Cook & Bynum: A young fund doing all the right things

Embedded below is a recent interview by The Manual of Ideas with Richard Cook and Dowe Bynum of the Cook & Bynum Fund (COBYX).  The young managers both have prestigious prior experience working at Goldman Sachs and Tudor Investment Corp, respectively.  After reading the interview, I would not let age belie the duo's investment insight and process.  There are several traits exhibited in the interview that piqued my interest. Listed are some of the guiding tenants of the Cook & Bynum fund:

1. Astute subscribers to Munger's theory of Metal Models and building a mental latticework on which to hang one's ideas.
2. Buffett & Munger's belief in portfolio concentration - concentrating one's assets in one's best ideas.
3. Buffett & Munger's adherence to only working with the highest quality management with properly aligned incentives.   
4. Prefer to buy a great business at a fair price rather than a fair business at a great price.
5. Eating their own cooking.  The majority of their net worth is personally invested in the fund.
6. Ben Graham's landmark principle of investing with a Margin of Safety.

The interview below goes into more detail about their background, philosophy, and process.   I was a bit disappointed to see a 1.88% expense ratio, but hopefully that will go down as assets under management grow.  If Cook & Bynum stick to their guns as outlined in the interview, I would expected a very enviable long term track record. 


Manual of Ideas Interview With Cook Bynum With Disclaimers


Disclosure: this is not a recommendation to buy or sell any securities mentioned in this article or anywhere on this website. 

A book and a Berkshire website hack

I just got this bad boy today.  I'm talking about the book, not the Vox amp.  The author Peter Bevelin also wrote the excellent "Seeking Wisdom", so I have pretty high hopes for this book.  "A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers" is a condensed easy-to-read essay version spanning all of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway annual letters as well ask BRK's  "Owners Manual".

I would have posted a link to the Owners Manual PDF, but it appears that Berkshire's website has been hacked. 

The Vox is about 10 years old.  It is solid state with a pretty decent tremelo section built in.  I've always been a tube purist, but a while back for fun, I put my D*A*M Red Rooster
in front of it.  I had it pushing a mid 1960's 2x12 Fender Bandmaster cabinet.  Clearly this 15 watt 8-inch solid state combo is not designed for that, but man! - that Red Rooster lit up the transistors in the Vox.  Tons o' fuzzy distortion, plenty of volume.  A good time was had by all.


Both books mentioned can be purchased here:

http://www.poorcharliesalmanack.com/

or here thru Amazon: