Capital Allocators Monthly - April 2021

May 2, 2021 by Ted Seides

Hello Fellow Listeners,

As spring arrives, so too did the length of my reading list. This was the hardest month I remember just five readings to share.

Onwards!

Announcements

Premium Sample – Concentration vs. Diversification. 

My journey in SPACs led to this framework of thinking about when to concentrate and when to diversify. Premium subscribers receive my commentary alongside a weekly email of updates on the show and past guests, and invitations to virtual events. Read Here

Top Podcast for Institutional Investors 

Grateful to your engagement in making Capital Allocators the leading podcast for institutional investors. Read Here

Funds 4 Minds 

Funds 4 Minds kicks off next week and runs for the month of May. Register Here

SPAC IPO

Ted is on the Advisory Board of Newbury Street Acquisition Corp (NBSTU), which started trading this week. Read the Release

New Sponsor – Tegus 

We’re excited to add Tegus to our roster of sponsors. Tegus has amassed an extensive platform for expert calls on companies. Unlike other networks, it shares the entire library of calls through a membership model that costs much less than other expert networks. Top managers and allocators alike benefit from this unique platform to get up to speed on companies. Free Trial Here

Reading 

* (Ordered by reading time: tweets first, books last, and blog posts and articles in between)

“Quality means doing the right thing when no one is looking.” – Henry Ford

1. Subscription Line Fraud. This story of fraud on a private equity manager subscription line may be a canary in the coal mine for more scrutiny on the common practice.

2. Playing Different Games or Why Tiger Global is Eating Your Lunch, Everett Randle. Randle breaks down how Tiger Global succeeds and carved a niche in venture capital.

3. Case for Crypto – Setee Letter to Shareholders, Oyvind Eriksen. Norwegian conglomerate Aker created a new company to invest in bitcoin and the crypto ecosystem. The letter describes the investment case, including as a long-term solution for the environment.

4. Amazon Letter to Shareholders, Jeff Bezos. Bezos’ last annual report at the helm of AMZN includes remarkable statistics about the value of the business through the lens of value added to customers.

5. Countercyclical Asset Allocation , Dan Rasmussen. Dan does it again with this approach to an asset allocation strategy that outperforms 60/40 with more consistency and comparable drawdowns. It sensibly blends fundamental and technical analysis in a way that reminded me of the anecdote I give to value investors who self-admittedly sell too soon.

BONUS: The Caesar’s Palace Coup , Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap. Talented distressed debt manager Andrew Milgram at Marblegate tipped me off to this new book. Should be required reading for any allocator in the space – a modern-day version of The Predator’s Ball and an imminently readable telling of Caesar’s restructuring.

Listening

Capital Allocators

EP.186: Jeff Housenbold – Inside Softbank Vision Fund

EP.187: Dominic Garcia – Risk-Based Investing at New Mexico PERA . Dominic’s mentor, the great David Villa from Wisconsin SWIB, passed away before this episode released. Dominic wrote a tribute here .

EP.188: Yen Liow – Quest for the Right Tail . Yen also shares thoughts on the evolution of long-short investing over the last quarter-century on Youtube here.

EP.189: Cade Massey – People Analytics in Investing and the NFL

EP.190: Brian Bares – Qualitative Concentration at BCM

Best of the Rest

All-In Podcast , with Chamath, Jason, Sachs & Friedberg, with Bestie Guestie Brad Gerstner. Four buddies talk in-depth about investing topics and brought in Altimeter’s Gerstner.

Capital Allocators: The Book Tour

We created a new page on the website for media and press mentions. Check it Out Here

Have a good one,
Ted