Finding the ASX’s 10 best companies, failure, grit, the top investor letters & so much more | Nathan Bell from Intelligent Investor

In the latest episode of The Australian Investors Podcast, Owen Rask was joined by Nathan Bell, CFA, the Head of Research & Portfolio Management at Intelligent Investor.

About Nathan Bell 

Nathan discovered value investing after spending nine years as an accountant, including five at Deutsche Bank that ended in 2006, and has been with Intelligent Investor ever since. He is a CFA charter holder and his experience has guided the company’s strong performance since 2011. Currently, the Intelligent Investor Ethical Shares Fund is open to secondary offers.

Nathan & Owen’s conversation

TRANSCRIPTION NOW AVAILABLE (PDF)

Ice breakers:

• If you could pick one skill to achieve expertise what would it be?
• False choice: If you could only choose to invest in 5 private or public companies for the next 10-20 years, which would you choose and why?
• Can you describe the macroeconomic landscape today?

Nathan’s story:

I know you trained as an accountant, Nathan, and your background is rich with investing experience. But let’s go back before that. Who or what was your earliest inspiration to get into investing or finance?

How did you come to start at Intelligent Investor? Also, I think you started in 2006. I’m keen to know how you found the GFC and if you believe there any likenesses between the GFC and markets today?

Nathan’s investment process:

Turning to the investment process, how do you distil the investment universe into a more manageable list of companies for analysts to follow?

Nathan, I think an example company will help us illustrate the way you think about companies.

One of the companies in the growth fund is in MA Financial Ltd (ASX: MAF). Can you walk us through:

• What the business is?
• How you found it?
• The DD that took place
• Whether management played a role in your research
• The risks you identified

When it comes to portfolio construction, what do you believe the right balance between the number of positions and concentration?

Do you think there is a benefit to improving your writing if you want to be a better investor?

Philosophical

Who is the best capital allocator, as a CEO, that you have come across and what can we learn?

If you pick one investor (e.g. author, fundie, private investor, etc.) and one CEO/manager/entrepreneur and have dinner with them, who are they?

If you had $100 million. How would you spend your day differently?

What’s one thing you believe about investing, business or life that few people would agree with you on?