Joshua Kennon is a Managing Director of
Kennon-Green & Co., a private asset management firm specializing in global value investing for affluent and high net worth individuals, families, and institutions. Nothing in this article or on this site, which is Mr. Kennon's personal blog, is intended to be, nor should it be construed as, investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell a security or securities. Investing can result in losses, sometimes significant losses. Prior to taking any action involving your finances or portfolio, you should consult with your own qualified professional advisor(s), such as an investment advisor, tax specialist, and/or attorney, who can help you consider your unique needs, circumstances, risk tolerance, and other relevant factors.
Following up on the article I wrote about cigarette market share in the United States, I thought this was a great story about the legendary employee stock ownership culture at Reynolds Tobacco back in the first half of the 20th century. It comes from Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, which you should buy. It explains how R.J. Reynolds almost forced his employees to buy stock in the company and even created a special class of dividend shares for them!
There is so much going on I don’t know if I’ll have much time to read, but the sunset and great lighting, combined with reading about R.J. Reynolds today, made me grab a copy of Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, the book famous for chronicling the leveraged buyout that changed the…
Four Companies Control 94.8% Market Share of the Domestic Cigarette Industry in the United States On this blog, in my articles, and even in my books, I have often used the example of how capital allocation determines the wealth one ultimately has. Many times, I used the illustration of a married couple, both of whom…
How a Holding Company Works A holding company is a special type of business that doesn’t do anything itself. Instead, it owns investments, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, gold, silver, real estate, art, patents, copyrights, licenses, private businesses, or virtually anything of value. The term holding company comes from the fact that the business…
Intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, discernment and good temperament are five distinct attributes a man or woman can possess. It is a common mistake to believe that they are interchangeable. They are not. Although they tend to be related, it is possible to have one without the others. How they interact with one another can determine the…
We finally got a few of the other Carl Barks collection framed for the office walls. I’ve been meaning to get pictures up for months and finally just decided to stop and do it. I was browsing auction records tonight so it reminded me …
Today, I wanted to write new content for Investing for Beginners at About.com, a division of The New York Times, and then go through the S&P stock sheets for fun.
If you wanted to be as rich as Mr. Monopoly, how much would it take? How high would your annual income be? Your net worth? Those are the question that I pondered sitting at my desk this morning. Out of pure curiosity, I began to adjust the values of the Monopoly property rents for inflation, using the last full-year CPI figures (2009), knowing that the game was originally released in 1935.
I finished Atlas Shrugged a few hours ago. I loved it despite my not fully buying the philosophy of objectivism Ayn Rand espoused. I’ll discuss those criticisms in a future article. In nearly 1,200 pages, the single most important line to me sums up, in ten words, why I’ve been successful when so many others…
I’m going to prove that the average school teacher earns more money than Tom Cruise. No, seriously. In my article Exchange Your Best Efforts for the Best Efforts of Others, I was discussing the idea of Ayn Rand that money is a by product of virtue in a free society where no exploitation or theft…
