“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
– Warren Buffett
We undertake two elemental investment strategies: (1) Growth-at-a-Reasonable-Price or “GARP”; and (2) a combined strategy of corporate events (i.e. special situations) and long-term value. Although these strategies differ in some respects, their essences significantly and meaningfully overlap.
An acronym popularized by investor Peter Lynch, Growth-at-a-Reasonable-Price (“GARP”) is an investment strategy that incorporates precepts of both traditional growth and traditional value investing styles. At its core, a GARP strategy requires identifying quality companies that enjoy consistent growth and durable competitive advantages but happen to be reasonably priced (i.e. relatively undervalued) relative to peer and market multiples. We believe GARP is a flexible long-term investment strategy well suited for customized individual equity portfolios.
Event (i.e. special situation) and Value investing strategies tend to enjoy embedded margins of safety (i.e. protection against a permanent loss of capital and/or errors in judgment) and exhibit relatively low correlations to market activity. While these strategies have proven successful historically, markets have evolved in myriad ways such that we believe incorporating useful tools (e.g. behavioral economics, cumulative prospect theory, and artificial intelligence) can materially contribute to the success of these investment strategies going forward.
Our Event strategy seeks to identify and profit from market dislocations, investor misperceptions, knowledge gaps, and value discrepancies that can arise due to investor behavior surrounding short-term corporate events (e.g. mergers, recapitalizations, restructurings, and spinoffs). Generally speaking, corporate events are publicly announced months in advance, occur throughout the economic cycle, exhibit lower correlations to overall market activity, and entail limited duration risk.
Our Value strategy seeks to identify and profit from market dislocations, investor misperceptions, knowledge gaps, and value discrepancies that can arise due to investor behavior surrounding long-term market changes, disruptive technologies (i.e. obsolescence), shifts in durable competitive advantages and strategic assets, and changes in consumer preferences. A common misperception of value investing is that it ignores growth. In our view, growth is implicit in any good value investment.
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950 Tower Lane, Suite 1525
Foster City, CA 94404
Office: 650.832.9010
info@knuffco.com