New Delhi, Oct. 14 -- At 22, Prem Watsa left Hyderabad for Canada with just $8 in his pocket, despite having little desire to move abroad. More than five decades later, the 75-year-old Indian-Canadian billionaire heads Fairfax Financial Holdings, a Toronto-based insurance and investment group with around $100 billion in assets. The company has now made a major move into India's banking sector by acquiring a 60.72% stake in IDBI Bank.

Often described as the "Warren Buffett of Canada", Watsa has built Fairfax into a global financial powerhouse through acquisitions and a value-investing approach. His journey from a middle-class family in Hyderabad to the upper echelons of Canada's financial world has also been accompanied by a long-standing...