IApproach
We are patient with assets, and particular about people.
Most capital is in a hurry. It answers to too many people, and too many of them want their money back before the work is done. Ours answers to very few.
Principles
The terms we keep.
The long horizon
We hold for decades. Quarterly reporting is a convenience for people who cannot wait, and the work we fund does not keep that schedule. We judge every holding against the century.
Few hands
Things of consequence are best held by a small number of owners who understand them. We keep our positions concentrated and our partners few. A crowd can fund almost anything. It cannot be trusted to keep it.
Quiet
We do not announce our holdings, and we ask the companies we back not to announce us. Publicity is a cost, and we see no reason to pay it.
Stewardship
When we buy, we stay. Founders move on, markets turn and critics lose interest, and we are still there, attending to the asset as though it were the only one we had.
Selection
What we look for, and what we decline.
We look for
- Work that will still matter in fifty years.
- Problems too large to be settled by a show of hands.
- Founders who would rather be right than be seen.
- Assets that become more valuable as they become more scarce.
We decline
- Consumer products. We invest in what consumers may one day be permitted to use.
- Anything that needs public approval in order to succeed.
- Holding periods measured in quarters.
- Proposals we did not ask for.
Process
How a holding begins.
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01
Introduction
Every holding begins with someone we already trust. We do not respond to anything else.
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02
Study
We take as long as an asset requires, which is often years. Most of what we study, we never buy.
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03
Commitment
We commit once and in size, and we share a position only with partners we chose ourselves.
Contact
We choose our partners slowly, and always by introduction.