The Business Brew

Bill invited Aaron to stop by The Business Brew to have some fun and do a 4/20 episode.  While the conversation does touch on cannabis, the more important parts of the conversation involve Aaron's philosophy of work life balance.  Aaron is a strong advocate of the 24/6 workweek.  He is a staunch advocate of observing a work sabbath weekly.  We hope there is wisdom and entertainment in this episode.   Aaron's bio is as follows:    Aaron M. Edelheit is the CEO and Founder of Mindset Capital, a private investment firm. Aaron also was the Chief Strategy Officer of FLO Technologies, after being one of the first investors in the company, helping the company grow from a pre-revenue startup to raising $28 million and launching in over 500 Home Depot stores. FLO was acquired in January of 2020 by Fortune Brands. In his previous role as CEO of The American Home, Aaron founded and grew a company from 16 rental homes to one that owned 2,500 single family rental homes and was sold in April 2015 to a publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust. Aaron also founded and ran a successful money management firm, Sabre Value Management from 1998 to 2011. In 2018, IdeaPress published Aaron’s first book, The Hard Break: The Case for a 24/6 Lifestyle. The book makes the case for taking one day off from work, email and smartphones for a more productive, healthier and more creative life. Aaron has served on the boards of non-profits such as the Moishe House Foundation and Global Village Project. And he is also a member of Social Venture Partners in Santa Barbara, California. Aaron has also been featured and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg, and CNBC among others and has given lectures on business and entrepreneurship in the U.S., Canada and South Africa.

In this episode Heather Brilliant stops by The Business Brew to discuss what it is like to run a valuation focused asset manager in 2021.  Heather has a unique view on asset management and what she is trying to accomplish at Diamond Hill.  She is stakeholder focused and believes constraining asset management capacity helps align client and manager incentives.     She currently serves as Chief Executive Officer and President for Diamond Hill Capital Management, an independent active asset management firm providing valuation-driven investment management services across a range of asset classes. Heather joined the firm in 2019 bringing more than 20 years of domestic and international investment industry experience to the role.   Previously, Heather served as Chief Executive Officer, Americas with First State Investments. Prior to that role, she spent nearly 14 years with Morningstar where she served as Global Head of Equity & Credit Research before advancing to Chief Executive Officer, Morningstar Australasia. Earlier in her career, she held several roles analyzing both credit and equity at firms including Bank of America and Driehaus Capital Management.   Heather is a long-standing member of the CFA Institute, a global credentialing organization for the investment industry. She served on the board of the CFA Institute from 2013 to 2020 and was chair of the board from 2018 to 2019. As chair she provided leadership and governance to a board of 15 senior investment management executives. She is also a member of the CFA Society of Columbus.   She is a member of the Columbus Partnership, a non-profit, membership-based organization of more than 70 CEOs from Columbus’ leading businesses and institutions focused on improving the economic vitality of the Columbus Region, and YPO (Young President’s Organization), a global leadership community of chief executives that are committed to lifelong learning and idea exchange.   Heather is on the executive committee of the Ohio chapter of the International Women’s Forum (IWF), an invitation-only membership organization made up of more than 7,000 diverse and accomplished women from 33 nations. IWF’s mission is to support women leaders and build better leadership across careers, continents and cultures by connecting accomplished women both locally and globally.   She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and is a volunteer teacher for Rock the Street, Wall Street, a non-profit organization that aims to spark interest in finance among high school girls. Heather was recently named a 2021 Women WELDing the Way® honoree by Women for Economic and Leadership Development (WELD) for supporting the leadership development of other women and women-owned businesses in the community.   Heather earned her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and has a degree in economics from Northwestern University.

Please see https://www.fgfinancial.com/corporate-overview/officers-directors/default.aspx for Kyle's official bio.     Kyle "stopped by" The Business Brew to discuss his role as CEO of Fundamental Global.  In that capacity, he is focused on four portfolio companies: Ballantyne Strong Inc, BK Technologies Corp, GreenFirst  Forest Products Inc, and SPAC that reached a definitive agreement to purchase Opportunity Financial.     Kyle has a very interesting background.  He is mentioned in David Einhorn's book, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, because he crossed paths with David on the Allied Capital trade.  At that time, Kyle was a Financial Services analyst at T. Rowe Price.  Following his stint at T. Rowe Price, Kyle worked at SAC.     Following his time at T Rowe Price, Kyle founded Fundamental Global with his partner Joe Moglia. Together, they take control of companies and look to create long term shareholder value.  In this episode, Kyle discusses why he does what he does, how he thinks about value creation, and what he is trying to accomplish.     Bill and Kyle met when Mike Mitchell was The Business Brew's first guest.  Since that time, Bill has watched Kyle work tirelessly to execute his plans.  Consequently, Bill has grown to respect Kyle very much and wanted to feature Kyle as a guest.     This episode may give a glimpse into a fantasy many investors seem to have: buying controlling interests in companies.  Bill's conclusion is he would rather partner with Kyle and let Kyle do the heavy lifting of execution.     Disclosure:  Bill owns shares in 3 of Kyle's companies.  He won't name which ones because he doesn't want people to read anything into his decisions.  However, he will commit to hold every share for at least a year following this podcast episode.   

Adam Robinson is the Co-Founder of The Princeton Review, a NY Times Best Selling author, and a US Chess Federation life master.  He currently works as a global macro advisor to the heads of some of the world's largest hedge funds through Robinson Global Strategies.     Bill has wanted to interview Adam since he heard Tim Ferris interview Adam at The 92nd St. Y.  You can find one of his episodes with Tim Ferris at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSyMmleisQM.  See also Adam's interview with Shane Parrish at https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/adam-robinson-pt1/.  Finally, Adam recently did a 4-hour interview with Kevin and Fred.  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_AM9VDgFs.   In this episode, Bill follows up on some of the thoughts Adam gave Bill via various interviews.    They start out talking about the concept of "things that are blatantly obvious and those that make no sense."  This was one of the first concepts that Adam said where Bill said "wow, that's an interesting way to frame investing thoughts."     Following that conversation, Bill follows up on many of the issues that he's wondered about as he's found as he's listened to Adam. This is a wide-ranging conversation that covers a lot of investing and some life.  We hope you enjoy.  

Sanjay Ayer, a portfolio manager and business analyst at WCM, discusses important investment topics including group think, signal vs. noise, and self-improvement. His modesty and self-awareness are emphasized. Chapters cover building relationships, Morning Star experiences, the importance of company culture, networking in emerging markets, the influence of media assets, assessing sustainability, adaptability in fast-moving industries, and the benefits of journaling for self-awareness.

Elliot Turner is a co-founder and Managing Partner, CIO at RGA Investment Advisors, LLC.  RGA Investment Advisors runs a long-term, low turnover, growth at a reasonable price investment strategy seeking out global opportunities.  Elliot focuses on discovering and analyzing long-term, high-quality investment opportunities, and strategic portfolio management.   In this episode Elliot joins The Business Brew to discuss his days as a Phish podcast host, being a business analyst, his thoughts on the COVID 19 policy response, why he gained conviction through March 2020, Twitter, and creativity as an investor. Elliot is incredibly generous giving knowledge to the investment community and sharing his work.  He's one of the investors Bill really admires.   We hope you enjoy the conversation.  Thank you for listening!  

Liz Simmie is the Co-Founder of Honeytree Investment Management, a firm that lives ESG investing.  See the end of this description for Liz' official bio.    In this episode Liz Simmie stops by The Business Brew to talk all things ESG.  Unlike many "ESG" managers, Liz actually practices what she preaches.  Said differently, Liz is the real deal and doesn't just use ESG as a marketing tool.   The catalyst for this conversation was Bill thinking about morality in investing.  On one hand, owning assets one is proud of seems like a reasonable goal.  On the other hand, how do we draw the lines?  If cigarettes are bad then why is sugar OK?  If tobacco is bad why is alcohol OK?     We cover a wide range of topics including:   - how ESG is bastardized due to marketing - what real ESG investing looks like - why ESG is as important to Honey Tree  - gender and racial diversity driving positive financial outcomes - issues preventing companies from embracing ESG policies - and much more.   Bill's biggest takeaway was that ESG can provide a qualitative advantage for investment analysis.  We are grateful for Liz' time and hope you enjoy the show.   Thank you for listening!   Bio: Liz is the co-founder of Honeytree Investment Management, an asset management firm focused on responsible growth, based in Toronto. Together with the team she manages Honeytree’s concentrated active investment strategies for institutional and private clients.  Honeytree believes what is traditionally seen as ‘ESG’ data is just as important to assessing a company’s long term growth and risk as traditional fundamental data – and they integrate them both equally in our investment process.  Honeytree is proud to be one of the handful of female led responsible asset management firms globally leading the conversation.  Prior to founding Honeytree she worked at Bristol Gate Capital Partners a leading active management firm, and before that she worked in quantitative market research for Ipsos. Liz has BA in Economic Statistics and History.

Ian Cassel is the CIO at Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management ("IFCM").  IFCM invests in the smallest public companies in the world. They focus on businesses that are run by management teams who are capable of growing those businesses while benefiting stakeholders. Ian also founded MicroCapClub.   In this episode Ian discusses how he became a microcap investor. One of his first successes was XM Satellite Radio. He discovered the company when it was a microcap trading for $2/sh and didn't have any contracts with car manufacturers yet. Ian saw they were presenting at a conference in NY, got in a car, and met with the CEO. After that meeting Ian became obsessed with turning into a full time private investor.   Ian stresses the importance of doing deep due diligence, remaining rational, and keeping personal expenses "variable." He invests in a concentrated manner (only a few stocks at a time), which is very Buffett like. Unlike Buffett, however, Ian discusses the importance of remaining open to selling winners. This is because Ian is "fishing in a pond" of smaller companies and execution risk must always be monitored.   Ian is a refreshing voice in the investment community and we are happy to have him join the show!   Note: We reference Connor Haley's presentation in this discussion. That presentation can be found here

Oren Falkowitz is the founder of Area 1 Security. He was Chief Executive Officer of Area 1 2013-2020 and currently serves on the Board of Directors. Mr. Falkowitz holds numerous patents and is an avid wearer of bow ties on Thursday. Previously, he was the founder of sqrrl (acquired by Amazon) and held positions at the National Security Agency (NSA) and United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). He joined the Business Brew to discuss his career and the cyber security landscape. We hope you enjoy.

The Business Brew is pleased to feature Derek Walin, @walin on Twitter, this week.  Derek is Bill's cousin.  They grew up together and Bill has known Derek since he was born.  As Derek grew, Bill watched him become the consummate entrepreneur.    Derek began landing "gigs" as a magician.  He would do magic for kids, elderly people, and anyone that would book him (by calling his parents).  After that, Derek took a liking to DJing (before it was cool).  He earned money throughout his high school years by DJing dances, birthday parties, and Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.     Despite Derek's father having a corporate background, Derek knew college wasn't for him.  Instead, he wanted to attend Full Sail and pursue his dreams of chasing a career in entertainment/music.  Fast forward to today and Derek and his partners manage ~11 artists.  Check out https://www.supermusicgroup.com/ and check out the artists on your favorite music app!     As always, thank you for listening.