Mr. McLennan: The most important thing to understand about our investment philosophy is that our long-term goal is first and foremost to preserve the real purchasing power of our clients' capital, and we do so by and large through the ownership of enduring enterprise buying businesses that we think are there for the long haul and buying them with a valuation margin of safety. We're very focused on avoiding permanent impairment of capital, that's at the core of our philosophy. We have a great deal of flexibility in that we look across the entire world for opportunities. We're also willing to look across the capital structure. Sometimes we'll make an investment in a high-yielding bond if we think we can get an equity-like return with a more senior position in the capital structure. But the majority of our investments are in businesses that we think are good companies at good prices. We have a long-term holding period; we tend to own businesses for five years or more on average. We believe that is a core advantage for us in that our patience is quite different from that of most global investors, and it enables us to take a bit different perspective and to accumulate more knowledge on the businesses that we own.
TWST: If an investor is looking for exposure to the Far East in particular, would your fund be a good vehicle?
Mr. McLennan: Well, it depends why the investor is looking for exposure to the Far East. A number of people I've seen more recently are interested in the Far East because of the price momentum that they see in markets like India and China. If that were the motivating factor, we may not be the best repository for that capital. We look across the whole of Asia for investment opportunities, but we tend to make those investments where we can find strong market positions and a wide valuation margin of safety. Therefore, we're not necessarily always exposed to the hottest areas of the market, if you will, due to our prudence gene.
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