YouSaid · the spoken record

Peter Keefe

lines on the record
106
first
2023-10-15
most recent
2023-10-15
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

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  1. “I was okay, but I didn't think that these businesses should be sold to people. I thought that the conflict that a broker had of living on commission and transactions was something that I found abhorrent. It was a hindrance to my career. So I knew from early, early on that I wanted to land on the buy side of the business. And not long after becoming Johnston Lemman's Director of Research, I ran into a gentleman named Charlie Makele. Charlie had started Avener Corporation.”

    2023-10-15 · We Study Billionaires · RWH034: The High Road To Riches w/ Peter Keefe · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “So I got on a bus, went up to the local community college, bought a stack of accounting books, taught myself accounting, and that permitted me to understand financial statements. My firm was kind enough to let me do my own work. By this time, Chuck and I had developed a rapport with regard to how the investment process works. I think we were both exploring how it worked and feeling our way into how the value creation process really unfolded. And he became the director of research at this firm. He left to form his own firm. The eponymous Ocrey Capital Management. And in 1990 or thereabouts, and I succeeded him as the director of research, I hadn't been a great success as a stockbroker.”

    2023-10-15 · We Study Billionaires · RWH034: The High Road To Riches w/ Peter Keefe · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Just, I couldn't understand why these businesses were declining in value. I had this wonderful research in my hands. I said it was going up, not down, and gave all the reasons why, but inexorably day after day, these businesses declined in value. And I didn't understand why. And one of them even went bankrupt. And so I had a full head of hair then, and I was tearing it out.”

    2023-10-15 · We Study Billionaires · RWH034: The High Road To Riches w/ Peter Keefe · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Who interviewed me, but the branch manager of the Alexandria Virginia office, a guy named Chuck Ockrey. So Chuck took a look at my resume and he had done a couple of years of my alma mater. And so he recognized that and he offered me a job with Johnston Lemmon. I took it not long afterwards he became the firm's director of research. But before then, we had connected at least philosophically on the idea of value creation. Now, let me back up just a little bit. I got into the business just as the market was entering a significant downturn. I think I made my very, very first trade when the Dow closed over a thousand in 1980, I think it was, and it was on its way to 775 or something like that. So it was about a 25% decline. And that was what they used to call a bleeder. I mean, I was.”

    2023-10-15 · We Study Billionaires · RWH034: The High Road To Riches w/ Peter Keefe · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “The brokerage business was about, but it sounded like a high class job that might actually pay me a decent income. So he had me interview with his firm, which was Bache& Company at the time. And I didn't get a second call back from them, but sort of the seat had been sown. And I saw an ad in the newspaper and a firm in Virginia hired me, trained me. I was then recruited by Johnston Lemmon& Company in 1980. And they at the time were a significant regional presence. They had taken Geico Public, for example, Marriott, Washington Gas Electric, Potomac Electric, and some others. And so they were well known in D.C. And so they had a bunch of people from My Alma Mater working for them, including its president. And so they asked me to come interview. And you might be surprised.”

    2023-10-15 · We Study Billionaires · RWH034: The High Road To Riches w/ Peter Keefe · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “No, I was stumbling around Washington, D.C. after having graduated from college at Washington Lee University in 1978. I sort of had a dim view that I would work on Capitol Hill for a couple of years and then maybe go to law school and then maybe become a country lawyer. And then as I spent more time in Washington, I saw these 40-year-old lawyers who just looked absolutely miserable. I said, well, I don't want to be 40 years old and miserable. So maybe I'll think about doing something else. And I was working as a gopher boy for a think tank in Washington, not even on Capitol Hill. And I literally mean gopher boy. And I said, well, this isn't for me. And, you know, I don't know what I want to do. So I awaited tables in Old Town and Alexandria for a period of time. And there was a customer there who thought that maybe I might be useful in the brokerage business. And I had absolutely no idea.”

    2023-10-15 · We Study Billionaires · RWH034: The High Road To Riches w/ Peter Keefe · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT