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Anthony Kingsley

lines on the record: 84
first: 2023-11-12
most recent: 2023-11-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yes. No, I agree. And I'm hugely grateful to this country. And my wife and I, in addition to the giving that we do at Finley Park, we set up a charitable foundation about 15 years ago. And it is focused and always has been on reducing social inequality in the UK. It's not to say there aren't other hugely worthy causes, but that, you know, you can't do everything. You can't be all things to all people. And focus is important. Focus at Finlay Park. And we've focused and we, you know, that's what we're trying to do in our small way is to have an impact and give back to the extent that we can in the areas of education, training and mental well-being through human intervention from kind of cradle to grave. And so we currently support about 40 charities in the foundation and it's all focused.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I mean, I think that this country, whether it was my mother or father, or their ancestors, the UK gave them opportunity. And at some stage, I am incredibly grateful. So, you know, I live in the UK, I pay my taxes, I don't do anything clever, and I like to give back to this country. And I'm still, as I said earlier, hugely optimistic about so many of the aspects of the UK that make this country so remarkable.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. I felt exactly the same way as him. And of course, you know, his family is my family. So we were both delighted. But, you know, there are some people who don't want to discover these things and would rather not. And it's a little bit awkward. But for Simon and I, we're absolutely delighted and we want to learn about where we've come from and our ancestors and the challenges they faced and how fortunate we are to be here as a result of all the things that they did for us.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You discovered that you work for relatives. Tell my wife, Robin, who sadly has passed away now, really reminds me of my father. And I used to say this for years. And sadly, he died before I found out that he was my cousin, Simon's uncle. So, yeah, it turned out actually we had an awful lot in common. And, you know, he's become, he's become, obviously his family, but he's become a great friend, I'm godfather to his eldest daughter. And it's a wonderful, it's been a wonderful journey. And I found out a lot about myself, which has helped me, I think it's helped me in life. And actually, perhaps even more so than that, brought family together in a way that if I could, if I say I've done nothing else in life through this, I have brought family together. And it may actually be my greatest achievement. And that makes me feel good.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No bad thing in life, you know, some of these things are very, very deep rooted and go back a long way. And so I embarked on this journey. Actually, initially it was just sort of ancestry.com and I discovered my cousin, Simon Kelton, who you've known for years, who's also made a tree, a family tree on ancestry.com. And we sort of came together. And I didn't know Simon. Although interestingly, his uncle was chairman of Finley Park. How bizarre a four or five person company. And it turned out that James Finley had appointed Simon's uncle as chairman of Finley Park and had hired me.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I mean, my parents were both sort of immigrants. My mother came to the UK. My father was a descendant of immigrants who arrived into the UK sometime earlier. And I mentioned I'm sort of curious and I like to sort of learn about a lot of things. And when I spoke to them, they never really completely answered questions about I always felt that I never really got the full answer. And so after my father died in 2008, I decided, I said to myself, I really want to find out the truth. Because I think actually understanding where you've come from, in my view, and having done this, I believe this even more, understanding where you come from helps you understand yourself and helping understand yourself.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think that's absolutely right. I think responsibly managed companies behaving responsibly is a great way to generate compound rate of returns over time. I mean, ultimately, that's what we're trying to achieve. And we think responsibly managed companies are best placed to do that. And we're looking for businesses where we have a high degree of inevitability in the long-term outcome. That's where we're guided to by our checklist.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, we're getting into sort of dangerous ground here. I mean, the primary litmus test is our investment philosophy checklist. And the truth is that many of those companies that you mentioned do not score well on our investment philosophy checklist. And so we tend to avoid them. I think you do get into dangerous ground sometimes when you try and put some kind of moral overlay. And we try and be pragmatic, which I think I mentioned. But when it comes to things like tobacco and coal and oil sands and so on, yeah, they're not great fits with what we're trying to do.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Money, we give time so we bring people through Finley Park and see if we can help them and we give our time and charity is not just about giving money, it's also about giving time. And so, yeah, we do our bit.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not something that we really talk much about. Again, it's sort of we like to be low key about these things. But James, myself, we both feel we've been incredibly fortunate. This country has given us, you know, opportunity. We've managed to make good careers out of that. And there is a feeling that we both have of the need to give back, to give back, that we've got stakeholders here, our most important stakeholders is our customer who wants to deliver great compound returns for a long period of time, but we want to look after employees and we want to give back to society. And so we do give back a not insubstantial amount of our profit to charity. And we have a social responsibility committee here and we engage employees and charitable giving and we give”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think James and Charlie set the culture. They're sort of low key people. Personally, I think you should have been, you know, you should have been interviewing James and not me. I mean, he's far more interesting and a real legend in my view, but not well known because he's just such a low-key person that he doesn't, you know, caught the limelight. He never really sort of did press interviews. We were sort of closed and just the way he liked it, didn't need a lot of the claim that perhaps other investors like.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's true. And actually, when you look at a lot of these big brands, actually a lot of their cost is cost that goes into the making of the product, but there's a lot of marketing. There's a lot of marketing to convince you, whether it's in magazines or whether it's in sporting events or promoting famous people or megastars in different sports. So I like the idea that you were not really paying for the marketing. You're just paying the artist for the product. And you're getting something a bit different. And, you know, you're engaging with that artist while they make the product. You have to have a lot of patience. Sometimes it might take three years, four years to get something at the end of it.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The road less travel, doing what other people don't, you know. I thought, if I'm wrong, I'm going to have something that I really enjoy. I didn't think I'm going to lose much money if I do want to sell it. But if I'm right, there's sort of optionality down the road. Who knows? It wasn't actually, I think I had one eye on a return, but it was sort of driven by... Probably driven by passion. And yeah, this idea of doing something different from others. His watches are in, you know, demand the world over. And, you know, it's absolutely bonkers.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wristwatch a year or a pocket watch all by himself, every single part from the dial to the case to the movement, to the jewels, the everything. It was just mind-boggling. And so I bought a few of his watches, which have turned out quite well. But again, it wasn't what people were doing at the time. And I think I've always been quite comfortable with that.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, I mean, I've collected so many different things over the years, but when I had a bit less money sort of stamps and, you know, and then I've actually been collecting not a lot of people know this, but I've been collecting watches over the last 25 years. I got really into watch. I inherited a watch and I thought, well, what is this? And I went down a rabbit hole and found out what it was. And then from there, I sort of discovered this whole world. But the watches I collected are completely off the beaten track. They're not, these are not Rolex watches or patic fleet watches. They're actually watches that are made by independent makers. So independent people who have mastered the skill of making a watch all by themselves. And there was a chat called George Daniels, who I met early on as I sort of went down this route. And I couldn't believe that he made, you know, he could make a wristwatch every year.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where I'm zigging where others are zagging or whatever the right phrase is. And then you look down the road and you just sort of project out and somehow, you know, the world comes towards you. And yeah, so there's a lot of luck and there's a bit of skill and there's a bit of temperament and who knows sort of a bit of all of that.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Skiing, or I've always wanted to try and master yoga or now it's calisthenics. I'm sort of learning. You know, I've just try and, I love to learn and challenge myself in new things. Then I think I have a temperament, which is I don't necessarily love to follow the crowd. I love the road less traveled. My temperament is suited, you know, James's philosophy of managing downside risk, if you're wrong, rather than going for that kind of shiny object. where you can make lots of money and make a quick buck. I love this idea of getting wealthy slowly and for your clients, building wealth and doing it in a way that, you know, I'm very comfortable making decisions that are not necessarily what other people are doing, incredibly comfortable with that. And even in some of my hobbies, my collecting, I love collecting. And often I'm doing, I'm...”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a hell of a lot of luck. I mean, as you said, you know, I didn't know anything about asset management. I sort of got put on the US desk working with Andrew Barker, who was my boss at the time and James Finley. And seeing this kid, who was 15 years older than me, I say kid, I was the kid, but he was a young guy in his mid-30s making his way. And we hit it off. We connected. We somehow, we connected and I helped him and he loved to talk through ideas and I was there to sort of be a sounding board. And I was a sponge. I mean, I love to learn. I've always loved, I think maybe this is the area that isn't so much luck. You know, you talk about curiosity. It's this theme that runs for you, but I've always been curious about, you know, learning. I'm sort of quite okay at a lot of things. I'm not actually very good at anything. But whether it's sort of playing snooker or darts or”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She'd always say, you know, Anthony, I'd like you to take a bit more holiday. You'd like you to work a bit less hard. But look, this is the job I have, and I love it. It's a responsibility, and so you take that seriously.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's just, I love what I do. So I think that's really, really important in mental well being. I have an amazing wife who is my rock. I mean, she's incredibly supportive. We've been together since we were 20. And if I ever have issues where I'm thinking about this issue I need to solve or sometimes it's not someone at work you can talk to about it. I have my managing partner here, Simon, who we're open with. She's been incredibly helpful in helping me solve problems and manage through the odd issue here or there or key turning points when decisions need to be made. I've got a very supportive family. She's also been incredibly supportive. So it has made it pretty easy. And I think somehow we've sort of found a way to have a good balance.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I'm, I mean, I love what I do. You know, people are cliche, you know, Anthony, have you got any advice for young people? Follow your passion, do what you do, do what you enjoy. But I think I've been very lucky. I had no idea about this business. And I say I got a job in asset management with a time when no one knew what asset management was. Mostly my friends didn't. They knew what investment banking was. And I didn't really know. I sort of landed on my feet in a way in this amazing company that, you know, I could listen and learn from a lot of people. And James Finley, this greatest mentor in my life. And I just love it. I love doing what I do. So that makes life, you know, the last 30 years really great. I mean, you get paid to learn about the world and make a few bets and make a few mistakes and hopefully learn from those and get better.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there's a sense. I mean, I've read Matthew Walker and I read that. Is it why we sleep? I've read it a few years ago. And I thought it made a lot of sense. And it was a brilliant book. And I tried to give myself the opportunity. Part of it is giving yourself the opportunity. You need to give yourself the opportunity to steal. I gave myself the opportunity, but I just couldn't do it. And I had the Fitbits and I was trying and managing and measuring my sleep. I just couldn't do it. And it just, you know, I failed. I mean, I figure that I'll probably die a bit earlier than my wife, but the number of waking hours that I'm awake during my lifetime might actually be similar, even if she lives 10 years longer than me. Listen, we'll see.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I probably sleep about four or five hours a night. In fact, my wake up this morning and I have a very busy day today and it's a big busy day yesterday and I woke up at my wife wakes up about seven and she woke up at 7 o'clock and I was still in bed and she looks at me and she went what's wrong? What's wrong? Are you okay? It just reminded me that in fact, you know, when she wakes up, I'm never in bed because, you know, I get up at like 5.30 or whatever. I do my, I'm just my brain is buzzing. I'm doing some exercise or I'm starting the day. And I do that seven days a week. So I feel like actually I've got a good balance between, you know, work, family, and play. But it's always a challenge.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, it's a great question. My son would say that dad, you know, I may have gone to that match, but dad, you know, do you know how many other dads, moms and dads or these matches? And, you know, you turned out to X Many. So I'm afraid I get the, you know, I do feel rather guilty that I, you know, I've done my best. You just try and do your best. I mean, I think one of the secrets for me is I don't sleep very much. And since my 20s, I can get by on limited amount of sleep. And so somehow I can manage and balance my work, my sort of family time, and then the other things that I want to do for myself, whether it's exercise or sport or, you know, hobbies that sort of reasonably well. But it's, you know, it's a challenge.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Successful company. So I think that's it, really. It's America's ability to create new dynamic businesses. The UK, sort of, you look at the index is still composed of much the same sort of companies as 10, 20 years ago.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think part of the explanation is what we were just talking about, America's ability to renew, reimagine, create new businesses. If you take those mega cap companies, if you take some of those new companies out of the index and you just were to measure G and Exxon and some banks, you probably wouldn't have a dissimilar result. So I think it's America's ability to create companies, leverage that over a large consumer base and then leverage those internationally. I think the UK is at a somewhat of a disadvantage there in terms of the size and scale. You do get a lot of innovation and great companies, but they do get taken out. They disappear at 5 billion, 10 billion, 20 billion, or they relist in America, Ferguson's a great example. I mean, they reimagine their business to just a US business and they relisted in the United States, actually been a...”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we're in a tough spot, but I am hugely optimistic about this country where I live and work and the opportunities still in this country to succeed. And I think that the advantages in the UK are still significant, as much as it's easy to kind of moan and say, you know, Brexit this or the current leadership. I'm still very optimistic about the UK's ability to sort of pull through this, I think there are a lot of parallels between the UK and the US. I think we've got to get the policy right. I think that's key. But I think we still got a lot of advantages here.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think you put it extremely well. The American dream, even actually U.S. college, is interesting, just my son's just started at US College, my eldest son, and we just dropped him off there. I mean, most people in the UK start equivalent of US university here at the end of September, beginning of October. He started on August the 15th. You tell him, you're not going to get nearly as much holiday studying in America. He's like, yeah, dad, I know, but he's committed to that. But whether it's, you know, studying, whether it's people have two-week holidays, I think, in America. And here, you know, they expect five weeks, four or five weeks. So, yeah, we've got a lot of national holidays. I think it's a cultural thing.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Been sold. And actually, I think it's going to be relisted in the United States. So there just isn't. You know, you look at the UK, you've got some banks and some oil companies and some telecom companies. America is just such a dynamic environment. And I think you're right is consistently underestimated. When you read the UK press around America, it's always been negative. I mean, I'm naturally a slightly optimistic person and I'm always quite optimistic about America and its dynamism. you know, the R&D that drives unparalleled levels of innovation and extraordinary companies and wealth”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Extraordinary companies and businesses. I mean, thinking about the America advantages, obviously you've got a capital market that's very, very liquid that works. You've got 300 million, is it consumers against which to sort of leverage your business model? You've got a culture of business-friendly regulation. You've got rule of law, entrepreneurial spirit. And frankly, just a history of America creating new companies. I mean, just look at the S&P today. And when we talk about look at those top holdings, I mean, you talk about NVIDIA today. Everyone's talking about NVIDIA at the moment, you know, trillion market cap. I mean, where was NVIDIA 25 years ago? Probably wasn't even invented. America has ability to just innovate, bring these companies, whether it's Tesla or Netflix or Microsoft or Apple at some stage. And you look at Europe, look at the UK, where are the new companies in the UK? Maybe we had ARM for a while. That's...”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so true. I mean, I spend the first part of my career, I say, working with James Finley on the American desk. And I thought that's a great place to learn. But actually, ultimately, I live in the UK and, you know, I should probably cover UK and European companies. So I decided to make that switch. And after five years, went back to working with Jains again. And one of the lessons was there's just simply not the depth of companies, of quality companies that you have in the US. And where you do have a quality company, there's 35 sell-side analysts and they're picked over and they're probably actually quite highly rated because there's so few choices of high quality businesses. They're trading on quite high multiples. And, you know, America has just got hundreds, thousands of companies that can't possibly be fully analyzed by everyone.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's really exciting, and I think going back to our roots a bit with these slightly undercovered unloved companies, it is going to be fantastic.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At all cap companies because you can buy Microsoft on 12 times earnings and you can buy Walgreen on 11 times earnings, et cetera. And you can buy these high quality companies that have underperformed for a while. So we evolved. And now I think Finley Park 3.0 25 years on. I'm calling it sort of back to the future. We're going back a little bit to our roots. Today we look more like we did in those early days with sort of mid-cap companies $3 to $50 billion market cap companies being 40 plus percent of what we do, less than $100 billion, 60% plus of what we do. And it's really exciting. And we sort of stayed in the game in a way in the last decade. We hung in there in a period where you had zero interest rates, free money, you know, not the best environment in a way for a Finley Park managing downside risk, low leverage. But now we're back at 5.5% interest rates. We're in a new era.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we have a chart in our slide deck which shows the relative valuation of mid caps. You can plot this against small caps as well relative to the S&P 500, which is obviously a larger cap biased index. And it is trading close to where it was in sort of late 1998, early 1999. And one of the things that we did is we're always trying to produce a good absolute compound rate return for clients. And, you know, small cap mid-caps got really rather picked over. A lot of the big fund houses, the well-known ones that you'll know, closed their doors in the 2000s to small and mid-cap money and they had too much money and they had been in a great area and out of favor, sorry, in favor. And, you know, S&P 500 companies were well out of favor. And that was the point at which we pivoted. And we said, well, actually, we need to.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Science tools and consumables to scientists, and you're serving all the pharma companies, all the biotech companies, all the generic companies, all the Indian and Chinese companies. As long as you believe in science advancing, you're going to generate more revenue every year, most years, and you can grow margins a bit and you can generate free cash flow and reallocate that into more acquisitions or dividends or buybacks. Sorry, it's a slightly long-winded answer, but these are the types of businesses that help us manage downside risk. And to most people, they might be quite dull, but you're not going to lose a lot of money in them if you're wrong.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll go to Texas Instruments, and we know the auto content in cars grows over time. So, these are what I mean by high value, low cost, but critical products. And it's the same in IT services. These are sort of picks and shovels providers, whether it's in IT services, whether it's Accenture and Consulting, or whether it's Gartner, in providing technology advice, whether it's CDW in IT services. We just love these companies. Thermo Fisher, Danaher in healthcare. You know, we have actually never invested at Finley Park in a pharmaceutical or biotech company in our history. And you may say, well, Anthony, why not? The problem is we're not smart enough to know which products are going to get approved. And, you know, what is the life cycle of that product? And when it comes off pattern, do they have a product to replace it? If your thermofisher or Danahhern, you're providing the light.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Percentage of the cost, but you know, it's sort of an odd oligopoly, and you've got to have the product and you've got a bit of pricing power. And you just need to have it when you need to have it. If you look at Texas instruments or analog devices in analog semiconductors, I mean, they sell products for 50 cents for a dollar, but the content is maybe a few hundred dollars that goes into a car. But they're critical products, but they're not you're not betting on, you know, you're not betting on Tesla or BMW or GM or some Chinese EV company being the winner. You buy the picks and shovels company like Texas Instruments and they provide analog semiconductors to all car manufacturers all over the world. And whether it's the Chinese or the Indian or the Teslas or the German companies, you don't actually have to be that smart and make a bet on who the winner is because if they need the product.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe just stepping back a bit. We probably have 40% of the portfolio in what I would call sort of these picks and shovels type companies, which most people find a bit boring and not growthy enough. But we absolutely love. So whether it's, and what I mean by that is often they are providing essential products and services that are a high value to the end to the customer, but a very, very low percentage of their total costs. So if you take Show and Williams, for example, in paint, actually paint as a percentage of the paint job is not a lot, but it's having good quality paint is important. Martin Marietta in aggregate. The aggregates that go into new industrial gas facility or biotech plants, it's a pretty small...”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In this sort of three to fifty billion dollar market cap range. And so today, probably two-thirds of the fund is under $100 billion, whereas two-thirds of the S&P is over $100 billion. And we're evolving in that direction. There is another factor here which really is around deglobalization and the advantage that maybe more domestic-oriented companies are going to have as we move to a more deglobalized world. I mean, that's another conversation entirely. I'm happy to get into that. But we've got more of a domestic focus companies that are going to benefit from U.S. reshoring, near shoring. And we're really excited about that opportunity.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which is pretty extraordinary. But the valuation's moved up, if they're going to do that again over the next decade, probably become a third of GDP. So I think it's just a sort of mathematical challenge. This is one and a half trillion of collective revenue. And it's being scrutinized to far greater extent from a regulatory perspective and from a competitive perspective. So that's sort of one angle. The second angle is We're actually really excited about mid-caps as these large cap companies have dominated we feel that the opportunity in midcaps on valuations, we're sort of going back to where we were in the sort of late 90s when we were much more focused on small cap companies. And I wouldn't say they'd been ignored, but they've not performed. And so they've had less attention on them. We are finding probably about 75% of the ideas that come into the fund over the last 18 months have been”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the challenge with the mega caps is that in the last decade or so, they pretty much had the sort of rails to themselves, whether it's Google and search or Microsoft in cloud, sorry, Amazon in cloud or Microsoft in Office productivity and so on. If you look today, there's just a lot more competition. There's going to be more, there's more overlap. Google and Amazon and Microsoft are all competing in cloud. It's just a more competitive area, you know, social media. Facebook has got more challenges there, you know, TikTok. And there's just more competition between those companies. They're not going to be allowed to acquire companies in the way they have in the past. They've compounded revenues at sort of 25% roughly for the last decade or so.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. We have three, our last filing, we had three companies which made up, call it approximately 10% of the funds. And if you look at those mega cap companies, which have been driving the market this year and for a number of years, I think the last decade, eight companies represented 60% of the performance of the S&P. Those represent 25 to 30 percent of the index, and we're around 10. We have a much broader diversified portfolio than the index, which looks a little bit narrow today.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They don't. And we've tended to avoid those companies at Finlay Park. I mean, for various reasons, they don't score that highly on our investment philosophy checklist either. So Finlay Park right now, we're pretty underweight, the mega cap companies. We've probably got about as lower weight, although we're an all-cap American fund. We probably got about as low a weight as we've ever had in those megacap companies. And notwithstanding that, you know, the fund still continues to perform quite well. Because also it's not about what you, sometimes it's also just about what you own and not sort of what the index is doing as long as you've got other companies that performing well. You can still produce a good compound rate of return.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Businesses. And so we've never operated a sort of divestment strategy here of saying, well, we only want to be in AAA-rated ESG companies. We've taken a much more pragmatic approach. And in fact, on our rig, our responsible investment gauge, company like EOG actually scores quite well relative to all the sort of factors that we look at. By contrast, some of the social media companies, which get quite high ratings from third party vendors don't score so well. And so, you know, everyone has their own different ways of measuring these things. But ultimately, yeah, we are pragmatic.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, we've always tried to be pragmatic. I mean, I clearly think it is an important trend, which in my view, although the tide may be shifting a little bit in terms of the rhetoric and the fund management companies saying, I'm aligned with it or I'm not aligned with it. If you look at businesses, if you look at what businesses are doing, there is a clear, there's clear momentum to reduce their environmental footprint and become more sustainable. I think it is an enduring trend. And so we have got a question there. One question, one point on our 29 questions. But at the same time, we fully recognize that there needs to be an energy transition. And the world would simply stop functioning today if we didn't have fossil fuels. And so how do we get from A to B in a responsible way through responsibly managed business?”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Find opportunity. And we take a really pragmatic approach here. And hopefully we've never greenwashed here on this front. We tend not to have slides in our pack around ESG, but we just sort of get on and do it like we've always been doing it. We do have this responsible investment gauge where we look at other factors and pull in other information and data. Again, help us manage opportunity and risk.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We think they are providing products and services that are helping to create a more sustainable world. For example, some of our building insulation companies, we own top build, we own a nice holding in that. It's one of our bigger holdings. And the dominant company in providing insulation to residential and commercial houses, well residential houses and commercial properties. Of course, insulation actually is one of the best ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint. And so now it doesn't mean that actually top build is not a high scoring company on our philosophy checklist. The starting point is, is it a good business? Does it fit? But it can also create opportunity. And so for me, I see ESG as a tool that is integrated into our investment process that helps us manage both opportunity and risk, manage risk downside risk and”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talked about incentives aligned with those of shareholders. Do they make sense? Would we back management to run this company well and successfully? And so the G is, you know, is that absolutely integrated into our philosophy checklist? Equally, the S is integrated into our philosophy checklist. We want to have companies that are delivering good customer value propositions. And I mentioned the Glassdoor scores. We want to have companies that ultimately are treating employees well, looking after employees and creating an environment where they can do their best work and thrive and they can retain and attract the best people so that they can be successful. So, you know, thinking about, we've always thought about other stakeholders, you know, that when you think about customers and employees, you get better results for shareholders. We talked about Costcode. And there are many, many other examples. So that is integrated into our process. On the E side of things, we've got many companies that”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. No, no. Thanks, William. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this because I think the pendulum swung a long way in one direction and now seems to be swinging a long way in the other direction. I think we take rather a more pragmatic approach. I mean, what is ESG? It could be ESG. It could be SGE. It could be GSE. I don't know whoever chose the order of ESG. And the E seems to be getting a lot of attention at the moment. But the truth is that we believe that responsiblely managed companies are best placed to produce great compound rate of return, compound returns for our clients. And so we do pay close attention to those factors. I mean, governance, good governance is an important factor when we look at companies. Does it have a sensible board? Are management incentives?”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How does that impact the culture? So we build up a picture over time. We produced a list of sort of half a dozen questions that help us probe on culture. What is the culture? How is it manifested throughout the organization? How has it changed over time? Why is it changed over time? So there's a series of questions also we've developed to just help us sort of get to the bottom of it. You never really get a full picture, but you can build up a picture over time. We've certainly given it a good go.”
2023-11-12 · We Study Billionaires · RWH036: The Power Of Simplicity w/ Anthony Kingsley · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT