Last year I attended the London Value Investor Conference (referred to as "LVIC" from here), and was highly impressed with the quality of the speakers. Going to this conference feels like being a battery getting charged up with the value principles that we already know, but can easily forget in the constant market noise of day to day activity. So I was delighted to be able to attend this year as well.

Tickets are expensive, but a lot of the money goes to charity. We baulk at paying for education, yet cheerfully throw away thousands of pounds by making bad & rash decisions in our investing careers. Therefore to my mind, attending this event is money well spent.

 

 

 

My write-ups on last year's conference can be found with the links below, and are well worth a re-read, even if I say so myself!

Part 1 - Richard Oldfield of Oldfield Partners

Part 2 - Simon Denison-Smith of Metropolis Capital

Part 3 - Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital

 

 

Turning to this year's event, I've saved the best for first, as my memory is already starting to fade slightly from the event on 22 May.

 

 

About Jon Moulton

Jon Moulton is a renowned venture capitalist, aged 64. He was founder and managing partner of private equity firm Alchemy Partners, and more recently established Better Capital, a private equity firm specialising in turnarounds.

To get a flavour of him, this short BBC video from 2012 is interesting.

His speech given to the LVIC was blunt, and full of humour (slightly politically incorrect occasionally!), and nuggets of investing gold, delivered in a softened Northern accent. He gave his perspectives on a highly successful career in private equity and venture capital, which are not only interesting, but have obvious read-across to what we do, investing in publicly quoted equities.

Usefully, his speech was mainly about his investment mistakes & what he learned from them.

For the avoidance of doubt, I'll write in the first person as Moulton spoke, with my comments in brackets.

 

 

Summary of my career

Angel investing - I've done bloody well, but a third of the original investments (by value) were lost.

34 years in private equity ("PE" from…

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