In this episode, William Green chats with British investing legend Terry Smith. Terry, a member of Bloomberg’s index of billionaires, manages the Fundsmith Equity Fund, which is the UK’s largest stock fund. Since 2010, it’s returned more than 600%, beating the MSCI World Index by over 200 percentage points. Here, Terry talks in depth about the skills, personality traits, & principles that catapulted him from poverty to the pinnacle of the investing world.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:
00:00 - Intro
04:01 - How Terry Smith was shaped by poverty & violence.
35:17 - How he achieved fame by exposing financial deception.
39:26 - What he looks for when identifying great businesses.
46:54 - Why many of his favorite companies are 100 years old.
51:56 - Which sectors he shuns & which he likes.
58:42 - How Microsoft embodies what he loves in a business.
1:00:29 - Why it’s worth paying up for the best companies.
1:20:15 - Why the US is his favorite place to invest.
1:21:44 - How being a CEO made him a better investor.
1:32:07 - What he learned from Sir John Templeton.
1:35:46 - Why he refuses to speak with brokers or read their research.
1:40:30 - Why it’s hard to be successful professionally & personally.
1:52:46 - Why he’s deeply skeptical about Tesla.
Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences.
BOOKS AND RESOURCES
- Terry Smith’s investment firm, Fundsmith.
- Terry Smith’s book, Investing for Growth.
- Terry Smith’s book, Accounting for Growth.
- William Green’s book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier” – read the reviews of this book.
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