Graham & Doddsville New Issue: Lee Cooperman, David Poppe, John Harris & More

The Winter 2018 issue of Columbia Business School's Graham & Doddsville newsletter is out.  It features interviews with Lee Cooperman of Omega Advisors as well as David Poppe and John Harris of Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb.  Also, they talk with Vulcan Value Partners' C.T. Fitzpatrick, as well as Seth Fischer of Oasis Management.

Cooperman talked about the market's run: "I believe we're adequately priced.  I think we're heading to a normalization.  We have been living through a very strange period."  He doesn't see euphoria in the market yet, though notes everyone expects the market to head higher.  He pointed to 1987 as an example where the market traded at 27x earnings.

The gentlemen from Ruane Cunniff talked about their investment in Alphabet (GOOG) which they recently bought more or and it's now around 10% of their fund.  They also touched on their thesis on Credit Acceptance Corp (CACC).  (We recently posted Sequoia Fund's Q4 letter here.)

The issue also includes student investment pitches including long Staples 8.5 2025 unsecured notes, long FleetCor Technologies (FLT), and long First Data (FDC).

Embedded below is the Winter 2018 issue of CBS's Graham & Doddsville newsletter:



You can download a .pdf copy here.

Sequoia Fund Q4 Letter: Added to Alphabet, Exited Fastenal & Danaher

Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb is out with Sequoia Fund's fourth quarter letter.  They returned 20.07% for the year.

At the end of 2017, their top 10 holdings were:

1. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK)
2. Alphabet (GOOG)
3. Mastercard (MA)
4. Constellation Software (CSU)
5. Dentsply Sirona (XRAY)
6. TJX Companies (TJX)
7. Rolls Royce (RR.LN)
8. Charles Schwab (SCHW)
9. CarMax (KMX)
10. Liberty Media

They exited positions in Fastenal (FAST), Danaher (DHR), Emcor, Croda, Tiffany (TIF), and Costco (COST).  They've also trimmed stakes in BRK, MA, O'Reilly (ORLY), Waters, and TJX.

They've added to positions in GOOG, Hiscox, Jacobs, Omnicom, and Wells Fargo.  They've also started new investments in Credit Acceptance (CACC) and Royal Vopak, Priceline (PCLN).

They've been concentrating their portfolio a bit more, and their cash levels have gone down some.

Embedded below is Sequoia Fund's Q4 letter:



You can download a .pdf copy here.

For other recent fund letters, we've also posted Greenlight Capital's Q4 letter.

Ruane Cunniff (Sequoia Fund) Investor Day Transcript 2017

Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb recently released the transcript from their investor day a few months ago.  Known as the managers of the Sequoia Fund, David Poppe and his team talk about many of their investments.

As of the end of June, their top ten holdings were:

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK A / BRK B) 11.28%
US Treasury Bills & Cash 8.65%
MasterCard (MA) 7.72%
Alphabet (GOOGL & GOOG) 6.5%
TJX (TJX) 5.93%
Dentsply Sirona (XRAY) 5.3%
Carmax (KMX) 5.04%
Constellation Software (CSU) 4.83
Rolls Royce (RR.LN) 4.74%
Liberty Media Corp 4.13%

They talked about what they often find in their top investments:

"Hopefully that gives you a sense of the kinds of companies we want to buy: high-quality enterprises trading at discounts to their intrinsic value, with long-duration growth opportunities.  I would note that every great outperformer we have purchased during my eighteen years here - from Fastenal to Idexx to Mastercard to O'Reilly to Precision Castparts to Sirona to TJX - had something in common.  And it was not a low P/E at the time we first invested.  It was a long growth runway and, most often, a long organic-growth runway."

The transcript that follows touches on their thoughts on Priceline.com (PCLN), the threat of Amazon (AMZN) to various businesses, and some of their holdings like TJX and O'Reilly Auto, as well as other positions like Rolls Royce and Charles Schwab.

Embedded below is Sequoia Fund / Ruane Cunniff's 2017 Investor Day Transcript:




You can download a .pdf here.

For more from this firm, you can view their transcript from last year here as well.