Kennon-Green & Co. Global Asset Management, Wealth Management, Investment Advisory, and Value Investing

What Is a Franchise?

The word “franchise” is used to describe an arrangement in which one business, the franchisor, allows another business, the franchisee, to use its name, trademarks, trade secrets, intellectual property, branding, operating systems, and internal support resources in a specific geographic area, sometimes with an exclusivity provision that guarantees no other franchises will be granted within a specific buffer zone so the franchisees aren’t cannibalizing sales from each other, in exchange for some sort of payment.

Details

The Folly of Investing in 50-and-100-Year Bonds

Benjamin Graham once wisely observed that more money has been lost by investors “reaching for yield” than stolen at the barrel-end of a gun.  During periods of anemic interest rates on fixed-income securities, bank deposits, and cash equivalents, a combination of impatience, action bias, and desperation causes savers to do what they would otherwise consider extraordinarily foolish.  

Details

Our Personal Project for 2016 – Addition Through Subtraction

Our Personal Project for 2016 – Addition Through Subtraction A few years ago, one of our projects involved focusing our pantry on the bare essentials; raw ingredients that could be used to make almost any recipe imaginable.  At the time, I posted pictures of the early stages, which included different types of flour (bread flour,…

Details

Tiffany & Company Valuation – Five Years Later

Almost five years ago, Tiffany & Company was glittering at time when much of the corporate world was still mired in misery from devastating losses and the implosion of Wall Street. Based on the annual report for the prior year, 2010, worldwide net sales had risen by 12% on a constant-exchange-rate basis, reaching $3,085,290,000. After-tax profits were up 39% from the year before, 2009, when the developed world had gone through the worst meltdown since the Great Depression, coming in at $368,403,000.

Details