We are active bottom-up value investors. We seek to achieve superior long-term performance by acquiring equity securities of financially strong, well-managed companies at market prices significantly below our assessment of their business value or intrinsic value.

Significant emphasis is placed upon downside protection and the "margin of safety" principle. Equities purchased at prices substantially less than their intrinsic worth protect capital from significant permanent loss and also appreciate substantially once the market recognizes the company's economic value

We are long-term owners, which means that our time horizon when purchasing a company is a minimum of three years. This notwithstanding, if the intrinsic value is realized soon after purchasing a stock, we will readily sell it.

Our portfolios are concentrated, because we limit the number of counters to only our best investment ideas. These flow from the detailed in-house fundamental research conducted by our analysts. Concentration also enables each company to have a meaningful impact on our results when the market recognizes value

As intrinsic value investors, we reject the notion that price volatility is a useful measure of the risk of owning a company. Investment risk should be based on the underlying performance of a business and its resources, and not be determined by the market price at which a company's securities trade.

We believe that there are two different types of risk. The first, the risk that the market won't pay you a fair price for your company when you decide to sell it, is a temporary risk. Although market prices can drift away from intrinsic value for considerable lengths of time, they tend to converge on intrinsic value with a two or three year horizon.

The second type of risk is intrinsic value risk. The risk that the company's value drivers are significantly worse than our original projections is the principal source of risk to a long-term investor.