Il Milan… a Cardinal(e) sin?

It’s not every day you get to meet the major protagonists in anything.

I write this on a train to Turin, to lunch with Andrea Agnelli, a member of the family that has utterly defined the country in which I have chosen to live almost all of my adult life.

He had read my book and seen this article.

 

Tip of the day: never ever take meetings and calls with someone important without being fully up to speed with their world. It’s a show of respect, with easy points scored or conceded. Do your prep, always.

So, in advance of this trip to Turin, I did do my research, looking for where value now lies in his family assets, and sport in general.

 

Where is the Agnelli dynasty today? 

So let’s start with his motor car dynasty of FIAT (including Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo). Of course it hasn’t been called FIAT for a while, passing through various necessary mergers, with Chrysler first in 2014, then with PSA (Peugeot, Citroen, Opel, Vauxhall) in 2021. This combined group is now called Stellantis, and based in Holland. That is where Andrea actually resides now, albeit with no role in the company.

Any true “value investor” can see easily that Stellantis is in full crisis, with a share price that has dropped 50% in the last 6 months. Its underlying competitive disadvantage has been apparent, and predictable, for years. Here is Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, a giant of the Ferrari and Agnelli glory years, with a devastating recent attack.

Depressing deindustrialisation. – Luca Cordero di Montezemolo

Serious economists have been consistently vocal on the inevitable lack of industrial competitiveness in the EU, burdened by one single currency and crushing regulation. But they have always been ridiculed, because no-one ever likes to hear the truth. This is always the fate of the bear, the contrarian, and what today we will call the “Principled Investor“.

We all could see this deindustrialisation coming, especially in Italy, a country that has thrived post-war on being able to regularly devalue the lira, to regain competitiveness. When that was stopped by the introduction of the single currency, the likes of Stellantis was inevitable. In a similar theme, few recognise, even today, that many of the brightest minds in Britain all voted for Brexit for this very reason alone: an intellectual protest against the insanity of the common monetary policy of the EU project. Have a look at the recent economic performance of the traditional locomotive of Europe, Germany. It is truly staggering how sketchy it has now become, especially when deprived of its traditional cheap energy.

Analysing and understanding such factors is the daily bread of any serious investor. Of the “Value Investor.” This is proper due diligence. It will come back into vogue.

 

Is the Old Lady in better health? 

You then look at Juventus FC, La Vecchia Signora, and that’s even worse. 

Substantively, these numbers highlight everything that is wrong with the status quo in European football, and why Andrea Agnelli has always felt that a truly radical solution was needed to address this industry’s lack of sustainability.

The record shows that this has always been my own exact position.

The Super-League for me was never about greed; it was an attempt to look for an industry model of at least breakeven, at the same time adapting the product offering of football to suit a dramatically changing media market, more focussed on elite programming.

It couldn’t and can’t go on like this.

At the micro level, one thing really jumps out from these Juve numbers. The make-or-break binary variable of qualifying for the UEFA Champions League, with the paradigm-shifting revenues that it brings. European football as a business, in this way, is chronically bipolar in diagnosis, swinging from feast to famine, making it truly impossible to plan any sustainable future with this kind of dramatic volatility in revenues. All of which could come down, absurdly, to a missed penalty or bad VAR decision.

Just nonsense. Amateur-thinking delusion, and where this all leads, the end game, has been as easy to see as Stellantis, if you have a “value investor” mindset.

 

Finance is Not Accountancy. 

Sadly, the classic value approach of the Principled Investor is not what today, laughingly, passes for financial commentary. But one senses that this is all about to change. My simple post very surprisingly absolutely caught fire on LinkedIn, perhaps the biggest engagement ever for me. Why? 

Is it because it’s a quick easy read, unlike these Columns? Maybe. 

Is it because it’s a big brand football club that always catches the eye? Possibly.

Is it because it is a commentary on how our football industry is so stubbornly loss-making? Don’t think so, as I’ve said that many times before.

Is it that Finance is Not Accountancy line? Hopefully. That particular chapter in “Sport’s Perfect Storm” was very very well received. Maybe people are waking up. 

Fact is, bottom-line, Juventus isn’t doing well, and I’m ready for my lunch! For the minutes, Andrea Agnelli is no longer involved in Juventus.

 

Sport’s Perfect Maelstrom. 

Maelstrom: one of my favourites words, evoking very precise imagery. It literally means:

A powerful circular current of water (usually the result of conflicting tides) synonyms: vortex, whirlpool.

Figuratively it is: 

A situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil.

That in fact was nearly the title of the book, as it describes very well the vortex of beliefs in our sector. Unpredictable tides of crazy conflicting news every day, full of testosterone, irrationality, hubris and delusion.  A maelstrom of an industry.

But we are where we are and (investing) life goes on. In my case, money needs to be made deploying capital in sport, for return. Many people in the same line of work fully, or partially, agree with my outlook and, therefore, naturally want to know how to “play” it. They have capital (they need) to deploy and want a view of where “value” lies, under my thesis.They are right to ask that of me.

In serious finance, calling things correctly means nothing. Predicting rain doesn’t give any glory, but building an ark, in time, absolutely does.

 

Would a “Value Investor” spend money in sport in 2024? 

Today’s Sunday Column feels it needs to try and answer that question, using the quotes of one of my heroes, as a narrative prop.

Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you who you’ll turn out to be. – Warren Buffett.

He and Charlie (Munger), via the original prophet Ben Graham, are the apostles of “value investing”. People like me are just humble disciples in the crowd of 5000.

Everyone loves (Buffett) quotes. They seem to allow the didactic message to hit home easier, especially if paired with live case studies. We shall attempt to use both, with honesty.

These days we can see so many serious tomes, published by big brand banks and consultants, pitching our industry as fertile ground in which to seed serious money. But this Column thinks most of these are wrong at worse, incomplete at best. And better if some things are admitted up front.

 

Sport is just not right for many investors.

It has been maybe a decade now that Big Finance has felt it could excel in investing in sport, and at the same time tick the “alternative” and “uncorrelated” box in portfolio asset-allocation. This idea has, in the main, utterly failed, and mal-investment is everywhere, even if much of that damage, in private equity and debt, might not been seen for years. Sport is just not a good match for every type of investor, regardless of all the FOMO hype being pitched with gay abandon.

It is not a slam-dunk, and maybe it is actually the opposite. A long-shot.

Amusingly, one deal that hasn’t failed is the Glazers investment into Manchester United, and frankly that says everything as to the challenges of investing into this industry. The Glazers are obtuse and cold enough to not give a flying fig if the fans and media like them or not, and that is so important. It shows that they have the right dispassionate temperament to make a decent fist of it, as investors in sport.

If you asked Buffett, he’d say “temperament” is always the differentiator in great investing.

Sport, media and entertainment is therefore very inappropriate for many investors, exactly because it is sexy seductive, and it appeals to hubris/ego, bringing fame, influence and applause. It fucks with your temperament.

Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns. – Warren Buffett.

Sport, as an asset class, is the opposite of yawns. It is immediate, constant emotion and passion. It will suck you in, consume you, and simply make you lose your discipline as a “value investor”. 

Successful investing takes time, discipline, and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. – Warren Buffett.

Sport will happily strip you of all the patience you need to be a great investor, and I’ve personally seen that a thousand times. If you can’t be cold and dispassionate, stay a million miles away from sport as an asset class. 

You will never see any of that advice in those glossy sales brochures, but sometimes you quietly smirk when you actually see the axiom in action.

Ratcliffe, sacking Sir Alex Ferguson, shows he knows what he needs to do as an investor at Manchester United. Publicly de-prioritising the women’s team is another. Telling staff that remote working is over, also. None of these were popular; but all of them are good signs of the right cold temperament.

 

Do your timeframes match those of sport?

Sport is short-termist.

Management reacts with the cadence of match results, often throwing every penny at underperforming teams on the field, in the jerk of a knee. Sport on the business side prefers safe, certain, money up front, in rights fees and minimum guarantees.

Yet, never more-so than today does investing in sport require a long-term outlook, giving enough time for the sector to transition away from old legacy business models and structures. Today, our industry needs time, patience and understanding from its providers of capital.

Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.- Warren Buffett

Sport has many of the characteristics of that wonderful company, but it will need years to adapt well to this perfect storm of real disruption.

Today many investors and Big Finance just don’t have that time to give you, and their return horizons may only be five years. Our capital markets in general have all forgotten the virtue of long-term investing, and that affects everything in finance today. All asset/wealth managers now have to look at their quarterly results, compared to their rivals, knowing that any underperformance in a 6-month timeframe will see people removing capital from their funds. No one is getting rewarded in 2024 for being right in the long term. All your investors and LPs will, by then, be with someone else.

The last twenty years have been the markets of the trader/speculator, not the investor. This is a dramatically important statement, a tragedy even, but it is where we are.

Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic. – Warren Buffett

On timescales, more often than not, Big Finance is not the best natural fit for sport.

If you aren’t thinking about owning a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes. An investor should act as though he/she had a lifetime decision card with only twenty punches on it. – Warren Buffett

The more appropriate vehicles for investing in sport are not always funds, but permanent capital.

This means that both the investor and investee should get much more picky and patient in doing their deals, get married, to align timing and temperament.

Success in investing doesn’t correlate with IQ… what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble. You don’t have to swing at everything – you should wait for the fat pitch. – Warren Buffett.

The fat pitch.

Define it, identify it, then hit it hard. Pick those rare moments when the stars align.

In this way, sport investing, more and more, will be a stock-pickers’ market. Rifleshot investing, based on case-by-case excellent analysis and due diligence. It is not really a macro play, and anyone talking to you about an “asset class” should be avoided like the plague.

All this is exactly the mantra of Buffett and, from there, he looks for specific “value” opportunities, like a dog sniffing for truffles.

 

But what even is “value” in finance anymore? 

The honest answer is: you never really know! Don’t listen to anyone telling you otherwise. 

Honesty is a very expensive gift. Don’t expect it from cheap people. – Warren Buffett

The old fundamental metrics to calculate value, like a multiple of turnover or profits, a DCF, may not even be what is actually driving the price. It may be simple supply and demand. 

Let’s explain that with an example. 

If you look at the English Premier League clubs, as most investors do with zeal these days, it is difficult to explain their valuations. The total losses of the twenty clubs without player trading are around £1bn a year, and this is a sector that undeniably loses biblical amounts of money. With total debt of around £4bn, the equity valuation of all twenty clubs could be between £20-30bn, at a guess. If fundamental valuation comes from the discounted future cashflows, that is a total mismatch. What are you buying worth £20-30bn? Brand, a stadium, a database of fans.

Yes to all. But no profits or free cashflow.

What is instead driving the valuations of top English clubs is the demand from some investors, with serious capital to burn. Trophy hunters, sovereign wealth, funds with LP money to deploy, quickly. Like top real estate, (location, location, location), there is a scarcity value to owning brand franchises in the top soccer league in the world, and this pushes up prices. 

So, in any asset class, including sport, trying to get precise or scientific on “value” is like pinning jelly to the wall. Pushing water up a hill. 

You need to be smarter and more pragmatic, and find a protocol to make money consistently.

 

Give yourself the best chance for upside. 

Sports assets are undoubtedly special, with a million reasons to invest, especially at the elite end. But given the high degree of uncertainty, the volatility of lumpy revenues, a great investor will only do that with a good margin of safety on valuation.

The three most important words in investing are margin of safety. Don’t try and drive a 9,800-pound truck over a bridge that says its capacity is 10,000 pounds. Go down the road a little bit and find one that says, capacity: 15,000 pounds. For the investor, paying a full purchase price on an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favourable business developments. – Warren Buffett

Whilst one may feel serious pressure to deploy capital ahead of the pack, to build that ark, you shouldn’t do it unless you can see the right margins of safety. This is the very core of the “value investor”. If it is not there, you should just walk away, with discipline and temperament. 

You only do things when the opportunities come along. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing. – Warren Buffett

There is indeed often a premium to doing nothing, to keeping your powder dry, until you can get your asset at the correct price, with the right margin of safety. Then fill your boots. 

Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble. – Warren Buffett

Wait for the fat pitch. 

 

Most return on capital is made on entry, not exit. 

This is the kernel of today’s Column.

An investor’s entry cost is far more important to eventual return than anything you think you can improve operationally in that asset. 

This is so important that it needs emphasised. The best money, in business and finance, is made by buying well, ideally from a forced or distressed seller. Or when the entire asset class has fallen out of favour with market participants.

We all need to recognise that, sadly, this is not the case in our industry; sport is very popular, and by now is a very “crowded trade”. There are too many people thinking our sector is the thematic “asset class” of superior returns, and the media is encouraging that meme every single day. This is how bubbles are created.

But all this is changing, bubbles pop, and that smells like money to the “value investor”.

 

Folks, even the dullards can now see the reality of media rights popping, and the general cost-of-living crisis not jiving with ever-increasing ticket prices in sport. The cold shower moment is coming. The fat pitch is about to be thrown. The recent article in Le Monde on the current state of French football is a perfect example. It’s over. An asset class totally bust. (French linguists should seek out the piece. DAZN people should avoid it.)

The most common cause of low prices is pessimism—sometimes pervasive, sometimes specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces. It’s optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer. – Warren Buffett

Just be patient a little bit more. A maelstrom of bad news is coming.

In recent years, at the height of this bull market, many were swinging at anything and everything, over the plate and not. They were all too optimistic. For example, buying a great sport franchise at full value, without a margin of safety, is for me very bad investing. But this thinking has been all around us for a decade. Applauded.

Let’s look at the Redbird acquisition of AC Milan, and the optimism that surrounded it. 

 

What was Gerry Cardinale’s thesis with AC Milan?

 

Let’s list the usual ones we all know, that people tell themselves in bull markets.

1. Cheap compared to US franchise values.

2. Poorly run, with massive upside, using superior American sports marketing.

3. Elite rare brand in a 10-year slump in performance.

4.Under-monetised global audience.

5. Better player recruitment and trading gains, using modern data techniques.

6. A call option on the growing women’s game. 

7. Unique IP that can always be sold to trophy buyers.

All true.

But they were all also true when Elliot bought AC Milan (on default) for €300m, years earlier. Elliot itself had picked up most of these low-hanging-fruit gains, before then selling the polished-up club to Gerry for four times the amount, reportedly €1.2 b. 

Unique IP that can always be sold to a trophy buyer. 😉

Paul Singer‘s Elliot Group is a very very focussed “value investor” and this was a textbook operation for them. I would however feel confident to suggest that Redbird is not.

I like Gerry, but we can’t be authentic this Sunday, and then sugar-coat this opinion just coz he is simpatico to me. He has made an error. To be fair, these are easy to do in bull markets, and he is by far not alone.

He bought an Italian football club at the very top of the media rights market, and that was clear to predict. For some reason, he didn’t. He then thought the whole new stadium play would be easy, and totally rerate the numbers for the club. Nice theory, but massively underpricing the risk of the politics and mafia/ultras who dictates all this stuff in Italy. He sent over an army of American sports marketeers to tell the Milan staff (who had done a very decent job under Elliot) that they could perform so much better. Not so much. On the football side, he replaced the very serious and respected Maldini and Boban with an ego-manic like Zlatan, who casually goes on TV and says everyone at the club “works for him”. 

Never invest in a business you cannot understand. – Warren Buffett

Like I say, sport sucks you in… huge. It seduces you into thinking that you understand it. And you then get overwhelmed, with mistakes on mistakes. 

All that may be survivable, if you were capitalised in a stable way with long-term patient capital.

Redbird, with AC Milan, isn’t.

When they bought the club, Singer/Elliot lent them a third of the purchase price, vendor debt, at juicy interest rates. Holding the entire club as collateral against default. Gerry did the deal anyway, and the industry gave him all that applause. 

Now he is two down, in injury time, and only has a few months to pay back the guy holding his paper, as explained here.

And that guy, Singer, is mean. Teddy KGB mean. Zero patience. 

The rumour mill therefore is chock-a-block with whispered indiscretions that Redbird is looking to sell all or part of the club. They are of course denying this, but in reality how many people in this sector of ours are now praying, hoping for a white knight from Arabia. DAZN and Len Blavatnik certainly are! Gerry likely is too. 

But all of this doesn’t matter. It’s all just bitchy opinion for effect on a Sunday morning. Here is the real juice.

Gerry did NOT buy AC Milan with any margin for safety, and he will now do well to get out of this unscathed. Owning and running a top European football club is as difficult as it gets. 

After 25 years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie [Munger] and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them. – Warren Buffett

There you have it.

Sports assets should in most cases be avoided by investors, but this is what happens in bull markets. Optimism rules. No one wants to hear solid “value” advice, and the result is horrendous mal-investment.

 

So, what would you do?

In life, business, sport, anything, it is so easy to criticise from the cheap seats. At some point you need to offer an alternative vision. Mine is that of a “value investor”. So, always under the over-arching principle of buying well at a good price, with a full margin of safety, where does a “bear” like me see the opportunities in sport?

Distressed Assets and Special Situations.

Widespread fear is your friend as an investor because it serves up bargain purchases. The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble. We want to buy them when they’re on the operating table. It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price. Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down. – Warren Buffett.

Simple. And never wrong.

VC was a bubble for twenty years until about 2022, but now valuations have come down, and many existing funds will settle for any kind of exit. Too many early-stage companies that were a bit naff got too much money and too high valuations, but that now creates opportunity. For example, there are a lot of sportech companies with great technology, and proven market traction, who have now been orphaned by their venture capitalists. They are all running out of money, and need help. As double-bubble, putting these together into some kind of conglomerate, for cost synergies and cross-selling, should be smart. Two Circles is currently underway with such a build-and-buy strategy, and I like it. It is an operator’s play, and I’m more operator, than financier. 

There are also big sport companies who will at some point classify certain of their assets as no longer “core”. They will want rid. Ari Gold will today sell most stuff outside TKO and William Morris, for example. In my experience, people of ambivalence don’t hold out for the toughest of deals, and our sector is full of these situations currently. Fertile territory.

Good old-fashioned stock-picking. 

You can still get in early on the intense disruption of sport’s transformation. You can invest in the right early-stage businesses, in the hope of massive returns, that compensate the very real risk that you will lose all your money. 

The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage. – Warren Buffett.

We, at Albachiara, have made only a few investments recently, as valuations and delusions are still very high. Margin of safety isn’t there.

There are some exceptions. 

We took a stake in the College Sports Company (CSC), as a bet on the serious money to be made by someone helping American college sport adapt, from its world of shamateurism, into a model of Name Image Likeness (NIL) rights. Specifically in partnering with athletics departments, and their donors, to create media companies around athlete content. This is the “shovels and picks” approach to investing; in the people who will enable the Klondike gold rush. We believe that CSC has first-mover advantage, a clear competitive advantage, being familiar, loved, and trusted by the key people; athletes themselves. Sticky and difficult to switch out, creating IP. 

Just an example. They are out there.

Accelerated Growth, especially in challenger leagues.

Once any start-up has shown that it has commercial traction, a market and a fit, it needs fuel to go and conquer the world. This is called “accelerated growth capital”. 

In sport, some challengers leagues can claim to be very ready for that, especially those that have already seen the competitive advantage in what they have. Ie, that their sport in its old form was under-performing, that the athletes were under-paid, that the revenue model was wrong, and that the governance of the sport just couldn’t change. And they’ve already built something new. 

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks. – Warren Buffett

This is the perfect summary for what CVC has done so badly in rugby. 🏉 😆. Rugby remains a prime candidate for disruptor and accelerated growth capital, in new structures. As is boxing. Athletics.

Let’s take the example of another Albachiara investee, the Professional Triathlete Organisation (PTO). 

Triathlon, like so many Olympic sports, didn’t have a business model good enough to reward its elite pros. So, the PTO set up a new league, like the F1 model, to address that. Its cornerstone founder is Sir Michael Moritz of Sequoia. Its revenue lines are now proven, and not reliant on the CAGR of ever-increasing media rights. It makes its money from participant ticketing, city hosting fees, and sponsorship. All before the additional growth levers of clipping a coupon on the spend of its rich audience (travel, technical equipment, and merch et al). But most important for a value investor, its event economics are proven and validated as profitable. It’s ready for accelerated growth capital, also to then consolidate the sport. 

These opportunities exist.

Financial Engineering with Debt. Archimedes Lever.

There are various sports companies who are under-capitalised, overly-levered with debt, where the existing loan providers would probably be open to a decent exit. There is definitely a florid market for very smart and collaborative (hybrid) debt investing into sport. For yield, with a kicker.

Despite debt capital being a trope on everyone lips, it is still not well understood. The importance of the rise and utilisation of debt still goes over the head of most. For example, at nation level, if one was to estimate the real growth of GDP in America in the last 20 years, without the level of new enormous debts, you would see that the country has barely grown much at all.

We have tried to explain all this in these years, with this article below, and a book. 

Say I can buy any sports asset at a cost of 100 and, then, sell it in 2 years at 200, I have doubled my money, a 100% return. If however, I use leverage and buy the club, using only 20 of my own money, and 80 of external debt, and then sell for the exact same 200, I pay back my debt of 80, and have 120 left. That is now a 6 time, 500%, return on my 20 equity invested!  BOOM!

Same asset, same deal, same exit. Not the same ROE!!!

Hedge funds, evermore present in sport, make their money on this kind of thing. The famous Yen carry trade is about borrowing money in Japan at almost nothing, and investing it elsewhere where you can get a return (say American treasuries). Lever that operation up and you’ve got a money machine. Your risk is that Japan raises interest rates and/or the yen strengthens. Good operators will hedge that risk, hence the name. Hedge fund.

All of this leverage playbook is obviously harder now, as the cost of capital and interest rates have risen. And the classic cashflow generator in sport, media values, don’t look so solid.

But there are still deals. Remember, sport will always take the bird in the hand upfront, over the two in the bush they could have had, with patience. That’s the weakness, and the investors’ opportunity.  AI, Web3, etc will offer fat pitches. Find a stream of those cashflows, and leverage the hell out of it. 

This hardcore finance debt stuff isn’t so sexy, maybe full of yawns, but if you know what you are doing, you can make decent money in using debt. Very smart financiers can still get a good return on capital by doing not a lot to an asset, but making Archimedes do his magic. Manchester United as an asset may not be as healthy as it was before, but the investing Glazer family have got stellar returns on their capital.

 

Have I answered how to build that ark? 

Likely not.

In fact, there isn’t actually a neat macro trade in a bow that completely represents everything that is in “Sport’s Perfect Storm“. Our industry is just too heterogenous, too different, too complex, too emotional, too human.

You could have shorted the bonds of the big media companies, if early enough, I guess.

But, ultimately, good sport investing is inevitably micro. And that means you need to be a great “value investor”. And a great stock picker. And understand cost of capital. 

 

Post-scriptum (written on the trip back to Como)

Andrea I found the most charming, interesting and intelligent of men. Maybe, because on most issues we agreed. But also he seemed a normal humble bloke, in how he spoke to waitresses, patrons and his driver. Compelling, like his zio Gianni.

Man, he has some stories. I wish him well.

On the train back I read the latest monthly TTMYGH from my GOG buddy. In it, he is announcing the Principled Investor, as a new publication, and the name tells you everything. “Value investing”, with standards, honesty, and honour, not chasing a quick buck. Favouring investment, as opposed to trading, being contrarian, even in the face of the Kool Aid narratives all around us. As I understand it, specifically looking for the bluffer with the Ponzi, healthily sceptical about everything, starting every investment analysis looking for the reason to say “no” as opposed to “yes”.

All this is exactly my own temperament and discipline as an investor. It never changes much.

For the last 25 years of bull market manias, based on loose optimistic groupthink, all this has been utterly out of fashion. So much so that those of us still clinging to that way of looking at “value” have been laughed at. With gusto.

How’s that working out for you, buddy?

Look at the stock price, bro!

DOGE to the moon 🤩

But the “value” community has remained stoic. Grant Williams is a part of it, and I guess that is why we are close. So I’m delighted and excited that he now has decided to take everything he believes proper wealth management should be, and pass it on to a world that likely is going to need it very soon. It could save or make us all a lot of money.

In short, a manual for “value investing”. As preached by our mutual dear friend Tony Deden.

Who rightly ends today’s diary entry.

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