Washington Post

© 2021 Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. All Rights Reserved Follow us: The price of goods may not rise in dollar terms, but reduced respect for the dollar (or increased quantities of dollars in circulation) could cause it to depreciate relative to the price of goods: same result. On TV on February 7, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen responded to a question about inflation risk posed by the proposed Covid-19 relief package with a long discourse on the importance of delivering relief to Americans who are suffering. Few would argue with that premise. She also made clear that she believes it’s better to provide too much relief than too little. True as well. But that doesn’t mean (a) the more relief the better or (b) there aren’t risks attached. Experts from both sides of the political aisle have questioned whether the $1.9 trillion relief package under discussion is too much and/or misdirected; Larry Summers, a progressive economist, wrote to that effect in The Washington Post on February 4: . . . a comparison of the 2009 stimulus and what is now being proposed is instructive. In 2009, the gap between actual and estimated potential output was about $80 billion a month and increasing. The 2009 stimulus measures provided an incremental $30 billion to $40 billion a month during 2009 — an amount equal to about half the output shortfall.

On February 7, 2019, Bezos publicly accused American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, of extortion and blackmail. The New York Times reported that Bezos alleged AMI had threatened to publish intimate photographs unless he publicly stated that the tabloid's coverage of his relationship with Lauren Sanchez was not politically motivated. Bezos had launched his own investigation into how the Enquirer obtained private text messages, and his statement implied the tabloid might be acting on behalf of interests connected to Saudi Arabia, citing a New York Times report from the previous year. The Guardian reported that Saudi Arabia publicly denied any role in the leak. The confrontation placed Bezos, as owner of the Washington Post, in direct conflict with a tabloid publisher allied with figures close to the sitting U.S. president, and was widely read as a test of how an owner-financed press organization would handle pressure on its proprietor.

Investing with Simplicity Speech by John C. Bogle Senior Chairman and Founder, The Vanguard Group ~ ~ ~ The Personal Finance Conference The Washington Post Washington, D.C. January 30, 1999 Many of you have heard the ancient Chinese curse---<:urse, mind you-that says, "may you live in interesting times." Curse or not, surely this is as interesting a time as it is possible to imagine. The extraordinary volatility in the financial markets is just one example of the stepped-up pace of our lives in an era-·a new era, to be sure-in which the technology revolution, the information explosion, and the rise of global interdependence have altered almost every activity in our daily lives. In important measure, it is these developments that have brought most investors unprecedented prosperity and wealth accumulation, and helped make mutual funds the investment of choice among American families. You now have all the information you could possibly need---except, of course, information about the future course of events and markets-to make investment decisions. But you should not mistake information for knowledge ... nor should you ever, ever mistake knowledge for wisdom, the ultimate weapon of the intelligent investor. During this "Personal Finance" conference, you'll hear a lot of good common sense. Pay attention to it. But you'll also hear a considerable amount of investment wizardry, financial legerdemain, and tempting solutions, often from the apparently omniscient. Disregard it.

On August 5, 2013, the Graham family announced the sale of the Washington Post newspaper to Jeff Bezos through a newly formed holding company called Nash Holdings LLC, for $250 million in cash. The Washington Post's own reporting on the deal noted that the purchase price was richer than what many other legacy print properties had fetched in recent years, and quoted analyst Craig Huber observing that the same newspaper would have sold for $2 billion a decade earlier. The transaction included the newspaper and closely held related ventures but excluded the downtown Washington office buildings, the Robinson Terminal warehouses in Alexandria, the Post-Newsweek television stations, and stand-alone properties including Slate, The Root, and Foreign Policy. Bezos, then primarily known as Amazon's founder, bought the paper personally rather than through Amazon — a structural choice that gave him editorial independence and positioned the acquisition as a side bet on the future of journalism.

Think too about the increasing dominance of “state” (publishing) over “church” (editorial) in journalism, and the scandals that reached the most respected echelons of the press—The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post. A similar transition has taken place in the medical profession, where the human concerns of the caregiver and the human needs of the patient have been overwhelmed by the financial interests of commerce, our giant medical care complex of hospitals, insurance companies, drug manufacturers and marketers, and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). In all, professional relationships with clients have been increasingly recast as business relationships with customers. In a world where every user of services is seen as a customer, every provider of services becomes a seller. Put another way, when the provider becomes a hammer, the customer is seen as a nail. Please don’t think me naive. I’m fully aware that every profession has elements of a business. Indeed, if revenues fail to exceed expenses, no organization—even the most noble of faith-based institutions—will long exist.

its client Enron in 2002, was but one example of the consequences of this conflict-riddled relationship. Think too about the increasing dominance of “state” (publishing) over “church” (editorial) in journalism, and the scandals that reached the most respected echelons of the press— The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post. A similar transition has taken place in the medical profession, where the human needs of the patient human concerns of the caregiver have been overwhelmed by the financial interests of commerce, our giant medical care complex of hospitals, insurance companies, drug manufacturers and marketers, and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Put another way, we’ve moved from a concept that there were certain things that one simply didn’t do (the moral absolutism of a profession, I suppose) to the idea that since everyone else is doing it, I can do it, too (surely a form of the moral relativism of a business). It is said, accurately, that professionals must accomplish their good works with a commitment to use their mastery to fulfill a “mission that inspires passion, a mission that gives beyond the self . . . (even though) pursuing a noble mission is often painful.” I see no reason that such a mission couldn’t also characterize the best businesses—those that serve their clients and customers as well as our society.

In public accounting, our once “Big Eight” (now “Final Four”) firms gradually came to provide hugely profitable consulting services to their audit clients, making them business partners of management rather than independent and professional evaluators of generally accepted (if loose) accounting principles. Think too about the increasing dominance of “state” (publishing) over “church” (editorial) in journalism, and the scandals that reached the most respected echelons of the press—the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post. A similar transition has taken place in the medical profession, where the human concerns of the caregiver and the human needs of the patient have been overwhelmed by the financial interests of commerce—our giant medical care complex of hospitals, insurance companies, drug manufacturers and marketers, and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). In all, professional relationships with clients have been increasingly recast as business relationships with customers. In a world where every user of services is seen as a customer, every provider of services becomes a seller. Put another way, when the provider becomes a hammer, the customer is seen as a nail. Please don’t think me naive. I’m fully aware that every profession has elements of a business.the

If the answer is no, the business is simply skipped over. 2. Is this a great and predictable business? The definition of a great business would mean a business that has some of the following characteristics: • Recurring Revenue Streams (e.g. GEICO) • Ability to raise prices ahead of inflation (e.g. The Washington Post) • Some sort of Monopoly or Oligopy type market positioning (e.g. American Express) • Strong franchise/brand that gives it insulation from most competitors (e.g. Coca Cola) Most businesses do not have ANY of the above characteristics and some may just have one of the above. A business that has more than one of the above characteristics is, by definition, rare. If I find a great business then I ask the third, and more difficult, question: 3. Is it on sale at a price well below its Intrinsic Value(IV)?3

The combination of a great business and it being on sale is, by definition, an anomaly. I look for these anomalies. When they occur, after rigorous analysis, I’ll either take a pass or backup the truck. There are two types of great business that are of interest to the fund: 1. Great, compelling companies trading at very low valuations relative to their expected value in a private sale. These companies may have little to no annual growth, but tend to have a solid cash flow engines that are highly predictable and are trading at very low multiples to earnings, cash flow and/or other metrics of value. 2. Growth at Reasonable Price (GARP) Companies. These companies, in high- growth markets, have shown a history of growing fast and are expected to continue to do so. I usually prefer GARP companies to straight value companies. I think the best returns will come from great, high growth companies that are available well below IV. I believe most of Buffett’s success has come from GARP-type businesses (Coca Cola, American Express, GEICO, The Washington Post etc.) So value businesses remain in the portfolio till either: 1. They reach IV and are sold. 2. A better value business comes along. 3. A better GARP business comes along. GARP businesses remain in the portfolio till: 1. They go well beyond IV. I hate to sell a good GARP business unless its well beyond IV. 2. A better GARP business comes along.