After Warren Buffet, the world's leading proponent of Benjamin Graham (and Dodds) must be Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital. He is probably the greatest investor in distressed and undervalued companies in the US (World?). We love Howard - our oldest son Max is in his special situations team down in Los Angeles. Howard was just locked up for most of 2020 with his son Andrew amongst others and had to focus on something he has not really focused on. The issue of how intrinsic value, and the value vs growth debate works in long term technology investing. His thoughts are profound shared in a new white paper called Something of Value. It's not an easy read, but click the link at the bottom of this posting to see that it's not just Alison and Matthew questioning this paradigm of thinking that drives investing today.
Something of Value
If asked about possible silver linings to this pandemic, I would list first the chance to spend more time with family. Our son Andrew and his wife and son moved in with Nancy and me in Los Angeles at the beginning of the pandemic, as they were renovating their house when Covid-19 hit, and we lived together for the next ten weeks. There’s nothing like getting to spend months at a time building relationships with grandchildren, something we were privileged to do in 2020. I’m sure the impact will literally last lifetimes.
As I’ve previously reported, Andrew is a professional investor who focuses on making long-term investments in what the world calls “growth companies,” and especially technology companies. He’s had a great 2020, and it’s hard to argue with success. Our living together led me to talk with him and think a great deal about subjects on which I hadn’t previously spent much time, contributing a lot to what I’ll cover in this memo.
Read on by clicking link below.