Posts written by Mason Myers
Greybull Stewardship Makes Growth Investment in Onsource
My investment fund, Greybull Stewardship, has announced a growth investment in a unique platform that connects insurance companies with third-party vehicle and property photo inspections via smart phone apps. The company, Onsource (www.onsourceonline.com), has a network of over 14,000 independent photo inspectors. I am very excited to… Continue reading
Portfolio Churn — Enemy of Investment Returns
Churn destroys investment return. Strangely, traditional private equity builds itself to churn. Churn reduces investment returns for several reasons such as transaction costs, business disruption, and the difference in tax rates between ordinary income and capital gains. This last difference is the easiest to quantify as… Continue reading
The Mirage and False Hope of an “Exit Strategy”
At best, an exit strategy becomes overrated and a waste of breath. At worst, an exit strategy becomes a destructive mirage of certainty and false hope. I realize that it is conventional wisdom for every entrepreneur to specify their exit strategy. I have even heard… Continue reading
Private Equity Trending Toward Longer Term Models Like Greybull Stewardship
Momentum is growing toward private equity structures with longer term time horizons and movement toward more “permanent capital” — structures that are more similar to Berkshire Hathaway and Greybull Stewardship (my private equity fund focused on companies with $1-3 million in profit). Blackstone private equity… Continue reading
A Business Strategy to Capture More Value
The best entrepreneurs and business owners know that capturing value, not just creating value, is critical to success. The phrase “capturing value” is not meant to convey a zero-sum concept of one person capturing what another person loses. It is a way of saying that… Continue reading
2014 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letter – Buffett and Munger Observations From 50 Years
Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015, Berkshire Hathaway posted their 2014 Berkshire Hathaway annual letter. As this is the 50th anniversary of Warren Buffett taking control of Berkshire, this letter included two extra sections. Both Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger wrote about their observations about the first fifty… Continue reading
Super Investor, Seth Klarman, on Lessons Learned from Buffett
Seth Klarman has a legendary hedge fund that you may not know, the Baupost Group. His returns in that fund have been Buffett-like. He is a value investor . . . truly, not just someone who likes to say that word. His insights are treasured,… Continue reading
Simple Strategy Lessons: Better before cheaper. Revenue before costs.
Sometimes the best ideas and best advice are the most simple. When I read the following article a while back, I loved it. And believed it. And continue to believe it. Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed from Deloitte Consulting performed a study that began with 25,000 companies… Continue reading
Disparate Data Points: Entrepreneurship Exploding or Dying?
An explosion of young companies that are bootstrapped, or financed outside of traditional venture capital (i.e., Silicon Valley) or traditional bank financing, is what I see every day. I see many companies finding their way to a point of lift-off, stability, and medium-sized revenue and profit… Continue reading
Three More Lessons from Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway
Two recent items helped me draw lessons for how I want to manage my investment firm, Greybull Stewardship. The first is Warren Buffet’s memo that he sent last month to the managers of the 80 businesses of Berkshire, and the other is in the book,… Continue reading
Sign Up
RSS Feed