Behind the Balance Sheet

Tobias Carlisle is one of the best-known advocatesof deep value investing, author of several investing books and host of a great investing podcast which he produces live on YouTube. We talk about how he got into investing, having been a lawyer, why people worry too much about value traps but not enough about quality traps and how the podcast has influenced his thinking. We discuss his latest book, which includes an examination of what he regards as Buffett’s three best deals and why he has moved from the extreme “junk” end of deep value. He remains valuation-driven but is now more willing to own quality when he can obtain it at the right price.Behind the Balance Sheet is a forensic accounting and fundamental investing podcast for serious investors.Each episode dives into how real‑world investors source ideas, build conviction and manage their portfolios.You’ll hear frameworks for analysing industries, understanding business models, and thinking about risk,behaviour and incentives, so you can refine your own process rather than copy stock tips. For show notes, transcripts and additional resources, visit our ⁠⁠⁠⁠website⁠⁠⁠⁠.If you value thoughtful, process-driven investing discussions, follow the show and consider leaving a short review, or just a 5* rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please help spread the word.Give our sponsors some love - check them out!AlphaSense, the AI-powered expert network platform Baseline, qualitative research on 3600 companies.

Dave Iben is the founder and CIO of Kopernik GlobalInvestors, a $6bn global value investment shop which prides itself on independent thought and is comfortable with contrarian positions.Steve invited Dave on the podcast because at a recent NewYork conference, Dave was cheerleading that value was back, and Steve wanted to discuss the rationale for his enthusiasm, given value’s massive underperformance in the last 15 years. Luckily Dave was spending the summer in London looking for cheap UK stocks, and they could record in person.Behind the Balance Sheet is a forensic accounting and fundamental investing podcast for serious investors. Each episode dives into how real‑world investors source ideas, build conviction and manage their portfolios. You’ll hear frameworks for analysing industries, understanding business models, and thinking about risk, behaviour and incentives, so you can refine your own process rather than copy stock tips.For show notes, transcripts and additional resources, visit our ⁠⁠website⁠⁠. If you value thoughtful, process-driven investing discussions, follow the show and consider leaving a short review, or just a 5* rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please help spread the word.

Jennifer Wallace is a value investor. She learned her tradefrom a series of luminaries, studying under Bruce Greenwald at Columbia, before going to work for famed value investor Bob Bruce (who used to hang out with Warren Buffett). Today she is the CIO of Summit Street Capital Management, and only invests in high quality companies with modest leverage when they are super cheap. This means she will often find stocks with issues that are hopefully temporary. But she has found a winning formula, having delivered a 7.8x return to investors since 2009. Around a quarter of her investee companies have been acquired. She explains why, her rationale for having a 25-30 stock equally-weighted portfolio and why you should not befriend CEOs - "if you want a friend, get a dog”.Behind the Balance Sheet is a forensic accounting and fundamental investing podcast for serious investors. Each episode dives into how real‑world investors source ideas, build conviction and manage their portfolios. You’ll hear frameworks for analysing industries, understanding business models, and thinking about risk, behaviour and incentives, so you can refine your own process rather than copy stock tips.For show notes, transcripts and additional resources, visit our ⁠⁠website⁠⁠. If you value thoughtful, process-driven investing discussions, follow the show and consider leaving a short review, or just a 5* rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please help spread the word.

Dan Rasmussen is the founder and CIO of Verdad Advisers, an unconventional quantitative investment boutique. In this conversation, Steve and Dan agree that private equity and credit look highly risky for the next decade. They debate the value of forecasting, where they have very different views. They similarly disagree on forecast horizons, with Dan favouring near term accuracy and Steve thinking longer term forecasts are more likely to be accurate. They also debate the persistence of growth and discuss Dan’s favourite financial metric. Steve and Dan have different perspectives on many issueswhich leads to apparently contradictory conclusions but in reality, they don’t disagree – the issue is base rates versus marginal opportunities. Steve and Dan view markets through different lenses, which makes for an interesting discussion.Behind the Balance Sheet is a forensic accounting and fundamental investing podcast for serious investors. Each episode dives into how real‑world investors source ideas, build conviction and manage their portfolios. You’ll hear frameworks for analysing industries, understanding business models, and thinking about risk, behaviour and incentives, so you can refine your own process rather than copy stock tips.For show notes, transcripts and additional resources, visit our ⁠⁠website⁠⁠. If you value thoughtful, process-driven investing discussions, follow the show and consider leaving a short review, or just a 5* rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please help spread the word.

When it comes to credit, few people have better credentials than Greg Peters, co-CIO of PGIM, with AUM of $700bn. In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the differences between investing in equities and credit, the legacy of the zero interest rate period, why PGIM uses scenario based forecasting in preference to single point estimates, why covenants have gone out of fashion and why that’s dangerous, ad much more. Listen to the end for an update on the outlook for markets in 2025.Behind the Balance Sheet is a forensic accounting and fundamental investing podcast for serious investors. Each episode dives into how real‑world investors source ideas, build conviction and manage their portfolios. You’ll hear frameworks for analysing industries, understanding business models, and thinking about risk, behaviour and incentives, so you can refine your own process rather than copy stock tips.For show notes, transcripts and additional resources, visit our ⁠⁠website⁠⁠. If you value thoughtful, process-driven investing discussions, follow the show and consider leaving a short review, or just a 5* rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please help spread the word.

Lionel Barber is the former editor of the Financial Timesand probably the only journalist on the planet to have interviewed Presidents Obama, Trump and Putin. Under his stewardship, the FT metamorphosed from a newspaper into a digital subscription business, and was sold to the Japanese company Nikkei for 44xearnings. And as editor, Barber fully backed up former guest Dan McCrum in his investigation of Wirecard.I was delighted when Lionel agreed to come on the show to talk about his new book, Gambling Man, a biography of Masa Son, founder of Softbank and creator of the $100bn Vision Fund. I have long been curious about Son, who for 3 days at the peak of the dot.com boom was the richest man in the world.Barber spent 3 years writing his meticulously researchedbook for which he interviewed 150 subjects, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, as he explains in our discussion. Some of his stories, including his description of Son’s inner sanctum, are marvellous.If you enjoy this episode, head over to our Substack, (sign up button on https://behindthebalancesheet.com/), take the monthly paid option and get exclusive additional content, including Steve's interview with Alok Sama, former CFO of Softbank International.Behind the Balance Sheet is a fundamental investing podcast for serious investors. Each episode dives intohow real‑world investors source ideas, build conviction and manage their portfolios. You’ll hear frameworks for analysing industries, understanding business models, and thinking about risk, behaviour and incentives, so you can refine your own process rather than copy stock tips.For full show notes, transcripts and additional resources, visit our website. If you value thoughtful, process-driven investing discussions, follow the show and consider leaving a short review, or just a 5* rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please help spread the word.