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Think longer term than the next guy
Inspired by Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger and an avid student of them as I am, I often use the phrase:
one of the easiest ways to make money is to think longer term than the next guy
With that I often refer to “patient capital” and am, my bias I admit, openly skeptical of Private Equity and Venture Capital and their (to me) short term timeframes for investment, though I note that I am skeptical yet open and have met a number of “patient” investors in those spaces too.
Well, today I am reminded of Sir Angus Grossart, a very wise man and at or close the top of any short list of the greatest investors ever in Scotland.
I was fortunate enough to meet him at a dinner in 2019, at which I talked about the value of being patient, to which he then said to me: “Patient Capital — is not long term enough”. The post behind that link was written the day after a dinner where the focus guest was the CEO of one of Scotland’s industrial success stories, Alexander Dennis, manufacturers of buses and other commercial vehicles. Sir Angus was there that night simply in support of his CEO.
Sir Angus co-led a rescue of that company back in 2004 and owned 33%, but as I and others posed questions to him and to his CEO in May 2019, little were we to know that they were already in the latter stages of…
