I look for companies with the capacity to suffer — the willingness to sacrifice near-term profits for long-term growth. That is the rarest quality in business.
I bought Nestle in the 1980s and I still own it. When you find a business that can compound across every continent for 40 years, why would you sell?
Family-controlled companies can invest for 20 years without turning a profit. Public companies with activist shareholders can barely think past the next quarter. That gap is my edge.
Semper Vic means always conquering. The name is the strategy. Find businesses that are always conquering new markets, and hold them forever.
The best brands in the world are deferred gratification machines. They invest today in markets that won't pay off for a decade. Most investors can't stomach that. I love it.
I operate from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The further you are from Wall Street, the clearer you think. That's not a theory — it's 40 years of evidence.