Chuck Akre

Akre Capital Managements’s investing Guru Chuck Akre wears at least three hats: CEO, chief investment officer and managing member. Employing an “all-weather” equity strategy, Akre uses a classic value approach in selecting companies for his portfolio, buying companies with high returns on capital and pricing power in excess of input costs. He looks for a strong “people model” or management that operates in the best interest of all shareholders. Akre also shops for extensive reinvestment opportunities. When all of these criteria are met, he makes investments purchased at reasonable valuations. With his investment approach in mind, here’s a review of Chuck Akre’s sells in the first quarter of 2013. Two of his sell-out holdings, Jeffries Group Inc. (JEF) and White River Capital Inc. (RVR), are companies that were recently acquired by other companies. More...

ASSET MANAGEMENT, BANKING, REIT – DIVERSIFIED, FINANCIAL SERVICES

Chuck Akre of Akre Capital Management, bought two new stocks in the fourth quarter: TransDigm Group Inc. (TDG) and Jefferies Group Inc. (JEF). More...

The Akre Focus Fund Retails Shares (AKREX) and Institutional Shares (AKRIX) returned 2.01% and 2.10% net of fees and expenses, respectively in the fourth quarter of 2012 versus the S&P 500 with a return of - 0.38%. Our positions in Moody's, MasterCard, Visa and TD Ameritrade were the largest contributors to performance over the quarter. Ross Stores and Dollar Tree were the most meaningful detractors from performance over the quarter. At the end of the fourth quarter we were 91.6% invested. The portfolio held 31 common stock positions and one convertible preferred position. More...

In last year’s choppy economy, Chuck Akre was one of the few to outpace the market, his Akre Focus fund (AKREX) returning 11.1% compared to 2.1% for the S&P 500. A bottom-up value investor, Akre invests according to a strategy trademarked the “three-legged school,” which involves researching for companies with three primary characteristics: More...

Chuck Akre, who manages Virginia-based Akre Capital Management, has reported 20 transactions in his third quarter portfolio update: More...

Chuck Akre discusses power of compounding with a very simple example. This is just unreal, watch for yourself. Watch what a penny would be after 30 days if doubled everyday. More...

CHUCK AKRE, AKRE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, VALUE INVESTOR, VALUE INVESTING, POWER OF COMPOUND GROWTH

Well-known value investor Chuck Akre of Akre Capital Management was on Bloomberg to discuss his views about the market and his investment strategy. More...

CHUCK AKRE, AKRE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, VALUE INVESTOR, VALUE INVESTING, MERKEL, INSURANCE COMPANIES, BOOK VALUE, INVESTMENT STRATEGY

Investors can benefit in the stock market from two main sources of income, dividends and capital gains. Large, well-established companies offering high dividend yields would give investors sustainable frequent income stream via dividend payment. Here are three $10-billion companies which are worth looking at because those companies are well established, paying dividend consistently and offering high yield to shareholders. More...

Chuck Akre, manager of the Akre Focus Fund, believes that high unemployment, tight credit and rising food and energy costs will put a damper on consumer spending. Yet his fund’s largest holding, at 9.7 percent, is MasterCard Inc. (MA), the consumer credit card-servicing giant. The reason? Akre sees a growing trend towards paperless transactions, which he says will pay-off for MasterCard over the long-term. More...

Chuck Akre is a veteran investor who established his firm, Akre Capital Management, in 1999. In the last ten years, he beat the S&P 500 with his cumulative return of 187.9%, compared to the index’s 34.9%. When selecting stocks, Akre looks for companies that will gain real economic value and “that can More...

The TJX Companies Inc. is an off-price retailer of apparel and home fashions in the U.S. TJX Cos Inc. has a market cap of $30.54 billion; its shares were traded at around $40.79 with a P/E ratio of 19 and P/S ratio of 1.3. The dividend yield of TJX Cos Inc. stocks is 1.1%. TJX Cos Inc. had an annual average earnings growth of 14.5% over the past 10 years. More...

In a previous article, we reported the mood of the hedge fund gurus – who was buying and who was selling. This article summarizes the portfolio trend of the mutual fund gurus. More...

Chuck Akre, portfolio manager of Akre Focus funds was on CNBC to discuss the best stock to own now, Mastercard (MA) and Visa (V). More...

CHUCK AKRE, AKRE FOCUS FUNDS, MASTERCARD, VISA, CREDIT CARD COMPANIES, BEST STOCKS TO OWN

Value investor Chuck Akre has beaten the S&P 500 in 9 out of the last 10 years. His 10-year cumulative return until Dec. 31, 2011, was 188%, while the S&P just gained 35%. Chuck Akre looks for companies that have high return on equity with a wide moat, treat shareholders as partners, and have the ability and capacity to reinvest. He calls this the three-leg stool. To understand more about his investment philosophy, please read the transcript of his talk at the 8th Value Investor Conference and GuruFocus interview with him. More...

According to GuruFocus Insider Data, these are the largest CEO buys during the past week. The overall trend of CEOs is illustrated in the chart below: More...

I like how the interviewer makes it sound like the concentrated nature of the portfolio makes it harder. More...

Chuck Akre is the founder of Akre Capital Management LLC. As of 2007, his firm manages $2.6 billion. Akre has wide experience in the sphere as he has been in the securities business since 1968. Akre also served as sub-advisor of FBR Small Cap before 2009. More...

PORTFOLIO, GURU, VALUE INVESTOR, AKRE, OPPORTUNITY, WARREN BUFFETT

Chuck Akre is one of the best performing gurus this year. He has a very good handle with risks and he focuses his portfolio on high quality companies. As of 09/30/2011, Akre Capital Management, LLC owns 32 stocks with a total value of $589 million. These are the details of the buys and sells. More...

This is Chuck Akre's talk from 8th Annual Value Investor Conference in May 2011, Omaha, right before the annual shareholder meeting of Berkshire Hathaway. The upcoming 9th Annual Value Investor Conference will be held May 3 – 4, 2012, again in Omaha. The conference is organized by Bob Miles, author of several books including "The Warren Buffett CEO: Secrets of the Berkshire Hathaway Managers." More...

For almost two years now we have commented on the ideas of slower growth, the constrained consumer, high unemployment, and federal government deficit issues as reasons to remain cautious with our allocation of capital. During this time we have held higher than average amounts of cash and made opportunistic purchases along the way. As we look back to a December 2009 interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, we suggested that the market was on a sugar high and that we were in a period in which it was prudent to be cautious. It seems the sugar high has subsided and reality has set in. Since our 2008 and early 2009 experience was more unpleasant than we would have liked, we stated we would try to better incorporate our world view into our individual security selection, with an eye towards trying to minimize future unpleasantness. We have focused on connecting the dots as it relates to the overall economic environment and the opportunities/pitfalls facing individual businesses. Today the portfolio is constructed of a small number of businesses which we believe should certainly survive this halting economic environment. Many of these businesses have the opportunity to prosper in this difficult environment as well. The Akre Focus Fund results for the third quarter and year to date support this view. Our strongest contributors to performance were Dollar Tree, MasterCard, and American Tower. In past letters we have focused on the remarkable characteristics of our off-price retailers including terrific retail execution, outstanding balance sheets, and sizeable square footage growth, all of which have led to mid-teens and above growth in economic value per share for many years. In our last letter we highlighted MasterCard’s tollbooth position (pricing power) within the electronic payments space. A long time holding of our firm is American Tower. American Tower enjoys incredible economics: multi-year, non-cancellable contracts with wireless carriers, annual pricing escalators, and free cash flow well in excess of stated earnings. Belying its name, American Tower is far ahead of its peers in developing international operations and expertise. More than 40% of its towers are located outside the United States in countries such as India and Brazil with significant growth potential. Growth in the US continues to benefit from the rapidly growing demand for high speed wireless data and the required carrier investment in network capacity to deliver it. American Tower is expected to become a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) effective January 1, 2012 to minimize its corporate tax burden but otherwise we do not expect a material change to the operations or reinvestment opportunities at the company. Our biggest performance detractors in the quarter were Lamar Advertising and CarMax, both economically sensitive businesses that dipped during a period where macroeconomic concerns in the US and Europe dominated headlines. In Lamar’s case economic weakness continues to weigh most heavily on the local advertisers (read: small businesses) that make up most of Lamar’s revenue. In addition, there remain concerns about mobile ads on smartphones and Lamar’s own digital billboards cannibalizing its business. We reduced our position in Lamar this quarter, partly for tax purposes. However, Lamar currently trades at a high single-digit multiple of this year’s free cash flow—enough said. In the case of CarMax we have virtually no concerns about the business model which is showing remarkable flexibility in terms of inventory adjustments to shifting used car buying patterns. We firmly believe that our process which we label the “Three Legged Stool” allows us to have a level of confidence that our outcomes have the potential to be “better than average.” Further, because of the rigor and discipline associated with the process, we also firmly believe that the outcomes have the potential to be achieved with a “below average level of risk.” We continue to believe that the proper attitude is one of caution, while also staying alert to above average opportunities. Below are the top ten holdings of the very concentrated Akre Focus Fund at Sep 30 Top Holdings as of 9/30/2011 Dollar Tree, Inc. 12.1% Mastercard, Inc. 11.9% America Tower Corp. 10.4% Ross Stores, Inc. 9.7% Markel Corp. 7.1% O'Reilly Automotive, Inc. 5.5% TJX Companies, Inc. 4.3% Lamar Advertising Co. 4.2% Factset Research Systems, Inc. 4.1% Hartford Financial Services - Conv Pref 3.8% More...