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Two recent articles by Francois Rochon


jeffmori7

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I've known some people from his firm for several years too.

 

They have their niche. They invest mostly in great companies managed by great people for a fair to good price and sometimes keep the shares for a very long period of time. I know that everybody is unique when there no "next something" or "next someone", but even if they are not the same, their investment style reminds me the one they have at Sequoia Fund.

 

I would feel good to put some part of my family's money in their fund. There is not a lot of investment firms in wich I have that level of trust and confidence!

 

Cheers!

 

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  • 2 years later...

 

Hi all,

 

I want to revive this thread. I am really curious about Giverny Capital, their results are legendary (if true). Does anyone have any first hand experience with them? Anyone a customer?

 

Also they have stopped posting any reports after the 2012 annual. Does anyone have any quarterly reports they can post?

 

thanks in advance!

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Hi all,

 

I want to revive this thread. I am really curious about Giverny Capital, their results are legendary (if true). Does anyone have any first hand experience with them? Anyone a customer?

 

Also they have stopped posting any reports after the 2012 annual. Does anyone have any quarterly reports they can post?

 

thanks in advance!

 

There was link to an interview from 2013 on the site: http://www.givernycapital.com/assets/documents/179/TWST_04_15_13_Giverny_Capital_.pdf?1386962107

 

Some of his picks are : WFC, MTB, UNP, and FAST

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I know then and I can tell you all that they are very classy, disciplined and talented investors. They have that ability to keep their investing style intact in both good and bad times and their strategy work. They are one of the very very few investors that would I trust to manage my family funds if I were to stop picking individual stocks myself.

 

Cheers!

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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

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I would just mention that one could do a lot worse than following the lead of the Sequoia Fund - I have enjoyed their analysis of many companies over the years - though I see Valeant a little differently than they do now.

 

Care to elaborate on your views of Valeant?

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I would just mention that one could do a lot worse than following the lead of the Sequoia Fund - I have enjoyed their analysis of many companies over the years - though I see Valeant a little differently than they do now.

 

Care to elaborate on your views of Valeant?

 

Not really.  If you don't have anything nice to say....as the saying goes.

 

Actually, it is not that I don't have anything nice to say, I absolutely admire what they have built and what the value that Mike Pearson has created.  But I have other thoughts too that aren't positive, so I'll just leave them alone.

 

But negative thoughts is exactly what I was looking for..  :-\

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I'm starting to do some research on Giverny and Rochon. Always looking for good places to invest my capital if I ever decide to stop managing it myself (in part or all), or maybe for my wife's. Seems interesting so far.

 

Anyone knows what's the minimum investment in their fund?

 

Sounds like you can only invest through a National Bank account. Is that correct?

 

Thanks in advance.

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