In his letter to co-investors for the first half of 2024, Rob discusses:

• A new KVG for the Business Owner Fund
• His mentor Norman Rentrop
• A new investment in International Petroleum
• 3(!) new investments in China
• The promise and failings of ESG investing

In mid-August 2024, Rob traveled to East Africa. He visited four cities (Nairobi, Mombasa, Kigali, and Kampala) in three countries (Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda).

In the postcard, Rob discusses what he saw and what he learned.

The main topics discussed are the region's cities, economies, and stock markets, corruption, freedom, Chinese and Western money, foreign aid, entrepreneurship, M-Pesa, and demographics.

Rob Vinall interviews Wix COO Nir Zohar in front of a live audience at RV Capital's 2024 Annual Gathering in Engelberg on the 13th of January 2024

The topic of this memo is how hard it is to beat the market in the long term, why this is the case, and ten countermeasures an investor can take.

The podcast contains discussions of the following topics:

• A new investment in Interactive Brokers
• Increased investments in Meta Platforms and Ryman Healthcare
• Why the fund is concentrated in individual companies and what drives their weighting in the portfolio
• AI and Wix

Impressions from my first trip back to China after the pandemic.

Topics discussed include:

The increasing liveability of China's major cities; City planning in China; China's decoupling from the rest of the world; Battery Electric Vehicles; Competition; Politics and Macro; and my response to the question: Is China Investable?

The letter contains a discussion of the following topics:

• An update on my health situation;
• A discussion of health data and privacy;
• A (I hope premature) post mortem of our investment in Carvana;
• Lessons learned from the Investment in Carvana;
• A defence of doing things differently.

RV Capital's first half letter for 2022 contains discussions of:

• Organisational changes at RV Capital;
• How I have dealt with the drawdown;
• Surging inflation;
• Rising interest rates and their implication for investing in long-duration cash flows;
• The fund’s exposure to tech stocks;
• War in Ukraine; and
• Taiwan and its implication for investing in Chinese companies
• And the development of our largest investments

This is a live recording of a panel discussion for emerging managers at RV Capital's 2022 Annual Gathering in Engelberg, Switzerland on the 27th of March 2022. The members of the panel are Claudine Innes, who is responsible for manager selection at a single family office based in Bilbao; James Ferguson, Partner at Global Endowment Management, an investment company based in Charlotte; and Patrick Maurenbrecher, co-founder of Kontora, a multi family office based in Hamburg. The discussion contains lots of practical advice for emerging managers looking to start their own investment firm.

The chat is also available as a video at https://youtu.be/HiXXWhmbE-Q

https://www.globalendowment.com/our-team#james-ferguson

https://www.kontora.com/en/kontora/your-advisors/

This is a live recording of the fireside chat between Joel Cohen and Rob Vinall at RV Capital's 2022 Annual Gathering in Engelberg, Switzerland on the 27th of March 2022. Joel works at MITIMCo, the investment management company of Cambridge-based university MIT. Joel also started the website emergingmanagers.org. The interview contains lots of practical advice for investors looking to start their own investment management firm.

The chat is also available as a video at https://youtu.be/iZSQcLhgiwo

https://mitimco.org/emerging-managers/

https://emergingmanagers.org/

This is a live recording of the fireside chat between Dennis Hong and Rob Vinall at RV Capital's 2022 Annual Gathering in Engelberg, Switzerland on the 27th of March 2022. Dennis is the founder and CEO of ShawSpring Partners, a Boston based investment firm founded in 2014. 

The interview is also available as a video recording at https://youtu.be/vIgXfFAS8gU

This is a live recording of the fireside chat between Darryl Rawlings and Rob Vinall at RV Capital's 2022 Annual Gathering in Engelberg, Switzerland on the 26th of March 2022. Darryl is the founder and CEO of Trupanion, a pet health insurer based in Seattle, USA. 

This is a talk Rob gave at Bob Miles' Value Investor Conference in Omaha on 3 May 2024.

The talk is called Five Moat Myths and discusses five commonly held beliefs about moats that may be incorrect.

Rob first spoke at the Value Investor Conference in May 2014 when he discussed the topic of valuation in a talk called Mistakes of Omission.

Rob spoke the second time in 2017 when he discussed the topic of management in a talk called Identifying Managers with Talent and Integrity.

His original plan was to talk about moats in 2020, however, the small matter of a pandemic put paid to that idea. The good news is that four additional myths occurred to him in the intervening period (vs one he had originally intended to speak about).

The slides accompanying the talk are not visible on the video. They are not necessary to follow the talk, but they can be downloaded here.

This is a live recording of Rob's Q&A at RV Capital's 2022 Annual Gathering in Engelberg, Switzerland on 26 March 2022. It features questions from both the live and online audience. The recording is also available as a video on Rob's YouTube channel. Recordings of the other sessions at the annual gathering are also available both as a podcast or on YouTube.

A link to the YouTube recording is here: https://youtu.be/uGDmvRWAgy8

RV Capital's 2021 letter contains a discussion of our recent investment in Carvana, an e-commerce platform for buying and selling used cars.

The letter also weighs the relative importance of moat vs execution. It makes the argument that investors perhaps overestimate the importance of competitive advantage when evaluating companies. Execution is everything.

Why investors are overestimating the impact of regulation in China; 

Some parallels to a prior market panic; 

New investments in Alibaba and Salesforce.com. 

In my 2020 Investor letter, I discussed the concept of “Margin of Safety” i.e., paying less for a security than it is worth, and its implications for investing. This memo is intended as a follow-up to that discussion. It is divided into seven parts:

Part 1: Why the importance of striving for an accurate view of the future is not obvious to older value investors.

Part 2: Why experience is sometimes a disadvantage.

Part 3: Why the opportunity set is different today and what this means for investing.

Part 4: Why the goal is to be more accurate, not accurate, when forecasting the future.

Part 5: Why skewness matters.

Part 6: Why skewness does not obviate the need to calculate a company's intrinsic value.

Part 7: What Nicholas Taleb misses.

What are Compounders? Why are they so popular amongst investors? And is the phenomenon sustainable?

A critical analysis using a framework suggested by Benjamin Graham in his seminal work on investing: "The Intelligent Investor".

A podcast about conspiracy theories, mental illness, how we evaluate information, and the lessons for investing.

A list of my favourite podcast shows. My preference is for shows about Tech, Health, Business and China that celebrate open and honest debate. 

Rob reads out his 2020 Investor letter. The Letter includes:

• A discussion of the short attack on Grenke;
• Some further thoughts on investing in early-stage listed businesses in the context of our recent investment in Slack;
• A critical look at the concept of margin of safety;
• A discussion of the pros and cons of being contrarian;
• How I got podcasting "religion";
• Why RV Capital's 2021 Annual Gathering will not be on Zoom.

Rob discusses a recent trip to the US and reflects on what he saw in the places he visited and what he heard from the people he met.

If you would like to leave a tip to cover the cost of the postage stamp on this postcard, please use this link.

Rob discusses his recent trip to China. He reflects on what he saw when travelling through four megacities and what he heard in conversations with friends, fellow investors, business people, and artists.

In his 2023 letter to co-investors, Rob discusses:

• The perils of reading too much into recent experience

• The current sentiment towards China

• A new investment in PDD Holdings

Rob Vinall moderates the Capital Allocator panel at RV Capital's 2024 Annual Gathering in Engelberg on the 14th of January 2024.

The panel members are: Jason Matz: GHR Foundation Thomas Berchtenbreiter: BTV Beteiligungsverwaltung Sargent McGowan: UVIMCO (University of Virginia)

Amelie Vinall moderates a Women in Investing panel at RV Capital's 2024 Annual Gathering in Engelberg on the 14th of January 2024.

The panel members are: Alex Douglas: Investure Fatima Dickey: Lagoda Investment Management Sofia Hou: Investment manager from Boston

Rob Vinall moderates a panel at RV Capital's 2024 Annual Gathering in Engelberg on the 14th of January 2024.

The panel members are: Tim Liu: Meditation Capital Fred Saland: Oxylus Capital Joan Esteve Manasanch: Gesinter SGIIC

Rob Vinall and Andreas Lechner respond to the audience's questions about the development of the Business Owner Fund at RV Capital's 2024 Annual Gathering in Engelberg on the 13th of January 2024.

Panel Discussion at RV Capital's Annual Gathering in Engelberg on 12 January 2025 with Graham Rhodes, Yixin Li, Fred Lui and Sofia Hou.

Show Notes Li Lu Talk referenced by Graham: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nwdP3GR-H8-m94NUnlsM-g

Fred's letter on China: https://www.haydencapital.com/wp-content/uploads/Hayden-Capital-Quarterly-Letter-2021-Q2.pdf

Blog referenced by Fred: https://www.baiguan.news/

Rob's book recommendation: "The Battle of Bretton Woods" by Benn Steil

Amelie hosts the panel "Women in Investing" at RV Capital's Annual Gathering in Engelberg on 12 January 2025 with April Li, Cynthia Maasry and Franziska Reh.

Rob does a mountainside chat with Will Thorndike, private equity investor and author of "The Outsiders", at RV Capital's Annual Gathering in Engelberg on 12 January 2025.

Rob and Andreas' Q&A at RV Capital's Annual Gathering in Engelberg on 11 January 2025.

Rob does a mountainside chat with Will Lundin, CEO of International Petroleum, at RV Capital's Annual Gathering in Engelberg on 11 January 2025.

Rob describes a recent trip he made to China, Japan and the US and discusses what he learned.

As the trip started shortly after President Trump declared Liberation Day on 2 April, the trade war and tariffs were a recurring topic of the trip.

The postcard discusses the trade war, but it is not just about the trade war.

The trade war is in the news today but news cycles get ever shorter. It is important not to be so focused on the news that you miss the bigger picture.

As such, the postcard also touches on broader developments in China including AI, Electric Vehicles and the growing prominence of Chinese companies.

In his 2024 letter to co-investors, Rob discusses:

• What a near 50% drawdown feels like
• Six investments in China
• One new investment in the energy sector
• Business and the moral high ground