Behind the Balance Sheet

James Aitken, macro strategist to the world’s largest and most successful investors, takes Steve on a tour of the keythemes in global finance today. You will learn why James is interested in Japan, his views on the new Fed Chair and why inflationary pressures are here to stay as post Covid, we focus on resilience rather than efficiency.James also shares his thoughts on gold, on AI, and importantly on a changing supply-demand balance in US equities. Finally he shares his perspective on what differentiates his clients who include some of the largest and some of the best performing investors in the world, so listen carefully to that and what he predicts we will be talking about in 3 years’ time.

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.

Peter Oppenheimer is chief global equity strategist and head of Macro Research at Goldman Sachs in Europe and the author of two books on market cycles. His first book, the Long Good Buy is sub-titled Analysing Cycles in Markets. His follow-up book Any Happy Returns, is sub-titled Structural Changes and Super Cycles in Markets and looks at longer term secular trends and the future outlook for economies and markets. Our discussion covers both.Our episode title refers to Peter’s study of cycles inmarkets, but amusingly for a partner at Goldman Sachs, he arrived for our recording on a bike, not their usual mode of transport.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.

John Huber is an investor with a small fund managing his family assets and outside capital in a concentrated portfolio. John has written an excellent blog, Base Hit Investing, for many years, explaining his investing principles. We discuss these in this episode, including what John looks for in an investment, why he emphasises capital allocation even more today, where he sees the sweet spot in revenue growth, why he likes Alphabet, why he is focused in North American stocks but is now looking at Japan and US small caps and why Floor & Décor is one of his major positions.Show NotesBehind 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.

Chris Mayer is the founder of Woodlock House Family Capital and the author of 100 Baggers: Stocks that Return 100-to-1 and How to Find Them. He has written several other books and formerly wrote an investingnewsletter which led him to travel the world seeking investment ideas. Studying the universe of 100 Baggers has led Chris to a clear set of investing principles which mean his universe of investible ideas is extremely limited and his fund owns just 11 stocks. Our discussion covers his respect for family owned businesses, his emphasis on corporate culture and his focus on the very long term. He even rejected aninstitutional investor as a client because they wanted monthly performance. Show notes 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.