4Q20 Investor Letter
“In the memo, Howard Marks outlined his takeaways from conversations with his son Andrew Marks, who manages an “upside-oriented” fund for the Marks family. Howard is a hard-wired contrarian value investor while Andrew adopts the growth investing style with a focus on tech. Howard, who fundamentally believes in mean reverting, is leaning towards “it’s different this time” and appreciates“fade-defying businesses” for the first time in my memory.
To me, two things are clear: (1) growth investing is a subset of value investing, and (2) names with more “growth” characteristics have enjoyed much more multiple expansion over the years than others. So why can’t growth investing just replace value investing? Because value investing is a set of principles, while growth/ quality/deep value/special situation/industry-specific investing etc. are applications of the principles. An investor’s style comes from his/her mixed use of the applications. ”