Our Philosophy

When we view “Risk” in regards to the portfolios we build, we are looking across corporate America to the good things that corporate America brings into our individual lives each day. Examples of these things would be clothing, appliances, building materials, transportation services, logistics, technology, financial products and services, and the most basic needs like food, fuel, lights and water.

The portfolios we build for our clients follow from Master Plans of focused investing, derived from individual meetings with each family and/or individual to assess assets, resources, goals and objectives. Each individual and unique Master Plan can be:

The investments within each unique and individual portfolio, in turn, represent an “ownership interest” in businesses with what we believe are excellent economic characteristics, run by outstanding managers. We believe the success of the unique portfolios we build, and each portfolio’s “risk management” depends on both us as portfolio managers, and our clients as investors, recognizing that we are partial owners of a number of businesses.

Our hope is that you, as our client(s), visualize yourself as a part owner (though your portfolio) of a number of businesses that you expect to stay with indefinitely, just as you might if these investments were in a farm, a store, or some other enterprise in partnership with others in your family. We believe that if, together, we have good long term expectations, short term price changes are meaningless for us, EXCEPT to the extent that they offer us opportunities to increase our share of “ownership” at an attractive price. The term used to describe “price change” is “volatility”.

The portfolios we build both retain and reinvest earnings, to the extent that earnings are not needed to supplement income. By doing so, each unique portfolio proportionately increases the market value of the portfolio over time. Ultimately, the economic goals of each portfolio are, long term, to maximize the portfolio’s intrinsic value by owning part of a diversified group of businesses that produce the goods and services we all use each day in our lives, and to receive real, current, annually increasing spendable income that we will not outlive.

These principals form the framework of “Risk Management”. Owning a rich range of positions, in a wide variety of issues (businesses) that exist in many, if not most, aspects of the economy.

Therefore, we believe that the best risk management is to be patient, exercise good judgement based on common sense, be disciplined in remaining true to our individual long-term goals, and not least of all, maintain our faith in the future.