Guy Spier Op-Ed: "The Golden Age of Value Investing Is Over"

[Parsad]

Ben Graham's principles will never go out of fashion.  There was no golden age of value investing...that's a myth.  The GFC proved that...the Pandemic proved that...every time a stock falls to a third of its intrinsic value is proof of that!  Half of the board has made a killing in a mis-priced Fairfax Financial over the last four years!  Just look for ideas and then invest when you find a mispriced one.  Cheers!

[Vish_ram]

What nonsense is Spier spewing?

 

LLMs don’t provide conviction, temperament, patience, critical thinking, future prediction/forecasting, crowd behavior, consumer behavior etc. 
 

It does provide synthesis of existing info. Fact is LLMs are available to all and levels the playing field. Internet didn’t kill value investing. 
 

Value investors killed value investing. 

Edited September 21, 2025 by Vish_ram

[Pellom]

Looks like Guy might be closing up shop.

 

[Charlie]

14 hours ago, Pellom said:

Looks like Guy might be closing up shop.

 

Interesting, probably not a bad time to do it.

 

Keep your highest conviction stock or the best stocks suited for a bear market.

 

Valuations are pretty high, a lot of new retail investors are entering the market and everyone is so bullish....

Edited January 16 by Charlie

[winjitsu]

15 hours ago, Pellom said:

Looks like Guy might be closing up shop.

Have heard through the grape vine this is very much the case and he's converting to a FO. 

[Milu]

Guy Spier is another one of those curious ‘gurus’ that people in the value stock community seem to pay attention to. Seems like a nice guy, has had a long track record of mostly average returns. I’ve never found anything too memorable or useful from his book or any podcasts where he’s been interviewed. I don’t know whether he strategically cultivated interest himself through some smart self promotion or whether other people find him insightful when it comes to investing.

[villainx]

35 minutes ago, Milu said:

I don’t know whether he strategically cultivated interest himself through some smart self promotion or whether other people find him insightful when it comes to investing.

 

Well, he wrote and got a book published.  

[Milu]

1 hour ago, villainx said:

 

Well, he wrote and got a book published.  

Yup, I’ve read it and found it a decent read about how to live your life. He seems like a decent guy. 

Edited January 16 by Milu

[Longnose]

I remember enjoying the book. Felt it simple. 

 

I think the only think that has stuck with me from it tho is the idea of Social compounding. His discipline for years of sending daily thank you notes was inspiring.  I tried it for about 6 months a few years back and ran out of steam. hahaha. 

[Pellom]

8 hours ago, winjitsu said:

Have heard through the grape vine this is very much the case and he's converting to a FO. 

 

I hope his health is OK. I imagine the recent scare, plus his net worth, has made him less inclined to do the advisory work each day. 

[John Hjorth]

Thank you to all for commentiing and sharing here, especially to @Pellom.

 

It for sure looks like Mr. Spier is closing shop. It's also remarkable, how silent he's been as of lately.

Edited January 16 by John Hjorth

[investmd]

yes. Can confirm he closed his fund, Aquamarine, Dec 31. 2025. 

To date, official reason has been to spend more time with family. 

I know that in early 2025 he had a v. serious medical issue. Hope he is doing ok. 

[UK]

14 minutes ago, investmd said:

yes. Can confirm he closed his fund, Aquamarine, Dec 31. 2025. 

To date, official reason has been to spend more time with family. 

I know that in early 2025 he had a v. serious medical issue. Hope he is doing ok. 

Sorry to hear this, wish him all the best!

[whatstheofficerproblem]

Fintwit spares none.

 

 

[Gregmal]

10 minutes ago, whatstheofficerproblem said:

Fintwit spares none.

 

 

I mean…the shoe fits….

[villainx]

Does that plan work?

 

My kid needs to start a fund!

 

… plus I need to get turbo rich.
 

 

[John Hjorth]

3 hours ago, whatstheofficerproblem said:

Fintwit spares none.

 

 

 

Huh? The underlying assumption for this is he's offspring from rich parents, he born with a silver or golden spoon up in his butt. Where does that come from? Do you thnk that assumption fits this?

 

Personally, I don't, until something tangible is posted here supporting it. Or have I totally misunderstood it here?

 

If the photo in that post on on X isen't manipulated, he here actually looks like something dragged in by the cat rulling the house. He simply looks like sh*t in that photo. Why the h*ll isen't that man either shaving, or getting a real, well maintained beard in stead of this? Maybe wifey prefer him being a bit scratchy while going down? [Note to self: 'Now, John, you've got to stop speculating, getting your act together, and stay focused on speculating about POTUS' sayings and doings!']

Edited January 23 by John Hjorth

[gfp]

Guy's father Simon Spier owned a family business called Aquamarine Chemicals in London that traded in agricultural commodities.  He is related to the Lazard, Speyer and Rothschild banking families through his great-great-grandmother, Johanna Lazard.

His Dad seeded the launch of his fund with $1m and encouraged him to start a fund instead of being an investment banker/employee.

 

Guy has described his early upbringing as solidly middle class during their time in Israel, living in a modest walk-up apartment.  That said, he was educated at private schools and was able to launch a fund with family & friends money.  My understanding is that Daddy invested significantly more a year into the fund's existence when he raised $15m (not all from Simon).

Edited January 23 by gfp

[Munger_Disciple]

1 hour ago, gfp said:

Guy's father Simon Spier owned a family business called Aquamarine Chemicals in London that traded in agricultural commodities.  He is related to the Lazard, Speyer and Rothschild banking families through his great-great-grandmother, Johanna Lazard.

His Dad seeded the launch of his fund with $1m and encouraged him to start a fund instead of being an investment banker/employee.

 

Guy has described his early upbringing as solidly middle class during their time in Israel, living in a modest walk-up apartment.  That said, he was educated at private schools and was able to launch a fund with family & friends money.  My understanding is that Daddy invested significantly more a year into the fund's existence when he raised $15m (not all from Simon).

 

My understanding is that 40% of $15 million came from his dad and the rest from two close business associates of his dad. 

Edited January 23 by Munger_Disciple

[gfp]

So that's pretty helpful.  $1 million to start your fund, make it to a year and he invests another $6m and corrals some business associates for another $9m.

 

It's good to know people!

[investmd]

I don't get the hate or is it distrust of GS: 

• he might have been seeded with $6M but didn't he grow the fund to over $300M AUM? How many of us have the ability to get others to put $300M in our ideas? 
• Compared to so many other investors that charge fat fees, I noticed that GS focused on reducing his fees to have alignment of interests with LPs - started with 0/6/25 structure (0% mgmt fee, 6% hurdle rate compounded from all time high and 25% of profits over the hurdle rate), then introduced a lower fee class of 0/6/15 for those who committed to invest for 5 yrs+. Not many money managers lower their share of profits. 

 

 

[Longnose]

Lots of GS and Pabrai hate. 

 

IMO all of it unwarranted.

 

Were all educated adults here and so are they and so are the people who give them money. 

 

[whatstheofficerproblem]

When I start a fund 10 something years from now, I hope the members on this forum will fund me just like how Guy's father and his friends did. My parents aren't rich, so I'm counting on you guys. I recall @Luke saying he will seed me with $50M which is only a fraction of the TSMC money he made. Let's try GS' fee structure and we'll see how it goes.  

[John Hjorth]

Thank you, for some very informative posts related to my questions about Guy Spiers background and upbringing.

 

A part of the above post I tnow his morning regret, it could get considered rude towards Mr. Spier.

 

I hope he recovers fully from his health issues, what has been posted here indicated it has been his life giving him serious lemons. As far as I understand, his now 59, so that not good at all. And yeah, tell me about it.

 

Relatively late, abouit three years ago, or so, I found out that he was quite open about his fund, sharing both his early client letter and financals of the fund if one wanted it. Not what you see every day.

 

I have always considered him a pleasant person with good manners, by the way. A fund manager with all what it takes.

 

I consider his personality different to Mr. Pabrais personality. Reminds me I have a funny story about Mr. Pabrai from before Christmas to share am,ong us in another topic, by the way!

[Luke]

3 hours ago, whatstheofficerproblem said:

When I start a fund 10 something years from now, I hope the members on this forum will fund me just like how Guy's father and his friends did. My parents aren't rich, so I'm counting on you guys. I recall @Luke saying he will seed me with $50M which is only a fraction of the TSMC money he made. Let's try GS' fee structure and we'll see how it goes.  

LOL