Learning Hub

Fund Managers & Investors

A curated list of value-oriented and concentrated fund managers worth studying for their portfolios, investment philosophy, and track records.

Use these profiles to study how strong investors think, communicate, and allocate capital over time.

Showing 15 investors

Letters

François Rochon

Giverny Capital · Founder & President

Montreal · Founded 1998 (portfolio since 1993) · AUM ~C$2bn

A trained engineer and art collector — the firm's name nods to Monet's garden. Classic Buffett school with 20 to 25 positions and minimal turnover. The annual letters traditionally include a candid "mistake of the year" section.

Track record

Roughly 14–15% a year in the Rochon Global Portfolio since 1993, well ahead of the benchmarks. The affiliated Giverny Capital Asset Management (David Poppe, New York) is run separately.

Value & QualityConcentratedCanada

Letters

Robert Vinall

RV Capital · Founder & Managing Partner

Kreuzlingen, Switzerland · Founded 2008 · AUM ~$0.5–1bn

German-British manager based on Lake Constance. The Business Owner Fund is concentrated — often eight to twelve positions — deliberately seeks founder- and owner-led businesses, and holds for a very long time. Known for the annual Gathering of Investors in Engelberg and for detailed, candid letters.

Track record

Per the firm's own figures, double-digit annual returns since the 2008 launch and well ahead of the MSCI World. A difficult stretch in 2021/2022, partly from Chinese holdings.

Value & QualityConcentratedEurope

Letters

Terry Smith

Fundsmith · Founder & CEO

London · Founded 2010 · AUM ~£20bn+

A former sell-side analyst turned fund manager on a simple, publicly repeated creed: buy good companies, don't overpay, do nothing. Fundsmith Equity Fund runs a concentrated, very low-turnover portfolio of capital-light global compounders, deliberately avoiding banks, commodity producers and airlines.

Track record

One of the best-performing global equity funds since its 2010 launch. The quality-growth style made 2022's rate shock unusually painful; Smith's blunt annual letter is widely read well beyond his own investor base.

Value & QualityConcentratedEurope

Letters

David Eriksen

Cedar Creek Partners · Founder & Managing Member

United States · Founded c. 2007 · AUM small (<$100m)

A deep-value investor who hunts for overlooked, thinly traded small and micro caps — often asset-rich or net-net situations too small for institutional capital to bother with. Writes long, unusually transparent annual letters that walk through individual holdings, position sizing and mistakes.

Track record

A small capital base with a long-running value discipline; the letters are read well beyond the fund's own size because of how candidly they're written.

Small & Micro CapsValue & QualityUS

13F Filings

Bruce Berkowitz

Fairholme · Founder, Managing Member & CIO

Miami, FL · Founded 1997 · AUM well below its ~$20bn peak

A former Wall Street analyst who built Fairholme into one of the most closely watched value shops of the 2000s on concentrated bets in out-of-favour financials and insurers. Extremely high conviction — the portfolio has at times been dominated by a single name (AIG, then Sears, then St. Joe, then Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac preferred stock).

Track record

Named Morningstar's fund manager of the decade for the 2000s after buying beaten-down financials into the 2008/09 crisis. Subsequent concentrated bets proved far harder and led to years of redemptions.

Value & QualityConcentratedUS

Letters

Daniel Gladiš

Vltava · Founder & Managing Partner

Czech Republic · Founded 2004 · AUM ~€200–300m

A Czech value investor and author ("Naučte se investovat" — "Learn to Invest") who built one of Central Europe's best-known value funds on classic Graham-and-Buffett principles. Concentrated, globally unconstrained portfolio; the quarterly shareholder letters are unusually didactic, often built around a single investing concept explained from first principles.

Track record

A long, steady record of outperformance versus European benchmarks since 2004, built with a small, tightly held portfolio rather than outsized single-stock risk.

Value & QualityConcentratedEurope

13F Filings

Bill Nygren

Oakmark Select · Portfolio manager since 1996 (Harris Associates)

Chicago, IL · Founded 1996 · AUM ~$100bn (Harris Associates, all strategies)

Has managed the Oakmark Select Fund at Harris Associates — majority-owned by Natixis since 1995 — since its 1996 launch. Classic value discipline: buy well below estimated business value, sell as price approaches intrinsic value, and insist on capable, owner-minded management, expressed through a concentrated book of around 20 names.

Track record

One of the longest continuously-managed concentrated value mutual fund records in the US, with strong long-run outperformance alongside periods of sharp underperformance in growth-led markets.

Value & QualityConcentratedUS

Portfolio

Nick Train

Finsbury Growth & Income · Fund manager; co-founder, Lindsell Train

London · Founded 2000 (Lindsell Train) · AUM ~£1.5–2bn

Co-founder of Lindsell Train, manages the London-listed Finsbury Growth & Income Trust with a famously concentrated, almost never-sell approach — often fewer than 25 holdings, heavily weighted to consumer brands and other businesses with durable pricing power, including long-standing positions in Diageo and RELX.

Track record

A long history of outperformance built on extremely low turnover; performance cooled markedly after 2019 as several of the trust's largest consumer-brand holdings fell out of favour.

Value & QualityConcentratedEurope

Letters

Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway · Portfolio: Todd Combs & Ted Weschler

Omaha, NE · Founded 1965 · AUM conglomerate, >$1tn market cap

Buffett handed the CEO role to Greg Abel at the end of 2025 and stayed on as Chairman — by his own account still in the office five days a week. Abel has had final say on capital allocation since 2026 and has made his first acquisitions in Taylor Morrison and OxyChem, while ending a 14-quarter run of net equity selling.

Track record

Roughly 19.9% a year over six decades against about 10.4% for the S&P 500. Cash most recently around $365bn.

Value & QualityConcentratedUS

13F Filings

Bill Ruane

Sequoia Fund · Founder (1969); managed by Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb

New York, NY · Founded 1969 · AUM ~$10–15bn

Bill Ruane was a Graham student personally recommended by Buffett when he wound up his partnership in 1969. The Sequoia Fund is among the oldest value funds in the United States. Related advisers: Conifer, Wishbone and Hyperion.

Track record

Outstanding from 1970 to 2015, then the deep rupture of the Valeant position, which cost reputation and assets and triggered a leadership overhaul. Recovering since under a new team.

Value & QualityConcentratedUS

13F Filings

Chuck Akre

Akre Focus · Founder; now John Neff & Chris Cerrone

Middleburg, VA · Founded 1989 / 2009 · AUM ~$10–12bn

The "three-legged stool": an excellent business, honest and capable management, and compelling reinvestment opportunities. Akre stepped back from day-to-day management in 2020/21. The flagship vehicle is the Akre Focus Fund.

Track record

Akre Focus has beaten the S&P 500 over the long run since its 2009 launch; Akre's personal record stretches back into the 1980s.

Value & QualityConcentratedUS

Letters

Dan Roller

Maran Partners · Founder & Managing Partner

United States · Founded c. 2013 · AUM small (<$100m)

Runs a concentrated small- and micro-cap value partnership, often drawn to businesses carrying under-appreciated real estate or other hard assets alongside an operating business. Writes detailed, idea-specific letters and is willing to engage constructively with management on capital allocation.

Track record

A small, idiosyncratic book with periods of strong performance driven by a handful of concentrated positions; limited public disclosure beyond the investor letters.

Small & Micro CapsConcentratedUS

Letters

Chris Bloomstran

Semper Augustus · Founder & President

St. Louis, MO · Founded 1998 · AUM ~$0.5–1bn

Runs a concentrated, quality-focused value portfolio and writes what may be the most detailed annual shareholder letter in the industry — often well over a hundred pages, including an exhaustive sum-of-the-parts valuation of Berkshire Hathaway that is closely followed by other Buffett watchers.

Track record

A long, steady value record; the letters have become a reference point for how to think about intrinsic value, independent of the fund's own size.

Value & QualityConcentratedUS

Letters

Nick Sleep & Qais Zakaria

Nomad Investment Partnership · Co-founders

London · Founded 2001 (closed to new capital, 2014) · AUM wound down; no longer accepting capital

Ran one of the most admired partnerships in modern value-investing history before voluntarily returning outside capital in 2014. Built enormous, multi-decade positions in Amazon and Costco around the idea of "scale economics shared" — businesses that pass cost savings from growth back to customers to entrench their advantage further.

Track record

Extraordinary compounding over the fund's 13-year life, driven overwhelmingly by a handful of positions held for years without trading. Their partner letters are still widely circulated and studied.

Value & QualityConcentratedGlobal

13F Filings

Amit Wadhwaney

Moerus · Co-founder & Portfolio Manager

New York, NY · Founded 2015 · AUM ~$200–400m

Previously a longtime portfolio manager at Third Avenue Management, running the Third Avenue International Value Fund. At Moerus, applies the same asset-based, out-of-favour-markets discipline globally — looking for statistically cheap businesses in markets or sectors institutional capital is actively avoiding.

Track record

A specialist, globally unconstrained deep-value approach; performance depends heavily on cycles in the out-of-favour markets and sectors the fund targets.

Value & QualityGlobal