Mr. Martin: We are a 20-year-old firm that caters almost exclusively to wealthy individual investors. If we had to be typed, we would probably best be identified as part of the Warren Buffett school of investment thought.
TWST: Tell us more about that and what it means.
Mr. Martin: Warren Buffett has written prolifically over the years and I had the
good fortune of being introduced to his mentor, Ben Graham, while taking a
course in Security Analysis as an undergraduate at Northwestern University. We
used Graham's book by that name, albeit a later edition than the critically
important 1934 edition. So I got started down this road in 1964.
Some years later I had the good fortune of encountering Buffett, who I
characterize as Graham-squared. He refined Graham's more cigar-butt philosophy,
and he expanded it to include a broader range of businesses including businesses
that actually grew, like Coca-Cola (KO), The Washington Post (WPO), and a host
of others. And so I studied Buffett, and as he said, "It either sticks or it
doesn't when you throw it against the wall." Well, it clearly stuck and it grew
on me. What I liked about it was that it was highly productive. Buffett now is
the world's wealthiest man, and he got there as a diversified investor,
displacing Bill Gates who got there really on the single horse of Microsoft —
not to take away from Bill Gates, of course. Buffett is a man who over his
lifetime amassed a fortune, as a diversified investor (relative to an
entrepreneur), in excess of 50 billion. Equally important, he got there without
taking incredibly large risks.
He also got there, importantly, by having a lot of fun along the way. Both
aspects held great appeal for us, because the business of managing money, if
that's all it is, is pretty unattractive. If you add the element of having fun
along the way (and, in our case, having a great group of clients with whom we
can relate on a very personal basis), you get away from money as a primary
motivator, and all of a sudden, getting up in the morning, at my age, on the
north side of 65, is effortless. That is because I know my day will be filled
with those kinds of things and they make the day worth living.
Buffett's philosophy is one that works exceptionally well from any number of
points of view, including its productivity, its durability and the sense of
satisfaction that comes with doing your business ethically and in a way that
never puts your clients' capital at permanent risk of capital loss.
Tickers included in this excerpt: BRO, GNTX, HTLD
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