69 billion from Berkshire's 20,417-employee GEICO, the fourth-largest U.S. car insurer, according to Berkshire's annual report."

Jain's operations provide a substantial portion of Berkshire Hathaway's overall insurance group revenues:

• 2005: $3.96 billion out of a total of $22 billion in premium revenue from the group.
• 2004: $3.7 billion out of $21.1 billion.
• 2003: $4.4 billion out of $21.5 billion.

Close to Buffett

Jain working in Stamford, remains in close contact with Buffett.

In letters Buffett has written accompanying Berkshire's reports to shareholders, he has consistently praised Jain:

• In 2002: "I have known the details of almost every policy that Ajit has written since he came with us in 1986. ... His extraordinary discipline, of course, does not eliminate losses; it does, however, prevent foolish losses. And that's the key: Just as is the case in investing, insurers produce outstanding long-term results primarily by avoiding dumb decisions, rather than by making brilliant ones."
• In 2003: "It's impossible to overstate his value to Berkshire."
• In 2004: "Ajit's value to Berkshire is enormous."
• In 2005: Buffett called him "an extraordinary manager."
• In 2008: "Ajit came to Berkshire in 1986. Very quickly, I realized that we had acquired an extraordinary talent. So I did the logical thing: I wrote his parents in New Delhi and asked if they had another one like him at home. Of course, I knew the answer before writing. There isn’t anyone like Ajit."

Early life

Ajit Jain was raised in India's coastal state of Orissa.

He graduated in 1972 from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur IIT Kharagpur with a bachelor's degree in engineering. He was in Azad Hall Of Residence in his first year. Then he shifted to Rajendra prasaad hall of residence where he met one the brilliant students of that time Dipanjan Sengupta whose advise all together changed his life. He didn't take his studies very seriously, according to classmate Ronojoy Dutta. Instead, they spent hours talking about economics, sociology and the Vietnam War, often debating through the night. Vijay Trehan, another classmate, described Jain and Dutta as "class clowns in our mechanical engineering class." But considering their later careers, Trehan said, "The lesson has to be that 'not taking life too seriously' is definitely the way to go."

Career

Jain worked for IBM in India from 1973 to 1976, then moved to the United States, where he earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1978.

He joined McKinsey & Co., but returned to India in the early 1980s. After a monthlong courtship, he married a woman chosen by his parents. Then he went back to the United States to work for McKinsey. According to Robert P. Miles' book The Warren Buffett CEO: Secrets from the Berkshire Hathaway Managers Jain said he would not have returned to America, but his wife wanted to move there.

In 1986 he left McKinsey to work on insurance operations for Buffett. At the time, he said he knew little about the insurance business. But with the help from Manmeet Taneja, he was able to learn the business quickly.

Further reading

• Miles, Robert P., "The Warren Buffett CEO: Secrets from the Berkshire Hathaway Managers," John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2003.