What is Lakehouse Capital?

Launched in 2016, Lakehouse Capital is the Sydney-based investment manager of two unlisted managed funds: the Lakehouse Small Companies Fund and the Lakehouse Global Growth Fund.

Lakehouse Capital is the wholly-owned funds management arm of The Motley Fool Australia, a subscription multimedia financial services business owned by the US-based Motley Fool.

Lakehouse Capital's investment process sees it focus on finding shares of competitively-advantaged companies which are growing in attractive industries, and run by aligned management. Lakehouse believes these opportunities tend to offer multiple ways of winning for patient and long-term focused investors.

Interview with Joe Magyer, Lakehouse Chief Investment Officer

The interview below comes from The Australian Investors Podcast and features Joe Magyer, the Chief Investment Officer behind the Lakehouse Small Companies Fund and Lakehouse Capital Global Fund.

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On this episode:

My -- Owen here -- guest for this episode is a very special one for The Australian Investors Podcast.

Joe Magyer is the Chief Investment Officer of Lakehouse Capital. Lakehouse is part of The Motley Fool Australia, which is where I met Joe many years ago. To my mind, Joe is at the cutting edge of what it means to be a value investor in modern times.

In this conversation, Joe describes his three fascinations in great detail, how he structures his team, valuation and loads more, including his favourite coffee spots in and around Melbourne and Sydney.

Please enjoy this episode of The Australian Investors Podcast.

Timestamps:

• 1:30 – Intro to Joe, building a Lakehouse, Joe’s weird and wonderful 13th birthday present
• 3:20 – Joe’s intro to The Motley Fool
• 4:50 – First job out of undergraduate in investment banking, but it wasn’t Joe’s passion
• 6:15 – Joe’s first gig at The Motley Fool
• 10:00 – Who influenced Joe and where did his unique angle on value investing come from?
  • David Gardner’s checklist (podcast link)
• 13:45 – Ebay at 26x earnings and why Joe’s newsletter was #1 over five years
• 16:00 – Why Australia?
• 19:00 – Early learnings managing money and starting Lakehouse Capital
• 24:00 – Building teams and Joe’s 3 “fascinations” – Loyalty, Networks & IP
• 30:45 – Joe on the spirit of value investing, and growth versus value
• 35:00 – Valuation and model traps
• 36:00 – downside risk and managing it at the stock level
• 37:03 – price versus value and “optionality” – “in the money” and “out of the money”
• 37:30 – Joe’s “fascination” with “loyalty” — not retention
• 43:00 – 1 trick to finding companies with optionality — and Joe still rents!
• 46:00 – How does Joe think about risk and is Australia facing a recession?
• 54:00 – Joe’s favourite books
  • Thorndike: The Outsiders – Eight Unconventional CEOs
  • Pat Dorsey – The Little Book That Builds Wealth
• 56:30 – Joe’s TOP coffee and food spots, Melbourne and Sydney
• 58:00 – What Joe would tell his kids about investing

Learn more about Joe & Lakehouse: 

• Lakehouse Website
• Joe on Twitter