International Value

Objective:

The FPA International Value strategy endeavors to provide above average capital appreciation over the long term while attempting to minimize the risk of capital losses.

We seek to identify absolute value opportunities across international markets, including both developed and emerging countries.

Philosophy:

  • Absolute value investors: We seek genuine bargains in the equity markets rather than relatively attractive ones. We may at times hold large amounts of cash if we cannot find enough opportunities meeting our investment requirements.

  • Long-term focus: We find that our investment goals are best achieved by taking a long-term contrarian approach. In practice we tend to stay invested on average about five years.

  • Bottom-up: We select and value individual stocks based on the fundamentals of the underlying businesses. We always demand that our investments meet the following criteria:

    • 1. High quality businesses with long-term staying power.

    2. Overall financial strength and ability to weather market dislocations.

    3. Management teams that allocate capital in a value creative manner.

    4. Significant discount to the intrinsic value of the business.

  • Broad investment universe: We invest across market caps, industries, and geographies.

  • Concentration: We focus only on our best ideas and expect to be invested in no more than 25-35 stocks.

  • Research-driven: Prior to making investments, we engage into an extensive research and valuation process. Portfolio construction is the product of that process with the most attractive names accounting for the greatest weightings.

  • Downside focus: We believe our process is inherently risk-averse. First, we limit ourselves to companies with strong balance sheets. Second, we spend a lot of time understanding the operational risk profile of the businesses in which we invest. If we cannot get comfortable with the long-term economics of a business, we do not invest. Lastly, we only buy stock when it trades at a significant discount to our estimate of intrinsic value.