We significantly trimmed the Fund’s position in Alleghany during early 2017 and as of April 30th the position size was below 2% of Fund NAV. We have owned Alleghany (NYSE:Y) in the Fund for many years, occasionally adding to our position on price weakness and occasionally trimming on price strength. The business itself has been remarkably consistent over the last 15 years or so. Using book value per share (or BVPS, which is generally the preferred metric for assessing wealth creation for insurance companies) Alleghany grew at an annualized rate of 8.5% for the five years ended December 31, 2016. Over the trailing ten year period, the annualized BVPS growth was 7.8% and for the trailing 15 years the growth rate was 8.0%. Interestingly, the common stock has appreciated at a 16.3% compound annualized growth rate over the last five calendar years through 2016, or roughly double the book value growth in that period. As a result of the recent stock price appreciation, the shares traded at the time of our last sale of just over 120% of the most recently reported book value. We’ve historically purchased shares at prices at or below 90% of book value, and Alleghany has wisely repurchased its own shares at attractive prices below book value over the last several years. From 2009 to 2016, the highest price the market was willing to pay for Alleghany was rarely higher than 105% of book value, and on average once per year one could buy shares at prices at or below 90% of book value. The last time Alleghany stock routinely traded as high as 120% of book value was in 2007 just before the financial crisis, and the stock price lagged book value growth for nearly five years thereafter despite solid business results. I bring Alleghany to your attention because it serves as a fairly typical example of what has been going on in the stock market over the past five years, where broad stock market performance has been running much hotter than underlying business performance. We decided to retain a small position in Alleghany because we felt that holding a small residual investment in a consistent and conservatively managed business like Alleghany at a higher than average 1.2X multiple to book value is still preferable to most other alternatives we are able to currently identify. But we cannot justify keeping Alleghany at a larger position size unless we can conjure up reasonable scenarios that would allow Alleghany to suddenly compound book value per share at much higher than the 8% annualized rate it has managed over the last 5, 10, and 15 years. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to come up with a reasonable scenario in which Alleghany suddenly enjoys a much higher growth rate than it has produced in the past.
From Zeke Ashton (Trades, Portfolio)'s Centaur Management semi-annual 2017 shareholder letter.
