Dear Colleagues:

“All Intelligent Investing Is Value Investing” Charles T. Munger

September 5, 2008

As the U.S. presidential candidates debate budget priorities and as movies such as IOUSA focus popular attention on the current and future financial condition of the United States, the art of capital allocation, in the both the private and public sectors, holds a special importance.   For this reason, the University of Virginia, via its Darden School of Business and McIntire School of Commerce introduces its first annual Conference on Value Investing.

Following the spirit of Mr. Munger’s quote, this conference aims to learn from the successful best practices of investing professionals in a wide gamut of asset classes with an eclectic mix of investment styles.  While their methods differ, these investment pros share some important beliefs including:

  • That investing is the art of valuing a business;

  • That markets exist as servants for and not masters of long-term investors

  • That “Margin of Safety” provides the best protection against permanent capital loss

In addition many of these managers owe a portion of their professional success to the father of modern security analysis, Benjamin Graham, and to his successors Charlie Munger and his partner Warren E. Buffett.  This first conference coincides with the release of the first ever book on Mr. Buffett with which he has cooperated, The Snowball by Alice Schroeder.  Ms. Schroeder will address the conference, reflecting on what her research for The Snowball augurs for the future of value investing.

In addition to The Snowball, this fall will also see the rerelease of the Security Analysis.  The book’s own synopsis provides an excellent explanation of the potential value from this investment conference.

  • First published in 1934, Security Analysis is one of the most influential financial books ever written. Selling more than one million copies through five editions, it has provided generations of investors with the timeless value investing philosophy and techniques of Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd.

  • As relevant today as when they first appeared nearly 75 years ago, the teachings of Benjamin Graham, “the father of value investing,” have withstood the test of time across a wide diversity of market conditions, countries, and asset classes.

  • This new sixth edition, based on the classic 1940 version, is enhanced with 200 additional pages of commentary from some of today’s leading Wall Street money managers. These masters of value investing explain why the principles and techniques of Graham and Dodd are still highly relevant even in today’s vastly different markets.

More broadly the conference will embrace Mr. Munger’s headlined quote that while investment styles may carry many different qualitative labels, all successful investing has some fundamental common denominators.  In this spirit, UVA’s Value Investing Conference seeks to allow today’s most successful investors to share their art in a transparent and engaging fashion that demonstrates to all conference participants that well allocated remains an accelerator of prosperity.

We welcome you.  We encourage your participation and your devil’s advocacy to create a conference that makes each participant a better capital allocator.

 

Sincerely,

Dan Anglin                           Everette Fortner

The Prince Henry Group          Darden Graduate School of Business