Nice French-Canadian investors who have found their yardstick in the Graham-Buffett-Fischer-Lynch approach.
Francois Rochon was an “early” investor in Fairfax from 1996-1999 and again in 2002.
He is a friendly guy and a great networker who has met Prem Watsa, Francis Chou and more recently legendary investor Peter Lynch.
From its track record, we can appreciate talented skills in analyzing and picking the right companies in order to build a concentrated portfolio. AUM seems to be $80 M about three years ago, definitely higher now. The fund’s management fee is undisclosed.
Like many of us, Giverny seems to get ideas from Berkshire. Here are some companies (past & present) in both “partnerships” portfolios:
=> Wells Fargo, M&T Bank, Union Pacific, BNSF, Wal-Mart, P&G, BYD and American Express.
The second important idea generator for Giverny is Sequoia Fund. Here are some companies (past & present) in both equities portfolios:
=> Valeant, Precision Castparts, O’Reilly Automotive, Fastenal, Mohawk, Omnicom, Google and Wal-Mart.
I’m not taking away Rochon’s credit for cloning the right companies at the right time and outperforming the indexes over the long term. Rochon and his team are also innovators who have generated their own investment ideas:
=> Berkshire, Fairfax, Bank of the Ozarks, Disney, Buffalo Wild Wings, Resmed and many more.
As a fund trying to grow AUM, Giverny doesn’t publicly disclose:
- its current top 5-10 positions
- its returns net of fees
- its cash level
Therefore, it’s difficult to evaluate the percentage of Giverny’s portfolio originated from in house ideas versus cloning strategy.
In this business you have the innovators, the imitators, and the swarming incompetents.
Bill Ruane