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Jon Cukierwar

lines on the record: 71
first: 2025-06-01
most recent: 2025-06-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yeah, Kyle, this has been great. Thank you so much and your team for having me on. If anybody wishes to learn more, you can visit my website, www.peak capital.com. Accredited investors can see our letters and our research should be available to everybody. And if anybody would like to reach out personally, you can find my email and send me a message. I'd love to hear from you.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The capital to return angle alone, you still have most of the companies who have either not submitted a plan or not taken any action on that plan. And so that's a catalyst that, you know, can help. And if that doesn't happen, then there's so many companies out there that have done well with certain factors. So yeah, so to kind of summarize, very interested there may take a basket approach and see how that goes.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because all the big asset managers who want to go for liquidity go there. And because look, just for those who might not have been reading about it recently, the government essentially said to all companies, listening on the Prime Exchange, right? That's their kind of S&P 500 equivalent. If you're below one times price to book, you have a deadline by, it was March 31st, 2025, to submit a plan of how you're going to get above one times price of the book. There's a lot of companies who wear below one time price of the book, and the easiest way to solve that is to return capital. If you have a lot of net cash through one-time big buyback or dividend. And a lot of them do that. And then the stock pops like 50% or 100% or 200% in a short period of time. Now, a lot of those have been picked over, but in the standard exchange where the small cap micro caps, there hasn't been as much pressure yet. 49% as of a couple months ago might have ticked up, but 49% of companies have submitted a plan. And that doesn't mean you do the plan. You have, I believe, five years to do the plan. So essentially in small cap Japan, even”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like 0% over the time in Japan. And so you think, okay, so you start there. And, you know, the beauty is there's something for everybody there. But I think while that's true, I think for me it's you can tighten the screws even more. Look, at first you filter, okay, things that meets quality standards meets growth metrics. And it's training at, you know, below like 10 times earnings or free cash flow, right? And then you get like over 100 companies and you're like, wait, wait, wait a minute. Any other country you screen for in development world, you might not find anything. But then, you know, so you have permission to kind of tighten the screws on, you know, on book value, on net, you know, and CAV. Like there's so many net nets out there, on cash.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Quantitative approach, so called like a quantum approach, like applying fundamentals. But from a much more quantitative sense of, look, there are pockets of Japan in the small cap and micro cap areas that have done very well. From speaking to a lot of people, I posted something on X and it's incredible. You just get like everybody reaches out to you. It's still a wonderful community. And I have like six or seven conversations and like over the span of a couple weeks and a couple of the people especially were very helpful and I really appreciate them. And shout out to them. And you kind of start looking okay in Japan small cap territory what has worked? What hasn't and there's pockets there where if you look at certain factors they have Kagers that you would be shocked by like there's you know this kind of one factor that you know looking at in the small cap like the the 15 25 year kegers like 17 I think that's better than the S&P 500 and it's certainly better than the benchmark which is done”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lot loss in body language, a lot loss in intonation, and you're just kind of getting words, and generally speaking, too, I've been told by many that Japanese CEOs, they just like their communication is just not the same as in the West and not in a bad way. It's look at every country is its own. It's just the way that we're used to like, you know, you're not going to get kind of the same free-flowing information. It's just a different type of response and communication. And so all that being said, you know, you're in a situation where you might sell the stock down 40% for the wrong reasons or for the right reasons, but either way. So if I'm thinking about, okay, well, if I'm going to build a concentrated position to something and I'm almost like, then I'm underwriting the chance that at some point it's going to be down forward and I'm going to sell, you're just handicapping your forward returns like tremendously. So now to get around that, I have found a solution. And it's the first time I'm really considering this, but is taking a basket approach to Japan, right? Not something I've done in other countries, but it's a bit more of a”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Comfortable translating documents in other languages, right? There's Google Translate, there's other AI based tools out there where you can retain the format of the PDF or whatever the document is and translate it. And it's great. It's excellent, right? And you're just reading English, basically. It's the speaking to management that is more of the deal breaker for me, where let's say you have a scenario, I think it's the important scenario of, you know, you own a stock there and you're two years into ownership and things are going well, then suddenly one day on a micro level or an industry level, something happens and the stock is down 40%. And most stocks that do well over a long period of time study show they will be down 30% or 50% at some point, if not many points. Instead of 40% and it seems scary in the moment and you realize you try to call the company to ask what's going on get some comfort and like you can't really you can get a translator which everybody does. You can speak to them but there's a lot of”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I'm a bit later to the party than many with Japan. It's very interesting and it's something that I've been taking a serious look at recently. And, you know, with Japan, it's a developed market, of course, a terrific country in many respects. And definitely, you know, aside from communication, which I'll get to in a moment, definitely investable, like for all those good reasons. Now, I guess going back to March 2022, somebody who I know well, and he'll know who he is, but he urged me to look at Japan, said, hey, John, there's a bunch of corporate governance reforms that look like they're happening. And they were still kind of in COVID lockdown until October 2022. So in hindsight, yeah, that would have been an amazing place to invest. But the reason I didn't, and the reason I still didn't, foolishly until just a couple of months ago was because just the communication barrier to me has always been something tough to get around. If you're going to build a concentrated position, right? You know, look, you can, I'm perfect.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, yes, like I would buy that one over the one today because look, today it's no longer at nine times earnings. It's at, you know, call it 18 or 20 times earnings, right? Ford earnings, depending on how you look at it. The growth rate probably isn't 30 to 50 percent. Maybe it's closer to 20%, give or take for the foreseeable future. And quality, I think, is still the same. If anything, it's probably better because their position in Australia has gotten stronger and they've proven their North America opportunity. It was more way more early stages. Now they've proven that they have a strong position there and they should continue to grow and this concept works in Canada and the United States. So if anything, quality's probably gone up and maybe you're more comfortable holding the stock for that reason. But yeah, that's probably might be more in the good enough side of things where at a 20 times 19 times 18 times foreign multiple and that growth profile all else equal quality equal. Yeah, you would do better in finding the major group before years ago. And so I see.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just you kind of drift away from that discipline. Yeah, you might sacrifice or compromise a bit more on whether it's quality or growth or value or whatever the pillars that are important you are, you just might drift away from them a little bit where the investment just you take a step back and you think wow yeah like I definitely you know should have paid more attention to that aspect and then you end up paying the price for it maybe you don't you know anything can go up and you can be right for the wrong reasons or mixed reasons but you know when you think about those opportunities, you know, yeah there's there's I think even in my portfolio today there's like elements of you know this is okay this is good enough but it's not perfect even if we look at major group today right now you size for it accordingly right it's no longer the big size it once was but you know that's something that you know could theoretically be replaced if I found a portfolio of 15 perfect companies right that were like a major group with you know four years ago right with like a much lower multiple in the higher group”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, I can say to somebody, and that would be me. It's still very much something that I do. And I try every day to fight against and to improve in the sense that, you know, look, I think it's more of like, if you think about now letting good enough get in the way of perfect. And I think that's right. I think it's a good mindset to have. And I think it's a goal. It's something you should strive for because in an ideal world, you think of the best investment that you've made over the last five years and the setup of that investment going into it. And now imagine owning 10 of those or 15 of those in your portfolio. That would be like the perfect portfolio in a way, right? So that you're comfortable with, great setup. And they all do very well. Now you're going to make mistakes and, you know, not everything's going to pan out. So, you know, you can even if like 11 out of those 15 do really well, you're going to have a good outcome. But yeah, it's, you know, it's more like a challenge to remind yourself every day because I think what a lot of people do, and look at myself included, is you, whether it's because you can't find, you know, these quote unquote perfect investments or”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Replace like large ownership right now. If it's, you know, it could be like, let's say $10 million to them is only 3% of the company, that's still a meaningful amount usually to these people, unless they come from royalty, but then they're probably a second or third gen founder I don't get excited about because they weren't the originals and they tend to, you know, I think studies show they tend to be worse outcomes. But look, it's usually meaningful to them. And, you know, you want to make sure as the company's profits are growing, the minority shareholders are going to see the spoils as well, right? Because if you have somebody they don't know much stock, there could be some, either through like bad incentives or whatnot, or taking just big operational risks with the company, they might try to do things and Charlie Munger says, you know, tell me the incentive. I'll show you the outcome. I think he's right. They could do things where, you know, they stand to make a lot of money if things go right. And if things go wrong, you're the one who's holding the bag. You know, heads on windails, you lose. So I think alignment is very important.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Small things like they tell you something here, but then the results later on, you know, there's something totally different. And then they kind of change your story. But you kind of have to remember, okay, well, they're being inconsistent with me. Or, you know, it could take a lot of different shapes, but then, you know, there's never really one cockroach in the kitchen. So if you kind of find them being a bit unethical or cutting the corners too much, right? These people, they move fast and break things, but they cut the corners too much. They do something where they kind of cross a little. It's usually not limited to one thing. So, you know, just leads to the question, okay, is the company doing things like that? Or are they going to do things to shareholders that aren't great? So integrity, obviously, you need to look out for. And then lastly, I think just alignment of interest, right? I think in this case, owning a lot of stock tends to be, you know, and that's another quantitative screen, by the way, there. The more companies I look at, it's one thing that I use is they say, okay, well, you know, you could overlook it to some extent. Maybe they're going to make enough salary and enough bonus. But I really think there's nothing quite that can.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every second of the day, their mind is consumed with like, what can I do to improve this company? Then you have the other end of people who, you know, it's just more of a job to them, right? They're here to collect a paycheck or there's some bonuses tied to some easy EBITDA bogey that they're going to achieve. And you just don't get that passion. It kind of oozes out of them. Either they have it or they don't. And so I think meeting people in person and going through questions, you know, asking them questions, seeing how they think, how they feel think that's important. Thing number three, integrity. Obviously, you need integrity, right? And people, it's one of these things. Like, it's funny when I took the CFA exam, you know, there's like an ethics portion. A lot of people don't study it. Oh, I'm an ethical person. And then they fail it, and that's a deal burger because if you fail that, you can ace the rest of the exam, but you actually fail the whole thing because the curricular requires you to pass that one. But I think same thing here. You think, oh, it's like, you know, integrity, but it's so important because, you know, to look for it, because these are kind of subtle breaches where they might do one or two or three, like.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Expand in North America, he had, you know, from his career a very deep Rolodex of relationships in those areas. And that's a unique thing to the company. And you think for yourself, does that kind of make sense? So generally speaking, look, when I look for in management teams, I like to see longevity in that standpoint. Are the people I'm investing with, do they have a track record usually of success here, right? Or is this a new team? So longevity, you know, I do want to see ambition. Founders, this tends to be mostly the case, but with other folks, when you sit down and you spend an hour with somebody, at least in my experience, I think it's like a barbell of outcomes. Either they are very ambitious and you can tell, like they're ambitious for the company, not for themselves, for the company, and they want the company to become the best of the world at what they do. And they do eat, sleep, and breathe this company. Every decision.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where there's like very little track record, there's a new CEO, then it's just so tough for me to even get excited and comfortable with that. Not that it's not a right or wrong answer, just my comfort level. So number one there. And number two, yeah, you know, founders are obviously great and people love founders for obvious reasons. They tend to be more ambitious. The company's personal to them. They want to see its success. They tend to live, eat, you know, sleep the company. You could also have either like a new CEO who's maybe promoted internally or that the founder steps aside to be chairman, but they handpick somebody. And, you know, you can kind of about, okay, does this make a lot of sense at Major Group, for instance, that worked out beautifully? They had a CEO who he was an outsider, I think in 2021, give or take Justin Newich. And, you know, he's proved to be more than capable in the company as, you know, multiplied his profits in a short period of time under him. And, you know, and one of the reasons I think, you know, there were many reasons, but one I remember was just they're looking at.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, management evaluation, that's an important part of the process for me. And it's something that I enjoy. I think there are, I suppose you can call it more quantitative aspects about a management team that you can screen for, right? From a screening standpoint, that helped me get comfortable. For instance, for me, sort of table stakes for me for companies are often not only has the company had an impressive track record of stable and growing profits over a long period of time, say at least 10 years, 30 years, 40 years, and have the people responsible for that growth, you know, are they still with the company? And sometimes it might be somebody older, like as a chairman, but then at any case, okay, well, the people they picked to replace them and then the culture in the company probably is not radically different than when they were there. So, you know, so for me, like number one, yes, like that's, you know, look, if I had a come.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In overall spend, right? There's fewer parts, but those parts have to replace are a lot more expensive, and they're just going to get more expensive over time. But let's say there's a 30% reduction in lifetime spent for car in other parts. So 30% over 30 years, you get to around a 1% reduction in spend. So it's like, okay, if I thought our department was going to cagger its profits at 13% for the next like, you know, let's say like 12% for the next 30 years, okay, well, let's subtract 1% from that and now we're at 11%. Is that going to break your thesis? It shouldn't, and it doesn't, right? So that's that, you know, I think that is actually a big positive of these non-glamorous boring industries.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Moving in reverse this year because electricity is important. People want their gas cars. It's an adoption I think is just going to happen slower than the people think. But let's say 25 to 30 years, right? And you can do the math yourself. And let's say, you know, and I've done”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a company we both know and that I've studied electric vehicle adoption is a risk to the business. And it's one that, okay, you're selling auto parts right now, right? And that internal combustion engine cars, over time, they will spend more dollars for replacement parts than electric vehicles. So I think then the math becomes pretty straightforward. Okay, well, there's two things that really matter. Number one, how many years until we see 100% adoption of electric vehicles or close to it? And then number two, what is going to be the reduction in spend over that time period for that? So you think, okay, if this is the biggest risk to the industry, then that's great because you can calculate, okay, let's say it takes, you know, before 30 years, right? And look, Poland, they import their cars that are like 13 years old from Western Europe. So there's like a 13-year delay behind what the first world's going to do. So it's like, I'm, and these things, they're actually.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's okay, just not for me. And so I think it just tends to be like the more boring, non glamorous business is that have these lower multiples to begin with. And that also, you know, if they're in a more boring non-glamorous industry, it probably also filters for less interest, less people looking at it, longer track records, and also less likelihood of disruption if let's say it's an essential service, right? It's not too fast moving. And so they haven't been disrupted for the last 30 years. So it's not that they can't in the future. It's just that, you know, maybe they're just in an industry where it's just, it's really hard for tech, even like AI to really change this radically in like a short period of time. And oftentimes, for instance, you can see the beautiful thing is, I think, is, and often a risk perspective, you can see the changes coming and you know what they're going to be. And you just know this is going to be, okay, a really long time from now. We can take auto partner as an example.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's funny, I guess the boring or non glamorous companies here, I think it's never been by design. It's been, you know, there are more maybe tech companies or companies in tech adjacent industries and a bit more flashy. And I think the reason is just that when you're screening and looking at your companies from a bottom-up standpoint, they just tend to be at higher multiples, right? And I mean, I look at it from more free cash flow owners' earnings, steady state free cash flow. And these companies trade on multiples of EBITDA, multiples of sales that I'm just simply never going to get comfortable with. If a company is not profitable, it's almost an absolute deal breaker for me. I don't think I have any companies in the portfolio today that are unprofitable. And so, you know, profitability is essential. And a lot of these companies, they are unprofitable or, you know, they're long duration stocks, I would call it, where you have some people who have a 10-year forward view, hey, this company is very cheap on a 10-year forward basis. And if we're right, this will be like a hundred bagger, right?”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of who gets their capital back, whether it's a pro rata distribution. So that from a business standpoint, that is the plan for the fund. I'm in no rush to get there. The way I view it is I'm compounding capital the way that I'm comfortable with, that I think is going to make us money. And anyone who wants to join along for the ride for the long term, please join.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I also want to go back to the plans for the fund and the partnership. I really don't plan to raise capital above Paul at $40 million, maybe a bit less, but roughly around that area. And I know a lot of people might say that's crazy, but I want to, you know, for two reasons. Number one, if the capacity is, let's say, 150 to $200 million, I don't think it's good business or just a good idea to raise up to say $100 million. You have a couple of good years, let's say. And then all of a sudden you have to tell your partners to just join, hey, I might have to return your capital to you. Probably not going to go over well, just not good business in general, not good practice to treat people. And number two, I really, look, I want those people, look, if you join, you know, while we're up to, you know, before $40 million and you get in, you know, I can look them in the eye and say, look, I don't know how long it's going to take and I can't make any promises. But, you know, if we compounded the rates that I'm happy with, we can triple quadruple quintuple your money before we even have to have the conversation.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The managers, if they get to keep the management fees, their performance fees while they had that asset base, and they can make their however much amount of money, right? Put some big number on it. To them, they can say, I won, right? This is to many, many people. And look, there's nothing wrong with this. This is an industry that attracts a lot of money. But if you say, but if your fund collapses or just you have a mediocre track record and you've made all this money for a lot of people, I think that's winning for them, right? Now for me, that's complete opposite, right? That's what gets me out of bed in the morning, right? For me, yes, the money will come, obviously, but, you know, the track record, the putting up the best numbers at the end of the day, making your mark on the industry, getting out of bed to find the next great company XYZ that really just gives you this thrill, this rush. That is what gets me out of bed in the morning, right? And so for that reason, I fully intend to, you know, abide by that cap.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They did well in the micro, small, maybe small mid cap space. And I don't know what they think, but I can only imagine, oh, it's somewhere in the back of their mind. Or yeah, I can do well in mid-caps, you know, because I'll be more mid-caps. It's going to be my straight. Yeah, I can do mid caps. Or I'll find two or three times the small cap opportunities. And just like a significant departure from where they built their returns in the past. And like four out of five times, it doesn't really pan out well. Either, you know, this kind of two scenarios I've witnessed. Either it's kind of a slow bleed of mediocre returns or worse over some period of time. And then eventually, you know, they hold on to the capital as long as they can. Or it's kind of a quick collapse if they get a bit overconfident and concentrated positions and some questionable companies and they don't do well. But, you know, I just think the incentives are bad because, you know, the managers, and again, not to manage specifically, but just general Wall Street behavior.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One or two of these a year, and they're driving a substantial part of your returns, then you will be handicapping your returns. Now, people can say, oh, well, I'm a smart person. I'll find. It's probably not going to work that way, right? Don't overestimate yourself. It's probably not going to work that way. Now, I think it's interesting because when you look at the industry, I've seen this play out a lot in my short career, right? But you look at, you see other funds and you see these funds get to very big AUMs very fast. And the way that the allocator world works is, you know, once you get one allocator, you get two allocators, then it's, you know, you get the social proof from it. You get the big names on the door. And then it becomes a bit of a beauty contest and everybody kind of rushes in. But the point being, the managers, it becomes a lot easier to scale if they want to attract that capital, right? So if you have a great track record, you kind of, you know, your marketing well, you hit this breaking point in escape velocity and you were 200 million, 300 million dollars and you're whatever the narrative might be, then you could, if you wanted to and with all the right tools and if you should be so lucky, scale to a billion dollars. And now, you know, I've seen a lot of managers.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you extrapolate that to okay, what's the maximum capital base at which we could operate this partnership based on my analysis that I think that kind of level, that range where we just really cap out at strategy is 150 to 200 million dollars in AUM right now that obviously that seems a lot lower than what most people would say or think, but for me, it's really, yes, like that is the limit. And I have no intention of sacrificing our returns in order to raise more capital, right? Because the way you would do that is, well, okay, maybe we can manage 400 million, 600 million, $1 billion one day, but the sacrifice and the compromise that you have to make is, you know, all else equal, let's say you find there's one or two no brainer situations every year, you can no longer make it, say, like a 10 to 15% position. You can only make it a 5 to 10 or 3 to 5% position. And all of a sudden, look, if you're finding...”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's an excellent question and something I've given a lot of thought to. I think it's an excellent question because of kind of the behavior that you see in the industry and that tends to play out. And what I think the right answer should be, at least for the perspective of compounding at a high rate and doing what you say you're going to do. So for our partnership and our strategy here, right? I think the best way to approach this calculation is you look at your investment style in the past. You look at the companies you've invested in. What have been the average daily volumes at time of investment? What are your kind of portfolio sizings that you're comfortable with to achieve these returns and invest in these companies? And when I've applied that and not with the volumes today, like when we got in when there was low, lower liquidity, when nobody knew about this, you apply that, you apply your comfortable position weights such that you're not compromising your returns.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tried to adhere to over time, right? Just always frequently reassessing things. I tend to be more of like a cynical or maybe not cynical, but just, you know, a suspicious mind when it comes to companies. And as a result, I just kind of be very careful. So if and when something does happen, even if it's a minor event, like my mind immediately just goes to like, okay, like, like, like we need to be over careful here. We need to reevaluate or just check in on everything that you can. So this kind of mindset probably leads me to, you know, yeah, like I prefer the cheaper, say, for multiples. I prefer the durable businesses. But, you know, when it does cross that threshold, when it does meet that threshold, you know, I tend to see pretty well at night with these companies.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look at valuation. So I think in all those opportunities, you find something that's extraordinarily cheap for one reason or another. And it runs up, but then you kind of get more conviction. You're more comfortable. You keep doing more work. And you realize, I don't own enough shares of this company. I'd like to, you know, I think it deserves a bigger approach to my portfolio, even if it's run up 20%, 30%, if you really think that this has triple digit return potential in some short period of time, you probably should buy. So I think in most cases, like I have, but again, not because I'm thinking about I should average up or average down, but it's been more, you know, just from a disciplined mindset that I try to keep, right? Looking at everything, you know, all my portfolio companies together and okay, like what deserves my capital? What deserves, you know, what doesn't deserve my capital maybe right now, you know, reevaluating and assessing things. And I think, you know, just as a side note, that's been a discipline that I really...”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I look back at our best performing positions, I think in almost all of them I have averaged up over time, not PIKA. And in each case, it wasn't because I wasn't actually actively thinking I should average up. I think it's more trying to stay disciplined and thinking, okay, at any given time, the way I monitor these portfolio companies is, okay, obviously, is quality still in check, right? And by the way, out of all my criteria, quality always has to be there, at least perceived quality. If it's not, then it's an exit candidate, right? So, you know, for me, quality is paramount. So, you know, you kind of confirm, okay, quality is there. The growth opportunity, you know, where is that right now, right? When I underwrote this three years ago, he was the forward-looking growth opportunity. Have they kind of plucked low-hanging fruit? Have the law of large numbers crept in as their addressable market runway, you know, maybe smaller and their growth rates are lower as a result, or maybe greater, you know, things change for the better sometimes.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I miss all that, you know, as far as the trimming that I did in a short period of time. So look, I think it's a tough question, but the more I speak to the older, the really successful investors who have lived for decades with this type of investing approach, they all say the biggest mistakes I've made in my investing career have been selling too early. There's always a good excuse for that. The stock had a good run. It looks expensive. Other things look cheap. Some other reason. But, you know, then you sell it and then it's just so hard even for these great people. They found it's just so hard psychologically to buy at a higher price than you sold and you end up waiting for that price and then it just never gets there again and you lick your wounds for the next 30 years.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of holding these stocks holding shares in these companies because yes, over a one to three year horizon, you may be wrong or foolish for holding on to them if they then, you know, the multiple contracts a lot and something happens short term. But over the very long term, if you think you're right, you should still earn a very good return. And what I've learned is, and I think from this experience, is that in the short term, my thinking was, well, we were coming out of kind of the 2022 lows. This was my maybe one of my best performers. And the valuation was maybe, you know, one of the highest of my portfolio companies. I thought, well, there's all these other great opportunities at really low multiples that I want to take advantage of. So I guess in the sense that like recycling that capital into other opportunities, you know, it was okay. But I think almost, you know, most of them did not perform as well as Mater Group. And so, you know, long story short, the multiple expanded from, say, 18, 20 times earnings to 37 times 38 times earnings at one point.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cell, you probably should sell that stock unless it's growing at like 50% a year into perpetuity. Now, not at that extreme, but yes, you mentioned Mater Group, for instance. And, you know, I think that really, you know, everybody likes to say, oh, well, you can't kick yourself over mistakes of omission and, you know, so on and so forth. But yeah, I do think it was our biggest mistake just even quantitatively because if you take how much it appreciated after and how much we trimmed and it probably is a greater missed gain than the biggest single loss we've had in the funds inception, right? So it probably was my biggest mistake. Now, you know, it's just hard because with these companies, over time, if you take a long enough time horizon and they're earning really high returns on invested capital and they're growing at high rates, then the starting valuation shouldn't matter too much. And I think the right answer long term is to err on the side.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's an interesting subject. That's one, maybe one of the most difficult things that I've grappled with over the last several years and almost four years since starting the fund and evolving my thought process towards is you find these great companies, right? And it's easy from a position sizing standpoint and just from a conviction standpoint at the no-brainer stage. And then as they appreciate in price, durability and quality, if you're right about that, shouldn't change much. The valuation side, it should change somewhat or it could change dramatically, right? Now there's an extreme example where, you know, if you see, let's say, a 2020, 2021 bubble, we saw how silly some of these valuations can get. And then, yes, it could be just maybe that'll be an easier decision. Hey, am I thinking went from 10 times to 100 times earnings, we should sell? There's a 1% yield here. I don't care what, you know, you should.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're totally convinced you're right. To me, it's just a lot easier to get comfortable that, you know, you should do okay in this investment. And like there's no looming consensus downside risk from these share price level.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of, you know, the final element there is my preference in looking at these international markets and looking at the small microcap end is kind of meeting those criteria and not needing a variant view per se, but just approaching a situation where there is no prevailing view. So you don't need a variant view. You just need a view that does not really existent in the market. And so to me, it just worries some risk that, look, There are so many smart people out there. There are tons of smart people out there. And I'm going to do my work and I'm going to come to the conclusion of, I think, whether I'm right, you know, or very convinced that I'm right. But, you know, there's always that risk that, hey, maybe the other smart people out there, they have a view, and it seems to be the prevailing view. And maybe they're right in there. There's some risk that I'm wrong here. Hopefully my downside isn't that big. And I do what I can to protect it by buying sheep. If you have a situation where there is no prevailing view and”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, and there's a lot of different ways of never brainers investments that there can be special situations of all sorts, right? You can something that we've definitely participated in in the past, like American Coastal. Though, you know, from kind of the common, I guess, no-brainer that I look for is something that meets all three criteria of high quality business right now. We can talk about what quality means, but high quality business and high quality management team, right? Substantial growth opportunity ahead for many years or put in industry jargon, a larger addressable market for them to penetrate. And the third would be valuation, right? And that's where just whether you're looking at free cash flow yield, whether you're looking on a multiple basis, as you said, it's just so obvious, you don't need to build a giant spreadsheet. And I agree with that. So that's typically what I would call a no-brainer investment from my end.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And how much it does not grow, not string the business, but just maintain their current profit levels. What you would see is they don't need to buy tons of added inventory every year, right? So the change in network in capital would be essentially zero from an inventory perspective, right? Unless maybe the inventory gets slightly pricier every year, but then it gets offset by other. So yeah, so then in that case, your owner's earnings or your steady state for cash flow will be a lot closer to net income, right? Probably very similar to net income compared to what the cash flow statement says today. So, you know, just thinking of it like, and again, I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer. Everybody has a different way of thinking about it. For me, this makes all the sense in the world. This is the way I think about it. And I think it's generally a good tool to use in your arsenal.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Auto partner we can use specifically as one that we probably both know. And one common question I get is hey, John, this is great, but if you look at their free cash flow or their cash flow statement, they have no free cash flow because it's all going into buying inventory. So therefore, I can't buy this stock. Like they have no cash flow. And like Buffett would say, this is 100 times free cash flow to get like, okay, well, which I would say, well, look, let's say this company tomorrow decided we're never going to grow again. would their steady state free catchment where they have to maintain their competitive position, right? So they have to spend something to, you know, to keep the facilities in check, you know, keep the cars on the road.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Include obviously you look at leases and with the new lease accounting, it's not always clear what the depreciation is. And so there's different schools of thought. But from my school of thought, I think you do need to parse that out because, you know, depreciation from operating lease expense, I think that's a real expense, like you're paying rent, you know, you're paying whatever every month, every year. And so, you know, but a lot of people might add that back. But then, you know, the real kind of discrepancies can line the income statement too. And you have companies, maybe they are more having an R&D, and you have to make your own assessments and judgments there of, okay, how much of this is growth for the future, how much of this is, you know, this kind of under maintenance basis, customer acquisition costs in the form of sales and marketing can be big as well there if you really do the right math and look in the cohorts and really drill down i mean but it's funny because i got questions sometimes right you know i own a couple of distribution you know based businesses”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, owners' earnings is very important. And it's when I view a company and I look at their financials for the first time, owner's earnings is always just like the first calculation that I try to make just on a very crude basis. And you do need to do a bit more digging sometimes to get there. But yeah, owners earnings, the other way that I view it is steady state free cash flow. I think that's a very important metric. And exactly what you said, sometimes there can be a wide discrepancy, right, between what the reported free cash flow is, the reported earnings is, and owners' earnings. Oftentimes, I think net income and free cash flow, they can be a good proxies for one another. Yeah, look, first of all, obviously, CapEx is something that a lot of people, you know, will look at, and rightly so, looking at what the discrepancy is between depreciation and capital expenditures and that CapEx, how much that is gross CapEx, how much of that is maintenance capex, you know, purchases of intangibles.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Simple, less complex, more simple, and can give examples there. And things that have also businesses that have existed for 20, 30 years where, you know, okay, you don't really have to guess so much as to, you know, there's a new manager or a new business segment or a new business line. It's something that the same people have been doing for, let's say, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. It makes all the sense in the world. It's a consumer staple product or something that's necessary in that industry for one way or another. And then for me, I think that layering those on has helped me minimize those risks in these countries.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even things you would never imagine in the United States, like confiscation of assets, right? I've had one situation in the past where you start questioning, okay, the stock looks extremely cheap on a multiple basis and everything's going fine and then the profits are stable. But then you kind of realize, wait, the money that they have in one of their countries might be trapped and then you start to ask, is the money really there? And then you think, well, wait a minute, this is not really investable all of a sudden, is it? So those are questions you never want to worry about. And in developed markets that, you know, essentially kind of gets rid of all those big headaches. Now, look, and that's not to knock. There's plenty of smart people in emerging markets, right? I'm sure just not a game. I think Warren Buffett even had a line in the latest annual meeting of just, you know, not a game I think I do very well, right? I think maybe how I would phrase it. But yeah, look, I think I do tend to lean towards more kind of consumer staple, like durable businesses over there, things that more.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Common ways that the annual reports read and the accounting little things that they do slightly different than the most other countries. And I think once you get comfortable with a country, for me, I think culturally, you are probably never, you know, unless maybe you've lived there or you have ancestry there. You might never quite, you know, fully embrace how people behave with products or services. So for that reason, right? I do avoid things on the consumer discretionary side. I do try to avoid things where there could be a big cultural blind spot where, hey, this seems so obvious to me, but who knows what could happen? For that reason, by the way, I think exactly for this reason is why I avoid emerging markets, just because the tail risk, you know, which maybe is not so tail risk necessarily, of just things that can happen, yes, with culture, but also with geopolitics, you know, with inflation and central bank behavior.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think that's a good question. And I think what I mentioned before about having those local management relationships, as you referenced, I think that has helped a lot. And I really do think when you dive into a country, it's important to really first of all view it as totally unique country. Yes, it can be a developed country in similar many ways, but at the same time, culturally, the way even the capital markets think and behave, everything can be very different and very idiosyncratic. And there are probably many examples I can give. And I think really just spending time to get your arms around, understand what's happening, how it works, even if it takes months, just deep understanding. And I think screening the stocks in that country helps too, just in a lot of subtle ways, just screening through hundreds and hundreds of stocks. You kind of notice things. What are the table stakes for valuation over there? What are some of common”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Substantially outperforming foreign markets that could all kind of go in reverse, for all we know. And if it does, you know, for someone like us who predominantly invests outside the US, obviously look, I think we've done okay. We've done well despite any of this and it's not something I take into account. But worth noting that it could be a tailwind for managers who do look at global stocks for the foreseeable future.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What they would call US exceptionalism in the media, right? Where in a nutshell, U.S. assets, you know, equities in particular have just really outperformed the rest of the world. The US dollar has gotten stronger as well, which adds reflexive loop to everything because if you're a non-US investor investing in the US and the US dollar appreciates, then your investment appreciates as well. And if you're in Europe and it helps against your own benchmarks, now we're seeing for the first time in 15 years or so things are going in reverse where foreign equities are outperforming in general and who knows how long that'll last. But the US dollar, I think that's very interesting because that is depreciating against other currencies. And it has seen moves like this before, but given the way history moves in cycles, there is some chance that this kind of headwind of the US dollar moving against you and US markets just”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be a bit slower to do so. And then there's a whole host of quirks in every country to be aware of. And that's why I think it's good before entering a market, it's great to do a lot of homework to really get your arms around the idiosyncrasies of each market. And also, another thing I found very helpful is developing a local network of managers in every market too. And that really helps. I can't tell you how many times I've had questions that I don't know where I'd be or where I would have received answers without them. And yeah, that's been very helpful. So, yeah, and I think your first question was interesting too, referencing the capital flight. You know, look, and we could probably talk for hours about this, but this is not a macroeconomic conversation. And, you know, I'm not making any macroeconomic predictions, but I think it is interesting to note that, you know, I guess since the inception of my partnership and for well before that, since about 2009, we've experienced this period of”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT