EricSchleien

Hi Mark, Please do. Best, Eric

Nathan - just messaged you.

Hi All, I'm looking to source some microcap activist ideas. I've partnered with Scott Forgey and John King to do Tribal Leadership with companies in the public markets. Over the past several decades of this work in private markets - profits increase on average 300% - 500% within 24 months of doing this work with companies. John helped build the culture at Zappos with Tony Hsieh and Scott currently works with Google, LinkedIn, eBay, and also helped with some turnarounds of a few companies that I can't publicly talk about. I have access to capital for launching proxy battle and doing all the legwork. The criteria is as follows: 1) Stock down a lot = pissed off shareholders 2) Management owns small stake in company 3) Ideally a broken organizational culture 4) Institutions or Funds own large percentage of stock already If you are a shareholder in a company like this or know someone who is, please send them my way. All conversations are private. Best, Eric

Can you point me to where you found that packaging primer? I'd love to read it. There are a lot of roll ups in the packaging sector (containerboard, plastic packaging ) that seem to work out well. It seems that economy of scale and a relatively predictable business with a good cash generation are a winning strategy. I read a packaging primer once that essentially said that packaging companies are bonds masquerading as equity. Their cashflows are so stable that they can continuously lever up to do acquisitions and then use FCF to de-lever. Berry has done this multiple times in their private/public life.

Nice! Me too. Bought 2 more units at 2200. What price did you get yours at Spekulatius?

Looks good. One issue I am having is that for me, a lot of the stocks I own don't even show up here.

It's a good book, however, like most philosophy books, the way to get these abstractions in with people isn't through intellectualizing them or learning about them. Hence, why you can study say existentialism for 20 years and not get meaninglessness other than a concept while someone can learn through experiential means and get it within just a few days. I find stuff like this interesting but reading about it is a highly inefficient way of getting it.

Since 2015, the Liberty complex has been a major component of my AUM. Currently: Liberty SiriusXM ~12% position (sold a bunch last year in the 40s) GCI Liberty ~8% position Discovery ~ 4% position (sold a bunch last year. My cost basis is ~18/share so was buying it very cheap) I owned Liberty Braves at a cost basis around 14-15ish (including warrants). Bought more at ~20ish. Sold out in the high 20s. I'd probably re-buy (at current intrinsic value) if it went back to around 20ish as it's probably worth at least 30. Also used to own Formula 1 but sold out last year as well. Had owned it pre-tracker.

https://www.cfapubs.org/doi/full/10.2469/faj.v74.n4.3

On Interactive Brokers, I'm able to do SMART routing in which IB finds the best available price across a bunch of exchanges and gets me best execution. I also have the option to route my order to a specific exchange. I'm wondering if anyone can help me understand why I'd ever choose the latter option. Thanks.

Oh interesting, I didn't know that!

I've wondered that in the past too. I found a fool.com article that says, https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/06/20/how-risky-is-american-express-company.aspx So why can't he make these same kind of requests for the banks?

1. I know they won't hence why I said thought exercise. 2. RE: "Plus isn't one of BRK's acquisition selling points that if you sell to us you won't have to be public anymore?" ...touche on that.

Yes, it was me who recommended that to you! Also, I love Haidt. Have you read The Righteous Mind?

Looking for book rec's! I've exhausted my reading list and looking to add a bunch more stuff. What have you guys read recently that you loved? Going to be doing a bunch of book buying this coming week.

Hey Guys, I wanted to do a little thought exercise. Buffett has made it very clear that Berkshire is worth more as a conglomerate than as broken up. What are your thoughts on Berkshire creating tracking stocks. This way there's no actual spinoffs and it ends up allowing Berkshire subs to get re-valued on the balance sheet. Also, it would allow more forms of currency for Berkshire and more flexibility for doing deals. What are your guys thoughts?

Good point. I too am ignorant on the specifics. I didn't mean to impugn Metro Bank management, but to respond to Cubsfan's comments and assessments as I understood them. Falling victim to a charlatan is the worst case scenario that we all are trying to avoid, but there are many lessor risks in evaluating manager skill and honesty. One heuristic I developed (in a costly manner) was to always sell any financial stock that has a run in or problem with a regulator. I have several experiences with these issues and one I remember vividly was that AIG in one of their filings around September 2008 noted a disagreement about valuation with their auditor , as I recall. I thought about this for a while, my position was already in the hole at that time. I decided to sell, because I thought if their management can’t agree with their auditor about valuation of some assets, who am I to value this stock? It turned to be the correct decision. I had several other experiences like that with banks and none of them would have worked out. It’s a bit different with Industrials or non-financials, but with financial the rule to to sell first is probably right in the vast majority of the cases. ^^ 100%

Wow! This is really good. Thank you for sharing!

Bought more BAM, FCAU, and TRUP.

01:32:00 it gets kind of funny :)

Hey, I don't. I've done some transcripts on some of the shorter ones where I was paid to publish the transcripts but it would be very expensive to get a transcript done for no cost and just sharing this for the love of the ideas getting out there. I know 2 hours is a lot of time. However, if you skim through it, and you find what we are talking about resonates with you, I know Scott will be at the Daily Journal, Markel, and Berkshire Hathaway Meetings this year and could always put you in touch if you're ever at any of those! Best, Eric

I think a lot of you guys will enjoy this. It's an interview I did with one of my incredible colleagues, Scott Forgey who currently does work with Google and PayPal amongst other amazing businesses. And for full disclosure, I'm not pitching any kind of service, simply sharing a conversation I had on the podcast that I thought would add value to those interested in the topics discussed. It's all free and I give this all away for the love of sharing ideas with others :) Scott has led Transformational programs for over 100,000 people all over the world. The dude has coached top executives from all fields, award-winning architects and designers, Oscar and Tony-winning actors, Grammy Award-winning musicians and composers, athletes from the NBA, NFL and Formula 1, renowned chefs and tech startup geniuses. His practice brings together in-depth thinking from Silicon Valley with the wisdom and practices of advanced consciousness development. He gets FLOW and TEAM in a way that most others talk about in a way that makes want to roll my eyes, puke a little bit, and then call BULLSHIT on! Scott is the real deal. We talk a little bit about Tribal Leadership which was discussed on previous episodes when I brought New York Times Bestselling author John King who invented the Tribal Leadership Technology onto the show, TWICE: The link to the podcast is here: https://intelligentinvesting.podbean.com/e/49-google-paypal-how-to-keep-large-companies-innovative-competitive-moats-interview-with-scott-forgey/ The links to the previous shows around Tribal Leadership are here: Episode #39: John King, Netflix, Tribal Leadership: https://intelligentinvesting.podbean.com/e/39-john-king-netflix-sears-tribal-leadership/ And also here: Episode #13 - John King - Tribal Leadership - A New Model for Shareholder Activism: https://intelligentinvesting.podbean.com/e/13-john-king-tribal-leadership-a-new-model-for-activism/ Best, Eric

rkbabang - Just look to see who is buying IDB's. That will show you who is the best. Prem is the expert in India, so he'd be my guess. Exactly rkbabang. I wasn't going to say anything because Prem doesn't talk about it in the shareholder letters so figured it could be just something they don't report. Anyway they're still trading at pennies on the dollar. Maybe I should just delete this post so the word doesn't get out. They are very thinly traded.

rkbabang - Just look to see who is buying IDB's. That will show you who is the best.

Enjoy! https://intelligentinvesting.podbean.com/e/queen-city-investments-quct/