Oak Value Fund Manager Interview

Have just read this informative interview of Oak Value Fund Managers at Motley Fool.

http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2007/06/20/oak-value-interview-meet-the-managers.aspx

Here are some excerpts. Happy reading.

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But I will tell you, one of the things we have wrestled with often is when you find a good company,if you find a great company -- and in many ways youhave talked about your interest in eBay, and I thinkwe would all probably agree, it really has many of thecharacteristics of a great company.

Valuation is the hard part. We run a worst case, abest case, and a base case. We do our work using abase case of what we think is a very reasonable,rational, and what we usually find to be a veryconservative thought process of what will unfold. Therisk to us is that if we find a really great one, andthere are not that many really great ones, we have tospend lots of time on the maintenance part of ourresearch to understand and make sure we are properlyvaluing it. We want a good understanding what itreally is worth, because we don't want to sell tooearly. But when it does get to our intrinsic value, wedo move on even if it is a great company.David Carr: One of the reasons we always demand themargin of safety is we have been through severealligator-biting times, and we have seen our rear endshanging out there, and we have the bite marks to proveit. That experience is valuable, and I am not sure itcan ever be passed on without having been experienced.

Final thoughts

DM: You get one final parting shot here. If peoplewant to become better investors, what do you think isthe first thing they should focus on?DC: I think the service that you all provide and theeffort that you make is important in trying to educatepeople, because there are so many people saying youmust do something now and time is going away quickly,and I think the ability to be able to think long termand to understand is a nice perspective. So I wouldsay, maintain perspective.

LC: There is a quote by Ben Graham where he says,"Investing is most intelligent when it isbusinesslike." And so, have the same perspective whenyou look at investing in businesses, even though youare only buying a hundred shares or a thousand sharesor a million shares, or whatever you are buying.Recognize that you are buying a piece of a business,and pursue it with the same diligence and thoughtprocess and analysis that you would if you were goingto buy the entire business.