저자: ChuckAkre · 외국인
요약 보기
경영진 평가는 자본배분 실적과 주주가치 관점의 장기 사고가 핵심이다. 단기 주가에 집착하는 CEO는 긍정적으로 보지 않으며, 말솜씨보다 과거 자본배분 성과를 수치로 검증하는 것이 더 중요하다. 면접 응답보다 과거 동료 평판이 유용하고, Ted Turner 사례처럼 예외적 천재는 드물다. 투자 판단의 기본은 기업의 자기자본이익률이 주주수익률에 근접한다는 원칙이다. 특정 종목이나 자산에 대한 가격 방향 예측은 없다.
다듬은 글
Tell me what you look for in in management. You want to find management that of course is is um terrific at at managing the business and um and presumably they've demonstrated that by the time we get involved. Um we're very interested in how they think about lots of things. We ask them often, how do you measure um your your success at this company?
By what means? By what? and and so we we listen to what they have to say and and and make our own judgments about that. And um what are the kinds of answers that Well, you know, sometimes you get answers such as, well, if the stock price goes up and sometimes you find CEOs that have have screens on their desk, you know, they're watching the stock price all day long.
And that's not a characteristic that we find particularly attractive. Um because you don't care about the short-term, right? And you know, I would say our quick judgment would be their their eyes on the wrong thing, you know. Um that's that's our own parochial view. and um and and we're interested in in hearing how they discuss um the reinvestment of the free cash flow they generate and how they discuss um the the arrangement of their balance sheet and you know whether they use debt capital and so on and how much they use why they I mean all of these kinds of issues are very important in helping us with our judgment you know at the end of the day if this were if this business could be quantified you know I wouldn't have a job people would just punch a button on a computer and it wouldn't do all the investing for them lots people are doing that
indeed and and in fact in fact some of them do it very well um um using you know very sophisticated mathematics but that's not what we do. they're they're trading against prices in the market and and using information that that comes to them uh in their models to do that. And and what we are is we're investors in businesses and we're trying to identify those unique businesses with very high returns because at the end of the day our the core of our thought process says that our return in an asset will approximate that that return on the owner's capital that the business generates.
How many managers are there out there that can afford to think the way you think, to think long term? I don't think any of them are striving to think the way we think. They they'll get to their own conclusion about how to operate the business and and many of our businesses have shareholder support in the way they go about it.
They they've attracted the kinds of shareholders that they deserve. a line that Warren Buffett has used for many years, you know, and um and and so by their the way they discuss their business and the way they discuss their outlook and their operations um helps lead certain kinds of investors to them and and so many of the businesses we own have attracted shareholders that that are u sympathetic with the way they run the business at least.
Well, first, uh, I have a partner, Rob Goldstein, who joined me in 1989. And, and he and I used to go out and visit a lot of management teams. And to become a CEO or CFO of a public company, even a small one, you got to be pretty smart. You have to have some business savvy of some sort. And I would say for the most part, most management teams impressed me anyway when I walked out of the room.
Uh, everyone had a good story about what they were going to do and uh, you know, how they were going to spend their money going forward. And, uh, the best rule of thumb that I learned was if this management team was good at allocating capital before I walked in the door, the assumption that they would continue to be good was a really good assumption.
And if they were really bad at it, no matter what story they told and how smart they seemed and how logical what they planned to do was, the better assumption would be that they would continue to be bad at it. So I would not rely me personally rely so much on what a management team my assessment of the management team but my assessment of what they've done in the past uh is very valuable and that's really you know how have they allocated capital in the past have they done it in a smart way or have they not done in a smart way and so that you can look at quantitatively in a lot of ways and if you're going to be cold and calculating and unemotional about it you're probably better off because everybody tells a good story and everyone seems pretty smart to me uh who's reached that level who you would speak to.
So I didn't find it super valuable. Now, if you want to look at oneoffs, uh there are some geniuses out there. Uh you know, I go back to the story I told about Ted Turner. Like I I didn't really know. You couldn't really tell uh from looking at the numbers and then I just heard him speak for about an hour and a half once he was presenting to a group of analysts why he was doing I think it was the MGM deal.
I just watched him speak and understand his logic and how brilliant he was. And he said, "Well, uh that was just obvious. There aren't that many people that I've seen that are just so obviously, you know, obviously if I were smart enough, Steve Jobs, I would hope would have been one and there are some other visionaries that just are clearly have the whole package.
But having the whole package yourself and then being able to explain it in such a simple way that I understand it, that's even more rare. But if they can, that's what I would look for. But that's very rare. I haven't I haven't made a lot of money from doing that. I did make money in the MGM, you know, the Ted Turner case, but uh very rarely since.
So I think looking at the numbers and seeing people's track record has been much more helpful than trying to assess my you know it's like they say when you uh interview people the smartest people I know uh some people are good at interview what they would say is some people are good at being interviewed and some people are not has little correlation with how they will perform if you hire them.
Really the best advice I got is talk to the people that they work with in the past. and and that's much better than assessing how they answer your interview questions or trying to think of the great interview questions. So at least it's true for for me and I and I think that's uh at least for me that would be the better way to look at it. So the same way with uh assessing management.
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