Plein Air Capital, LLC

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Intelligent investing is achieved through the synergy of art and science.

Plein Air’s investment philosophy emphasizes fundamentals, is long-term oriented, and seeks to provide superior returns without undue risk of permanent capital loss.  Plein Air focuses primarily on U.S. based equities of all capitalizations, but may also include non-U.S. based securities, mutual funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), fixed-income and cash and cash equivalents in client portfolios.

Plein Air seeks to invest in good companies with good management that are temporarily trading at a discount price to Plein Air’s view of the intrinsic value.  Such an approach is often referred to as a “value” investment strategy.

Plein Air’s criteria for a “good company” with “good management” generally include:

  • a simple and understandable business
  • a consistent operating history
  • favorable long-term prospects
  • high returns on equity and high profit margins
  • shareholder-oriented, rational and long-term focused management

Under special circumstances, Plein Air may invest in companies that may not necessarily meet all of the above criteria, but, due to especially large discounts to intrinsic value, nevertheless present an attractive opportunity.   Such an approach is sometimes referred to as “deep value” strategy.

Under other special circumstances, Plein Air may invest in companies that generally meet or exceed the above "good company" criteria, and that appear to have durable competitive advantages and are expected to grow at a rapid rate. Plein Air may pay a fair price for such an attractive opportunity.

Plein Air employs a “buy and hold” approach. Typically, Plein Air will hold an investment as long as it continues to meet Plein Air’s investment criteria.  Plein Air may sell all or part of a holding if and when in Plein Air’s view, the company’s prospects substantially dim, Plein Air determines it made a mistake in its initial analysis, or when the market offers a price that greatly exceeds the investment’s intrinsic value. 

Plein Air pursues a concentrated approach with respect to stock holdings, typically holding between 15 and 20 stocks in a mature account.  Although not a hard and fast rule, Plein Air ordinarily will not commit, at purchase, more than 10% of a portfolio in one security.

Although Plein Air generally invests client accounts in a consistent manner following its investment strategy, Plein Air has the authority to take into consideration a client’s goals and objectives, risk tolerance, tax status, size of account, specific prohibitions or mandates, client requests, or other criteria when investing client funds. Furthermore, even though Plein Air’s investment strategy focuses generally on investing in individual stocks, Plein Air may at its discretion allocate some portion of a client’s assets to mutual funds, EFTs, fixed income or other types of assets.

 

Copyright Plein Air Capital Advisers, LLC 2018