Find a Good Business

We identify potential investment candidates through filters, from other investors, and from our watch list. We ask ourselves, “Is this a high-quality business?” and “Would we be comfortable owning the business for 5-10 years.”

We research the business, which may include interacting with various stakeholders and investment colleagues.

We look for High Quality business, which means:

• The business is Transparent, able to understand and analyze
• It enjoys a significant competitive advantage
• The business produces a high recurrence of revenues
• Its balance sheet is a source of strength
• Management owns a lot of stock
• The business is well-managed
• The management team directs the intelligent allocation of capital

Stress Test

• We build models of the businesses that make it past the first step of our process. While we may analyze hundreds of businesses a year – we only invest in a handful of new ones.
  
• We value the business (using our models) to determine how much it will it be worth 3-5 years from now. We see if we can stress the business to the point of death by modeling the worst scenarios we can imagine. We pass on businesses that may not be healthy enough to survive or would likely be seriously imperiled. We discard the business from consideration if we find it too vulnerable.
• We arrive at the worst-case scenario valuation of the business through our analysis and stress-testing. By comparing the worst-case scenario valuation and the stock’s market price, we arrive at the decision to either buy the stock, keep it on our watchlist, or reject it.

If it’s still a good investment, we buy it.

If we buy a stock, it means:

• Our in-depth research showed it to be a high-quality business
• We couldn’t “kill” the business using our stress test models (i.e., we think it’ll survive the worst-case scenario)
• The stock offers a good price after given our valuation and accounting for potential risks and a large margin of safety

We put businesses we couldn’t kill but that are too highly priced on a waiting list until they reach our target price.

Purchasing a stock is just the beginning for us. We continue to further reduce your risk of investing in the new purchase through the next two steps of the investment process.

Monitor Progress

We do not give a stock we own preferential treatment. Even after we purchase a company it receives the same scrutiny as its potential replacements. We continue to research the company and update our models to try to “kill” the business.

If new information causes us to revalue the stock, we make sure it’s still a good investment for your portfolio.

Sell When The Time Is Right

We make the decision to sell a stock for one of three reasons:

a). A stock reached its full valuation.
Since stock valuation requires thoughtful approximation (rather than the illusion of precision) we avoid emotional decision making by reducing our position once it reaches the lower end of our valuation range, and selling out completely once it exceeds to upper end of the range.

b). We found a better stock
We are always on the lookout for investment opportunities that maximize our clients’ earnings potential and minimize the risks in our portfolio. If we find a company that we deem to be a better investment opportunity than one we currently hold, we will replace it.

c). Something went wrong.
We continuously re-evaluate the companies in our portfolio. If new information leads us to determine that the company is no longer a good investment, we sell it without hesitation.