Investing is about the future, and the future is inherently uncertain. Faced with uncertainty, the best we can do is create the circumstances for success and let the outcomes play out.

Geoff and I believe that one of Cymbria’s biggest advantages is the other four members of your investment team. They’ve added a lot of value for you in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future. This commentary is about our other four colleagues. Over the last eight years, we’ve written 26 commentaries about our approach. We thought you’d be interested in learning more about the team members that put that approach into practice for you on a daily basis.

Attempting to list how each member adds value for you would take too long so this commentary will highlight one unique advantage they each bring to work daily. Prior to that though, it’d be wrong not to mention that these four also share many traits. Here are a few:

• Deep understanding of our investment approach

• Ability to always live in a narrow emotional band

• Strong quantitative skills

• Risk discipline 

• Passion

• Personal commitment

• Being a team player

Finally, it’s worthwhile noting that Geoff and I didn’t start out with the intention of building an investment team. When the opportunity to partner with someone who could make us stronger came along, we jumped at it (four different times).

In the order that they joined EdgePoint:

Frank

Frank joined EdgePoint in 2009 from HSBC where he worked on the derivatives desk. Frank spends his time trying to find fixed-income and equity opportunities for all of our portfolios and Cymbria.

Frank’s unfair advantages are some hard-to-come-by personality traits. Specifically, he has an overabundance of common sense, is a proactive learner and is conscientious. These traits have helped him build wealth for you.

I’m not a psychologist, and therefore I don’t know exactly how Frank honed these unfair advantages but if I had to guess, I would say they came from growing up in an entrepreneurial family and working in the family businesses from a very young age. I don’t believe you can teach common sense or conscientiousness. They have to be learned. Frank spent a good part of his youth learning how to squeeze operational efficiencies out of processes dealing with customers and the importance of cash flow. Additionally, growing up as an entrepreneur in an entrepreneurial family seems to have taught Frank how to operate and succeed in an unstructured environment − something that serves him well today in our unstructured team environment (more on that later).

Frank joined EdgePoint in the middle of the financial crisis. He arrived with a keen sense for business and a passion for investing. He quickly took on anything we were willing to throw his way. Since his first day, he’s been the busiest person on the team – a title he still hasn’t relinquished. At first we gave him specific companies to look at, but in short order we directed Frank towards finding value in entire sectors. Eventually, he also learned his way into adding value in fixed income and today follows his nose to uncover new equity opportunities.

What this means is when oil prices collapsed, we turned to Frank to help identify new ideas. When spreads widened in the fixed-income market, we looked to him for help on adding value. When the discussion turns to hedging foreign currency exposure in our Global portfolios and Cymbria, Frank is in the room. These opportunities weren’t given to Frank; he earned them through his willingness to learn.

The following lists businesses that Frank has helped us with over the years. It excludes fixed-income investments, simply because it would then be too long.

Ted

Ted joined EdgePoint in 2011. Geoff and I had worked with him for many years before EdgePoint was founded. Other than Geoff and I, Ted is the only person with the ability to buy businesses for the portfolios and Cymbria.

Everyone on our team is a generalist. A generalist means you have the ability to study a variety of businesses across diverse industries. If you want to effectively practice our investment approach you have to be a generalist. We’re constantly scouring the world for ideas not widely shared by others – what we call proprietary insights. Finding those proprietary insights requires a portfolio manager who can easily switch between studying and understanding a variety of different businesses.

The opposite of a generalist is a specialist. A specialist only looks at businesses in one industry but knows every little tidbit of information about that industry no matter how potentially inconsequential. The advantage of being a specialist is having unparalleled knowledge of an industry, which can be advantageous at times.

The disadvantage is that a specialist can’t compare the relative merit of two ideas from different industries. If you have to build a portfolio of ideas, you must be able to weigh the relative attractiveness of ideas from disparate industries. As such, generalists tend to do better practicing our approach than specialists.

You’re probably saying to yourself that you’d like your Cymbria portfolio manager to be both. Of course, everyone on your team strives to achieve that balance. The truth is, I’ve yet to meet anyone who achieves the perfect balance better than Ted.

As a generalist, Ted has contributed ideas to the portfolios and Cymbria from a wide variety of industries ranging from pipelines, to software, to death care, to chemicals and almost everything in between. As a specialist, we’ve heard Ted tell CEOs information about their own companies that they didn’t even know. Management teams have admittedly never seen anything like him.

Where does Ted’s unique ability come from? We’re not really sure; however, he does have two particular skills that certainly don’t hurt: a powerful memory that I’ve yet to see a match for and a unique ability to understand even the most difficult business models like those in the health care and technology industries (i.e., his circle of competence is very large).

What does Ted’s strong balance of generalist and specialist skills mean for you? Very simply, since his arrival over five years ago, he’s built material wealth for those who’ve entrusted Cymbria with their savings. The following is a list of names that Ted has contributed to the portfolios and Cymbria. The list is divided into ideas that have made money for investors, ideas that have lost money for investors and, finally, ideas that are currently in the portfolios and Cymbria (the jury is still out).

The second column isn’t an error. Of the names that Ted has purchased and sold, 100% of them have made money. If that weren’t enough, Ted has helped with names that Geoff and I put into the portfolios and Cymbria such as Alere, which have also made money for stakeholders. I know what you’re thinking – you would’ve been better served had Geoff and I stepped aside over the last five years and asked Ted to pick all the ideas. Given the table above, it’s tough to argue with your logic.

Andrew

Andrew joined us in 2013 from a competing firm. Andrew spends the majority of his time on our EdgePoint Canadian portfolios but has also found opportunities to add value on the Cymbria side.

Andrew’s fast mind is one of his unfair advantages.

Generating new ideas requires countless hours of research on a particular company, its industry and its competitors. Thousands of pages of financial statements, research, transcripts and annual reports have to be gathered, consumed and reasoned through. Interviews must be conducted with management teams. Conversations need to be had with industry experts. Andrew has a particularly strong ability to consume information and isolate the most important drivers of value inside a business faster than almost anyone we know. He’s a very clear thinker.

The downside of being a fast/clear thinker is that you arrive at conclusions sooner than most. Getting to an idea first can be frustrating because you’re often forced to bring your colleagues up to speed. That is, unless you enjoy teaching others what you’ve learned. Fortunately, Andrew has a passion for teaching and is also good at it. He frames opportunities well and covers all his bases when laying out his thinking.

Andrew’s speed and clear thinking are advantages to you as they allow us to work through more ideas in an effort to find the gems.

Some of the names Andrew has worked on include the following:

George

George is in his rookie year at EdgePoint. He joined us from the debt financing group at CIBC. He spends all of his time on the Canadian portfolios and reports to Andrew.

It’s too early to tell what George’s unfair advantage is. He’s at the beginning of his investment career. We have high hopes for him based on his work ethic, business sense and passion for investing. Geoff and I regularly count our blessings that we didn’t have to compete with George when we broke into the industry many years ago. If we had to, George would be writing this commentary today instead of me.

Despite being with us for only a few months, George has already produced three 100-page-research reports on companies that we asked him to analyze. They are Jean Coutu, Potash Corp. and Aimia. We recently started to build a position in one of these names so George has already started adding value. He’s a shoo-in for the 2016 Investment Team Rookie of the Year award.

Team structure: the fifth “unfair advantage”

Now that we’ve gone through the individuals, let’s talk about how the team works together. To start, this is roughly how we’ve broken up our time in the last year:

Don’t hold us to this breakdown as it could change tomorrow. There are no rules in place that dictate how much time each person spends on a particular investment mandate with the exception of Andrew and George who currently spend the majority of their time on Canadian ideas.

Beyond the time breakdown, here are some other key points about how your team does and doesn’t operate:

1. There are no investment committees.

2. Geoff and I are ultimately responsible for about 80% of the names in Cymbria and 100% responsible for ensuring Cymbria is properly diversified by idea. When Frank, Andrew and George find ideas, they share them with us and we debate the merits of each idea with them. If we believe it’s worthy of a deeper dive, Geoff and I do the work alongside the team member that came up with the idea so that each one of us “mentally owns” it. Maybe we’re hanging on too long? Both Frank and Andrew are capable of making contributions to the portfolios and Cymbria without our final approval. However, we enjoy the process of exploring their names with them, and we’re trying to maintain a balance between their autonomy and our requirement to have a collection of ideas in Cymbria that makes sense. You should expect their autonomy to grow over time but the requirement for Cymbria to make sense won’t change.

3. Ted is responsible for about 20% of the names in the portfolios and Cymbria. He enjoys the process of formulating his thoughts about a particular idea to the point where he can walk Geoff or me through it, so we continue to follow that process. It’s not one-sided – we like discussing his ideas with him as well.

4. There are no regularly scheduled investment meetings. When we have something to say to one another, we say it. Otherwise we prefer to read in our offices or travel to visit companies.

5. The team has been structured in a generational fashion. Ted, Geoff and I form the oldest generation. Frank and Andrew form the next and George is the beginning of the third. This is our early attempt at long-term succession planning. Future team members may be added in any generation. I hope the oldest generation keeps adding value for decades to come.

6. Only George is directed to look at certain companies. The other team members follow their noses.

7. A team member can go for long periods without knowing what the rest are working on. We like, trust and admire each other, so this doesn’t bother us.

As you can tell, our team process is fluid. The nature of the structure and the singular effort grounded in one shared investment approach allows new team members to join and be additive to the team without being disruptive to the others.

So, we can add people without being disruptive to the team, but what happens if we lose someone in the future? The truth is they and their “unfair advantages” will be missed, though we believe the team has moved beyond being reliant on any one person. With our investment approach at the core and the unstructured nature of how our partners add value, we believe the team will march on.

If that last phrase made you think we’re about to lose someone, we have no reason to believe that to be the case. We do everything we can to ensure that our team members have no interest in leaving and we believe your team is happy. What may be interesting to you is that making them happy has less to do with money and more to do with intangible stuff than you might think. Ted, Frank, Andrew and George could work anywhere and likely make similar (or better) wages to what they do here. If I had to guess, what keeps them here are some of the EdgePoint intangibles such as:

1. Freedom. In our judgment, the best and brightest want freedom to pursue their passion. We try to create an environment where Ted, Frank and Andrew have the freedom to follow their noses, and explore new ideas when and how they like.

2. Ownership. In our judgment, the best and brightest don’t want to work for “the man.” They prefer to work in their own businesses with like-minded individuals. Ted, Frank and Andrew are material owners of EdgePoint and George has the potential to become one.

3. Culture. Culture is hard to define, but everyone knows that it has to do with the people in the company. Being able to pick your own partners is one of the world’s most underrated luxuries. There are 52 partners at EdgePoint and Ted, Frank and Andrew have had a hand in helping to bring in a number of them. Although George has been here for only six months, he has become one of EdgePoint’s top recruiters.

4. The Crusade. We all believe in what we’re trying to achieve at EdgePoint and enjoy the camaraderie of the crusade. (See: Our success measures).

Freedom, ownership, culture and the crusade have all played a role in keeping your “unfair advantages” at EdgePoint. We hope this will remain true down the road.

Conclusion

We regularly interview companies that we own, or companies we’re thinking about buying for Cymbria. Geoff and I are disappointed if we’re the smartest guys on our side of the table in those meetings. With Ted, Frank, Andrew and George in the room, we don’t have to worry about that.

Historically, their unfair advantages have created a lot of value for you and we believe this will remain true in the future.

We continue to approach investing in these markets with measured confidence, value your trust in us and look forward to working to build your wealth in an effort to be worthy of that trust.

We’re growing

We’re looking to grow our small investment team by one person. Specifically, Frank is looking for a credit analyst. We understand that extraordinary human ability is a scarce resource in high demand. If you think you’ve got some or know someone who does and are interested in our company, please take a look at the following posting.