The investment manifesto (1½/2)

You can read the first part of The investment manifesto (1/2) here.

The exclusion process

In the previous post on the investment manifesto I ended with a presentation of my margin of safety definition. The purpose of that definition is to sort out those companies that I won’t allow myself to invest in. In a sense, I use my margin of safety definition as a exclusion process. In other words, the exclusion process is a negative screen to sort out companies that I don’t think I can satisfactorily determine their downside protection. Those companies get excluded and automatically put in my too-hard-pile. Thinking about investing, at least initially, as a negative art, what you don’t want to own, is an underappreciated approach in my opinion. This is based on a belief that risk- (i.e. permanent loss of capital) control should be the main emphasis for all investors. A quote that reminds me of the importance of controlling risk is this one:

“Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.” – W. Buffett

However, a quote that in my opinion best explains the reason for the importance of risk control is this one:

Never forget the six-foot-tall man who drowned crossing the stream that was five feet deep on average. Margin for error gives you staying power and gets you through  the low spots. – H. Marks

Or as one of my favorite authors stated in his newly published book Skin in the Game:

“In order to succeed, you must first survive.” – N. Taleb

The statements and thinking above goes back to my belief that only after one has established a population of ideas with solid downside protection should one move on and start to think about their upside potential. In conclusion so far, downside protection (survival) is more important than upside potential (returns) as one starts to think about which companies to invest in. As you will see in this post, I won’t go as far as; Focus on the Downside, and Let the Upside Take Care of Itself, but almost…

The inclusion process

The population of companies that have survived the exclusion process I termed; The Liquidation Oxymoron’s in the last post. If you haven’t already figured out my reasoning for choosing this name I’ll make sure to explain it now. The companies that have survived the exclusion process all fit under the following oxymoronic statement;

They are going concerns selling below their liquidation value.

My belief is that the population of liquidation oxymoron’s creates a powerful starting point of companies to potentially invest in. The basis for that belief is that the oxymoronic statement establish that there exists a fundamental difference between consensus and value for these companies. In a recent post you can read about why I consider this difference to be the most important thing to establish and take into consideration if one strives to be a successful investor: Consensus is what you pay; the relationship between consensus and value determines what you get.

But now, let’s move on from the margin of safety and downside protection argument and take a look at my inclusion process. The positive screen if you like. I will divide the presentation for this process under three headings; 1) upside potential, 2) catalysts and 3) other factors and characteristics. Remember, the companies I look at during the inclusion process (the companies that have survived my exclusion process) are all potential investment ideas that I would be willing to invest in. More specifically, the inclusion process is about determining if I’m going to invest in company A, B or C at a certain point in time. I will come back to my reasoning for this approach of picking stocks when I present my thoughts for the buying- and selling process for the Liquidation Oxymoron portfolio.

Upside potential

As you would expect, most companies get excluded as a result of the first criteria in my margin of safety definition. That is: Selling below liquidation value (i.e. price below readily ascertainable net asset value = raNAV). The reason why I have put this criterion first is because I think the valuation aspect as it relates to downside protection is the most important one, independent of how one defines “value”, to take into consideration as an investor. Furthermore, I think the same holds true about the valuation aspect from an upside potential perspective. Again, if you are interested in my reasoning for these statements you can read more about that topic in the following post: Consensus is what you pay; the relationship between consensus and value determines what you get. 

However, the valuation aspect is far from what describes the complete picture regarding the upside potential of companies. Unlike the margin of safety definition that should be developed individually, the definition for upside potential is an universal one I would argue. The best way, in my opinion, to think about upside potential is to think of a return formula with three components. One should note that I’m by no means the inventor of this formula. For this I would like to give credit to Fred Lui at Hayden Capital and more specifically his Investor presentation and Calculating Incremental ROIC’s presentation but also John Huber at the Base Hit Investing blog and all posts on ROIIC.

What the two investors just mentioned have concluded is that the upside potential (i.e. future returns) is to be determined by the following three components (some minor adjustments done by me). I have termed this the return formula:

1. Intrinsic value compounding yield (ROIC × reinvestment rate = earnings growth)
2. Shareholder yield (stock buybacks / issuance + dividends + net borrowings)
3. Valuation yield (valuation multiple expansion / contraction)

= upside potential (i.e. future returns)

Although the return formula might seem like a manageable calculation exercise one should not be fooled into a sense security or precision. In investing, should happen ≠ will happen. Therefore, I would again like to stress the importance to only engage with the return formula once one is done with the exclusion process. Furthermore, I would like to point out that one should not cry oneself to sleep if one struggles with all the components of the return formula. For some investment ideas, the calculation of intrinsic value compounding yield will almost be impossible to calculate. Or it might be almost impossible to determine what a fair valuation multiple is for a specific investment idea. Nonetheless, those statements begs the question: Should one stay away from companies for which you can’t calculate their upside potential?

My opinion is; no, companies whose upside potential that is hard to determine should not per definition be avoided. Rather, the important aspect is the certainty of the fundamental difference between consensus and value of the company for which you are trying to calculate upside potential. For me personally, this goes back to my thinking and reasoning for the name of the Liquidation Oxymoron’s and what that name implies. Or explained in a more colorful way with the help of one of my favorite quotes in investing:

“You don’t have to know a man’s exact weight to know that he’s fat.” – B. Graham

In conclusion, I will always try to calculate upside potential based on the return formula stated above. For some investment ideas this calculation exercise will be quite thorough and detailed (e.g. HEL:SAGCV, analysis not published). For some investment ideas (e.g. NASDAQ:GIGM, analysis not published) I will more or less fall back on my assessment that the company is a Liquidation Oxymoron (i.e. makes it through the exclusion process) with high certainty in regards to the current fundamental difference between consensus and value. In conclusion, I will not exclude or rank the Liquidation Oxymoron’s population based on the outcome of their return formula calculations. Rather, I will rank the investment ideas in terms of my conviction for their upside potential, i.e. most probable upside potential. In order to make such an assessment I have to take into consideration potential catalysts and other factors and characteristics for the Liquidation Oxymoron’s.

Catalysts

The circumstances for what a posteriori is determined as the catalysts is hard to determine and arrive at a priori. I’m not the first one to make this unsatisfactory conclusion as the following statement from 1955 will show:

p. 544

Related to the statement above is his famous quote:

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” – B. Graham

Although I ascribe to the belief that value is its own catalyst there are nonetheless some circumstances and signs that I keep my eyes open for when I’m to determine my conviction for the Liquidation Oxymoron’s upside potential. Furthermore, the reason why catalysts, other than the mentioned realisation of value from Mr. Market over time, are important to take into consideration has to do with the time factor of investing. Specifically, these catalysts have the potential to unlock value in a direct and fast manner. I would argue that the time factor is an important component if one, like myself, think in terms of CAGR.

For the Liquidation Oxymoron’s I will specifically evaluate and take into consideration any signs of:

• shareholder activism.
• major asset sales, spinoffs or mergers plans.
• acquisition and/or expansion plans.
• dividend and/or share buyback plans.
• buyout or takeover plans.
• changes in management.

Note that what I have stated above is not to be considered an exhaustive list of catalysts. Rather, the evaluation of potential catalysts and their respective probabilities has to be done on an idea per idea basis since they will be highly individual and context dependent.

Other factors and characteristics

The factors and characteristics I will mention below are not to be considered “make it or break it” components for the investment ideas of the Liquidation Oxymoron population. Rather, they are factors and characteristics that have the potential to improve both the upside potential and the probability of upside potential. As you will see, non of these are original or special in any way but should in my opinion nevertheless be taken into consideration during the stock picking process:

• Small market capitalisation (preferably nano or micro cap).
• The trading of the company shares is illiquid.
• Large insider ownership and/or insider are recent net-buyers of company shares.
• Reasonable insider pay.
• Famous deep value investors on the shareholder list and/or they are recent net-buyers of company shares.
• Company has improving fundamentals (e.g. high F-score).
• Low-level of debt or high level of debt but the company is aggressively paying down debt.
• Company has historically paid dividends.
• Company has historically been net-buyers of company shares.
• Company conducts business in a stable and/or boring industry.
• Company has been active for some time (preferably more than ten years).
• Company shares are currently trading near historical lows.
• The company is not a perennial Liquidation Oxymoron (i.e. the company has historically trade above raNAV).
• A big portion of raNAV consists of cash and cash equivalents.
• Company has hidden/undervalued asset values not reflected on the balance sheet.
• Positive or low raNAV burn-rate.
• Low valuation compared to operating earnings and/or free cash flow.

Again, the list above is not to be considered an exhaustive list of factors and characteristics that should be taken into consideration during the inclusion process. The ones mentioned above I usually consider but I might retract and/or add factors and characteristics to the list in the future.

The buying- and selling process

Similar to the situation for the first post on the Investment Manifesto, this one became longer than I had expected. As a result, I will save my thoughts and ideas about the selling- and buying process for the Liquidation Oxymoron portfolio for yet another post. I promise, this will be the last part in my series of post related to the Investment Manifesto.

The investment manifesto (1/2)

It’s been a while since I last posted anything here on the blog. I’m sure that this isn’t the last time I zoom out and remain silent for a while. In the end, although I’m always interested in hearing your thoughts and getting your feedback, I write for an audience of one, me. If that selfish audience is not keen on or have the time to listen the blog will be a quiet one from time to time. I hope you understand.

Nonetheless, after a long break I will try to distill the mess of thoughts that have accumulated in my head and in this case present the reason why I haven’t posted anything “portfolio related” since the mid of July.

A clean sweep

Although I haven’t posted anything you might have noticed, if you had a look at the Portfolio-page, that I sold all previous holdings during the last couple of months. In order to understand the why-question for my reason to do so I would like to start with a underappreciated Warren Buffett quote from the 1998 Berkshire shareholder letter:

Once we knew that the General Re merger would definitely take place, we asked the company to dispose of the equities that it held. (As mentioned earlier, we do not manage the Cologne Re portfolio, which includes many equities.) General Re subsequently eliminated its positions in about 250 common stocks, incurring $935 million of taxes in the process. This “clean sweep” approach reflects a basic principle that Charlie and I employ in business and investing: We don’t back into decisions. – Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder letter 1998

What caused me to do a clean sweep of my previous portfolio holdings was that I came to develop a new investment manifesto. Rather than retrospectively trying to fit my previous investment decisions into the new manifesto I decided that the approach applied by Buffett and Munger would be a good and reasonable one for me as well.

One could question the rationality behind the clean sweep since the approach I had used up on till that point in time had worked out fairly well. On that note, I would like to stress that the development of a new manifesto is not a reach for more alpha or that I was dissatisfied with the track record that I had produced up on till that point in time. To the contrary, I realize that the new manifesto could possibly produce a worse outcome than a simple quant based approach. Especially in the short-term. However, at the core of my investing foundation is a firm belief if one is to be a long-term successful investor one should always focus on improving the process applied not the outcome. In other words, focus on what you can control. Over periods of time I will therefore be more than happy to look like a fool and have an audience that questions the rationality of my decisions as long as I believe that the process I apply is the correct one for me. Note that I in the previous sentence say the correct one for me not the correct one in some form of absolute sense. We will come back to this almost egocentric view of investing and its importance several times during the presentation of the manifesto.

The seeds to a new manifesto

Before presenting the process behind my new investment manifesto I would like to share the story and the circumstances that lead to its development.

At the start of the summer I decided that it was time for me to read all the Berkshire Shareholder Letters since I haven’t done so previously (you can find my extracts of wisdom from all the letters here). Defining oneself as a value investor, not having read the Berkshire letters is like being a Christian not having read the Bible. The same could be said about not having read Poor Charlie’s Almanack which I read and then re-read during the period I was reading the Berkshire letters. Having read all the Berkshire letters and Poor Charlie’s Almanack twice I could honestly say that I was on the brink of leaving the classic value investing school for the more modern value investing school. Still to this day I agree on almost all of Buffett and Munger’s points of argument as it relates to the advantages of the modern value investing school and their rational for leaving the classic school of value investing. But after countless of days thinking about a possible change I still came to the conclusion that the modern approach would be too hard for me to implement successfully.

Both Buffett and Munger are famous for the too-hard-pile analogy as it relates to individual investment ideas. I would argue that the concept can equally be applied to investment philosophies in general and their implementation. Placing an investment idea in the too-hard-pile will be a personal dependent evaluation and the same should be true for the investment philosophy too-hard-pile. I would argue, in the same way as one has to have conviction in the ideas that one invests in one has to have an even larger conviction in the philosophy that one applies. This off course has to do with the ability to “stick to your knitting” in both the good and the bad times. Not having conviction in your philosophy and your ability to successfully implement it will bring out the worst enemy of them all, you.

The investor’s chief problem – and even his worst enemy – is likely to be himself. – Benjamin Graham

Even though I was not “transformed” in the same way that Buffett once was by Munger I will without hesitation say that reading the Berkshire Shareholder Letters and Poor Charlie’s Almanack is by far the best “investments” I have made in my “investing life”. As you will see in the investment manifesto below, there are now principles at the core of it inspired by Buffett and Munger that did not exist before. These where the seeds to the new manifesto and has since then evolved into its absolute foundation. As many others do, I owe them a lot of gratitude.

Four investment principles

Sound investment principles produce generally sound investment results – Benjamin Graham

As it relates to Benjamin Graham’s quote above I would like to use the famous Munger expression:

I have nothing to add. – Charlie Munger

Therefore, I thought I would go straight to the point of presenting the four core principles of my investment manifesto (if you have read Poor Charlie’s Almanack you will recognize them):

1. Preparation. Continuously work on investment idea generation and the accumulation of mental models and worldly wisdom.

Opportunity meeting the prepared mind: that’s the game. – Charlie Munger

2. Discipline. Stay within the boundaries of the investment manifesto.

You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital. – Warren Buffett

3. Patience. Be selective and cautious in the buying- and selling process.

Resist the natural human bias to act. – Charlie Munger

4. Decisiveness. Believe in the investment manifesto and execute accordingly.

When proper circumstances present themselves, act with decisiveness and conviction. – Poor Charlie’s Almanack

Margin of safety

Beyond the four principles, but still at the heart of the manifesto, lies a focus on the concept of margin of safety, i.e. downside protection. By focus I mean that only after one has established a population of ideas with an adequate margin of safety one should move on and start to think and rank the ideas remaining in terms their possible return opportunities, i.e. upside potential.

The concept of margin of safety was first developed (as far as I know) by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd in the classic value investing book Security Analysis that was first published in 1934. However, I think most investors that are familiar with the concept relate it to the 1949 book by Graham, The Intelligent Investor, and more specifically the last chapter in that book called “Margin of safety as the Central Concept of Investment”. As most of you will know, “the margin of safety” is a wide concept and one that has been defined in a variety of ways by both Graham himself and many others since the books first publications. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that. To the contrary, I would say that it is both natural and needed considering the variety of investing philosophies in existence and more specifically how one defines the concepts of value and risk. However, I would argue that the margin of safety purpose is a universal one that all can ascribe to (?). In my opinion that purpose was best defined in the original text of The Intelligent Investor:

It’s available for absorbing the effect of miscalculations or worse-than-average luck. – Benjamin Graham

Based on the definition for the margin of safety purpose and with the help of little inversion we can narrow in on my definition of margin of safety. Again, note that what I present below is my definition of margin of safety not a universal one. I would strongly suggest that one goes through the same process as I present below in order to come up with a definition that is your own.

In order to make the starting point of the margin of safety definition process a little bit less vague consider the following excerpt from Poor Charlie’s Almanack:

Why should we want to play a competitive game in a field where no advantage – maybe a disadvantage – instead of in a field where we have a clear advantage?

We’ve never eliminated the difficulty of that problem. And ninety-eight percent of the time, out attitude toward the market is … [that] we’re agnostics. We don’t know. […]

We’re always looking for something where we think we have an insight which gives us a big statistical advantage. And sometimes it comes from psychology, but often it comes from something else. And we only find a few – maybe one or two a year. We have no system for having automatic good judgement on all investment decisions that can be made. Ours is totally different system.

We just look for no-brainer decisions. As Buffett and I say over and over again, we don’t leap seven-foot fences. Instead, we look for one-foot fences with big rewards on the other side. So we’ve succeeded by making the world easy for ourselves, not by solving hard problems. – Charlie Munger

In other words, your margin of safety definition process should start by focusing on what you define as “no-brainer decisions” or “one-foot fences” to hurdle over and where you believe that you have a “big statistical advantage”. The outcome of that evaluation will allow you to invest in ideas where the purpose of the margin of safety concept will likley be fulfilled. I won’t, since I can’t, go into details about the specifics of the evaluation process for me personally. This is something that has taken years to develop and where the number of inputs now are numberless. Therefore, note that what I will present below is only the end product of a long evaluation process.

My margin of safety definition

Based on my investment beliefs and my accumulated investing knowledge I have developed my margin of safety definition. The population of companies that fit into this definition I call The Liquidation Oxymorons. These will constitute the population of companies that I’m allowed to invest in, i.e. they have an adequate margin of safety:

1) Selling below liquidation value (i.e. price below readily ascertainable net asset value)

2) Proven business model (i.e. historically profitable)

3) Sound financial position (i.e. low risk of bankruptcy)

4) Shareholder friendly management (i.e non-fraudulent management with a thoughtful capital allocation track record)

If you are an old reader of the blog you will find similarities in the above definition to the investing checklist I have previously used (see for example this post about PFIN). That is true. Whats has changed is that evaluation process for each of the four criteria is now qualitative rather than quantitative. Again, if that is a rational and wise move, especially from a return perspective, remains to be seen.

Since the post became longer than I first thought I will split it up into two parts. In the next post I will present the stock picking process for which companies from the Liquidation Oxymoron population to invest in, i.e. the evaluation of upside potential and catalysts. I will also present the guidelines for the manifesto’s portfolio construction and the selling process.