"This is the publication I recommend
when people ask me what I read"

— Norbert Lou

The Quality Brand Mittelstand

The Private Investment Brief newsletter is published eight times per year to a worldwide subscriber base of fund managers, family offices, high net worth individuals, and university endowments. Follow us on Twitter at @ThePIBnyc Contact info@privateinvestmentbrief.com for a sample issue   I. The latest issue of the Private Investment Brief featured an investment idea that […]

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On Mark Leonard’s IRR Thought Experiment

The Private Investment Brief is published eight times per year to a subscriber base of university endowments, family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and fund managers. Contact info@privateinvestmentbrief.com for a sample issue. Follow us on Twitter at @ThePIBnyc. It was my great honor to interview Mark Leonard of Constellation Software last fall at the Santangel’s Investor Forum. […]

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Programming Note—our new Twitter account

The Private Investment Brief is now on Twitter. Follow us at @ThePIBnyc The Twitter account will feature links to articles, as well as minor commentary and quick takes on various subjects—the usual Twitter stuff. More extended free commentary and essays on general investing subjects can of course be found on this site. And the current investment […]

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Success Secrets of the Kardashians

It’s been a privilege to see so many new subscribers to this blog, as well as to our flagship publication, the Private Investment Brief. (1) The quality of this group is even more humbling, as it includes hedge fund managers, allocators, and businesspeople around the world, many representing household names of finance and industry. You […]

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The Mystery of the Middleman

At the risk of belaboring a point, one of the more fascinating business models is that of the humble middleman. Middlemen usually operate quietly, out of sight of consumers and the media, so they often go unnoticed by investors. And they can be tricky to analyze because often it’s not obvious why a business that […]

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Pandora’s (Strategic) Box

A few years ago, if I remember correctly, Netflix and Pandora occupied roughly similar places in Wall Street’s imagination, each in its respective industry. Pandora was the public play on the bright future of music streaming, and Netflix was the public play on the bright future of video streaming. Fast forward to 2015 and Netflix […]

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Economies of Scale on the Ground

A few days ago the WSJ had an interesting article about how beer giant AB InBev is … voluntarily incentivizing its distributors* to carry more of its products and less of its competitors’. John D. Rockefeller would be proud. One of my pet self-education projects is to trace the history of how the world’s great […]

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YouTube seeks to license new content

In the near future I hope to do a PIB case study on the media industry, which is always interesting but is particularly interesting today. So articles like this one, about YouTube looking to license streaming content from Hollywood, are catching my eye. If you know of an investment manager with expertise in media, or […]

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“Alpha” in Real Estate

I have a mentor, a retired European investor with whom I correspond from time to time. He has kindly permitted me to reproduce below a recent letter:   I’ve met many rich men in my long life, and I must confess that the category of rich man that most annoys me is the real estate […]

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