INVESTING PHILOSOPHY
- Long-term investors - We invest with a long-term view. We don't chase quarterly performance. We won't sell your holdings and buy new ones because short-term results lag some benchmark. The decisions we make are designed to produce satisfying long-term results for our investing partners. This results in less trading in your account, lower costs and ideally, more tax-efficient investing.
- Concentrated Portfolios - We are not closet indexers turning over a basket of stocks. We are long-term investors in businesses. We know our companies and buy them for their long-term potential. Some managers hold 75-100 positions in their portfolios and trade weekly. We invest in our 20+ best ideas and typically hold those for 4-6 years on average.
- Growth at Value prices - We seek to buy great growth companies during the rare times they go on sale. Many of the stocks we buy are "unloved" by Wall Street. We believe we can be most successful buying stocks when others are fearful and selling them when they are the most popular. This requires fortitude on our part and, at times, patience on yours.
- Strong companies - We focus on buying businesses with strong balance sheets and cash flows. We seek to own businesses with enduring competitive advantages. Many of our companies have long histories of consistently growing their dividends and buying back their own stock.
- A focus on dividends and stock buybacks - Dividends have been and, we believe, will continue to be a large part of the long-term return investors enjoy from owning stocks. Greatmark focuses most of our equity investing on businesses with long track records of steadily increasing their dividends. We also focus on companies that have a long history of buying back their own shares via stock buybacks. Many of our largest holdings have retired 20% to 40% of their shares over the past ten years. The more shares they repurchase, the more of the company we end up owning.
- Communications - Perhaps the hallmark of our firm is client communications. We publish a weekly email to our investing partners so you will know our current thinking on the market. Quarterly, you will receive a Partner's Letter summarizing the quarter and giving you our outlook for the portfolio in the quarters to come.
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