Mercantile Investments - MVT. (BIL revisited)

[Major von Tempsky]

Not sure how MVT comes into the title but I can't resist making a post anyway :-)
I played soccer at Vic University with Gary and Johnny Weiss and if it's the right Peter Wise (who now lives in Australia) he was in my class at Wellington College. And of course Sir Ron was at Wellington College - but about 10 years before me.

Sir Ron fell prey to an old temptation which once undid me, you look at your stocks and one seems head and shoulders above the rest so you sell off those and end up with just one stock. Happened with BIL when he ended up totally in London hotels (Mt Charlotte was it called?) under the premise that entry was too hard and he had cornered the hotel market. So entrepreneurs bought and built London office blocks which they then converted to hotels. Fatal. He also failed to read Buffetology by Mary Buffett which identifies a number of types of problem stocks such as commodities. Coats, which is what Sir Ron totally ended up in was in making and selling thread, an obvious commodity. And a further warning to those keen on Air NZ, Buffettology warns to keep out of because the barriers to entering the industry are too low and the profits rapidly get competed away. Here endeth the lesson :-)