저자: TerrySmith · 외국인
요약 보기
Fundsmith의 핵심 전략은 장기간 자본수익률(ROCE)이 자본비용을 크게 상회하는 소수 우량기업을 보유하는 것. 저품질 기업은 자본비용 이하로 가치를 훼손한다고 주장. 투자유니버스는 약 65개 기업이며, 30년 복리 관점에서는 시장 대비 높은 PER도 감수 가능하다고 설명. 신기술은 평가가 어렵다고 보고 Sony·Yahoo 사례를 들며 오래된 기술 기업을 선호.
다듬은 글
What we we're screening for is to get rid of bad companies. Um we think there are very few good companies in the world. Companies that consistently make a return on their capital above their their cost of capital right across their business and economic cycle that you can rely on not to destroy any value for you while you're holding them.
Uh now most fund managers uh will hold all kinds of companies good and bad. And there's more than one way of investing. I'm not saying this is the only way of doing it. But one of the problems of owning the bag companies in life is whilst you're waiting for those companies, the sort of steel companies and the chemical companies and the airlines and the banks of this world to have an event uh which is what people are really waiting for a change of management, a takeover, the business cycle to turn up.
They basically destroy value just the same as it would destroy value for you personally if you took in money at a cost of 10% and you invested it at five. That's what they're doing. The companies we own take in money at a cost of let's call it 10% and they make 30%. you can rely on the fact that we may get the share price right or wrong where we buy them, but whilst they're sitting there in that portfolio, they consistently create value.
So that's what our screening process is about. It's about looking for companies that right across the business and economic cycle have fundamentals that actually create value by making a high return on capital in cash. I mean, one of the things that some value fund managers say is the way they they're able to make returns for you is by buying significantly cheaper stocks and waiting for that rerating.
Is there a risk then with your strategy that you're paying over the odds that the that these stocks are expensive? Um yeah, you're right. That's how some value fund managers seek to do it. Um I have to say looking at the average results of the industry, not very many of them seem to manage to achieve outperformance with that.
And one of the problems with that strategy is this. If you buy your poor company, apart from the fact that uh it does destroy value whilst you wait, if you get the your timing roughly right, yeah, it'll make some value for you. It'll create it'll create some performance for you. The problem is then you have to go find another one.
Whereas with our companies, if we select them right, we never have to go and fight a new company. We can sit there, not deal, and as a result, cut down the cost of running the portfolio. Um, are they too expensive? One of the things that we're really bad at as investors is judging the outcome of differential rates of compounding.
If you have £1,000 that you invest for 30 years, so an investment lifetime, I would say roughly, uh, and you invested at 10%, you'd have £17,000 at the end. If you invested at just 2 and a half% more, 12%, you'd have £34,000 again, twice as much. If you invested at 15%, only 5% more, you have £68,000, four times as much.
The secret to the companies we own, if there is a secret, is that they actually compound in value more consistently in the market as a whole over long periods of time. Not because they grow faster, but because they don't really have a downturn. And that's what makes them relatively inexpensive over time because people find that hard to figure out.
So we did some work on 30 years of investment looking at baskets of companies of the sort we invest in and said well on average what could you pay for those companies in terms of a PE versus the market and still break even over that 30 years versus the market and you know on average you could pay nearly four times the market PE and still break even.
Now if my fund was sitting here today on twice the market PE which it isn't I think you'd say it's too expensive your value investors would say that. I'd probably say that, but the reality is it might not be if you take a long-term view. Looking then at that that screening process and that attitude you've just explained, it sounds like you've got your companies in mind.
The companies that are in the fund now are the ones you're going to buy and hold forever. Does this sort of sometimes mean you're blinkered to new investments? Are you are you still keeping a lookout for new opportunities? Yeah, look, we kick the tires pretty regularly uh on companies to try and find new companies to come into what we call our investable universe, which currently consists of 65 companies that we would be prepared to invest in if the price was right.
And it's a continual search for that. And yet, we do look on the sort of the frontiers of things to see uh in terms of medical devices and in terms of installed basis of software and payment systems for what's emerging. So, it's not just the case that we look at companies that have been around for 100 years, although on average they have been around for 100 years.
Uh fair enough. On the whole though, uh, we're really suspicious of new technology. It's really difficult to evaluate. Um, I think most of us are bad at it. So, for example, if I'd owned Sony when Sony dominated mobile music through the Walkman, would I have spotted the rise of the MP3 player and the iPod?
I don't think I'd have got it. If I'd have owned Yahoo when they were the kings of search, would I have spotted that Google were going to come along and destroy their business effectively? I don't think I'd have got it. So, we really like old line technology and there's stuff that doesn't change very much over time.
For example, we like elevator and escalator companies. Um the the safety elevator was patented by Mr. Otus in about 1850. And you know what? It hasn't changed significantly since. And I don't think we're suddenly going to be startled by coming in one morning and finding people have got a new way of moving people up and down high buildings.
So that's the sort of thing that makes our our pulse quicken is that kind of old line technology.
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