Behind the Balance Sheet

Alex Roepers is a concentrated deep value investor who takes a behind the scenes activist approach. Here he explains the strategy which he has exploited over the past near-35 years to outperform the S&P by delivering a 12.3% pa or a 48x return net of fees. We discuss his journey from the corporate to the investing world and his playbook for constructive activism, including how he interacts with management teams. Alex explains how he evaluates management quality, capital allocation and operational improvement opportunities. This is a masterclass in improving returns by persuading management to do the right thing for shareholders.

Rich Pzena, founder of $80bn AUM Pzena Investment Management, explains his value investing philosophy and how he built a deep value franchise by buying good businesses when they are deeply out of favour. He talks through recreating Benjamin Graham’s net net research at Wharton, leaving a secure role at Bernstein to start his own firm, surviving ten quarters of brutal underperformance in the dot com bubble and how he nearly sold out but was persuaded to continue by Joel Greenblatt. Rich explains his clear framework for what makes a good business, how to judge if problems are temporary, and why most investors systematically misprice uncertainty and cyclicality. He thinks deep value investing is just commonsense.

James Aitken, macro strategist to the world’s largest and most successful investors, takes Steve on a tour of the keythemes in global finance today. You will learn why James is interested in Japan, his views on the new Fed Chair and why inflationary pressures are here to stay as post Covid, we focus on resilience rather than efficiency.James also shares his thoughts on gold, on AI, and importantly on a changing supply-demand balance in US equities. Finally he shares his perspective on what differentiates his clients who include some of the largest and some of the best performing investors in the world, so listen carefully to that and what he predicts we will be talking about in 3 years’ time.

Jeremy Grantham is known as a permabear and an expert on bubbles so you should not be surprised that he sees an AI-induced bubble today and thinks the market will fall by 50%. He points out that at peaks you always have high multiples applied to abnormally high profit margins and today is no different. We discuss his experiences at GMO, where they didn’t have a sales person for their first 22 years, how his refusal to participate in the dot.com bubble cost him half his clients and none of them came back when he was proved right, how he recruited some of the best minds in finance, and why timing the market can deliver outsize returns.Grantham is no longer managing portfolios, instead devoting his considerable energies to philanthropy. We discuss his foundation’s efforts to combat climate change, to resource depletion, and to toxicity which is affecting fertility – he highlights how population will be in decline unless this is addressed. https://behindthebalancesheet.com/podcast Jeremy Grantham is known as a permabear and an expert on bubbles so you should not be surprised that he sees an AI-induced bubble today and thinks the market will fall by 50%. He points out that at peaks you always have high multiples applied to abnormally high profit margins and today is no different. We discuss his experiences at GMO, where they didn’t have a sales person for their first 22 years, how his refusal to participate in the dot.com bubble cost him half his clients and none of them came back when he was proved right, how he recruited some of the best minds in finance, and why timing the market can deliver outsize returns.  Grantham is no longer managing portfolios, instead devoting his considerable energies to philanthropy. We discuss his foundation’s efforts to combat climate change, to resource depletion, and to toxicity which is affecting fertility – he highlights how population will be in decline unless this is addressed.  https://behindthebalancesheet.com/podcast