Tonye Preghafi

A father & husband; A Madridista; I RT what interests me; I have absolute faith in God and hope you do too. NB: Retweets aren’t endorsements.

[Thierry from arvy 🇨🇭 @ThierryBorgeat]

Chris Hohn did a 90-minute sit-down with Nicolai Tangen and then dropped an investor letter the FT got hold of last week.

You’d think the guy who printed a record $18.9B last year would be doing victory laps. Instead he’s quietly rewiring his whole portfolio.

My favorite takes from both:

1.The most important thing in investing isn’t growth. It’s barriers to entry. Growth without a moat is the airline industry: 5% volume growth for 100 years and basically zero cumulative profit.

2.There are only about 200 companies on earth he considers high-quality and investable. His fund holds 15.

3.Average holding period: 8 years. Some positions 13. “You have to hold the company forever, because the stock market may be at very bad prices when you want to sell.”

4.His real test for a moat: can the company price above inflation? A 20% margin business that prices 1% above inflation grows profits 5% faster than revenue. Forever. Almost no companies can do this.

5. Industries he won’t touch: banks, autos, retail, insurance, tobacco, asset managers, fossil fuel utilities, airlines, wireless telecom, media, advertising. On banks: “sooner or later someone without a lot of intelligence comes to run them, and then it can be toxic.”

6.On AI generally: call centers go bankrupt. Indian outsourcing coders are next. But for everyone else, AI lowers costs and raises productivity. Companies with real moats become MORE valuable.

7. Here’s the punchline. The FT got hold of his investor letter. He cut his Microsoft stake from 10% of the fund to 1%. Roughly $8B sold. He’d held it since 2017 through a 400% rally. His reason: AI could disrupt Office and Azure faster than the market thinks.

8.He moved that capital into Alphabet. Doubled it from 3% to 5%. Now his largest tech position. The world’s best quality investor sold Microsoft and bought Google because he thinks Google’s moat is more durable in an AI world. Not the consensus trade.

9.The underlying thesis: “AI eats software.” If AI agents do the work humans used to pay per-seat SaaS licenses for, the whole SaaS model gets re-rated. Oracle, Adobe, Salesforce all ~40% off highs. Microsoft 25% off. Market is starting to agree.

10.When to sell? Not when something gets expensive. When conviction drops. Valuation is one variable, conviction is the other. What kills you isn’t being wrong, it’s permanent loss of capital.

11.He admits hardcore activism doesn’t work anymore. Too much of the shareholder base is passive index funds. And even when activism wins, you usually win in a bad business. “The business always wins.”

12.Counterintuitive take: there are more good companies in public markets than in private equity. The best businesses are too big for PE to buy. And when public companies sell something to PE, they’re selling the assets they want to get rid of.

13.On intuition: “thinking without thinking.” Pattern recognition from 20 years of reps. It’s how he sniffed out Wirecard while the German establishment was defending it. “Most investors trust authority too much.”

14.He basically stopped shorting. “You’re going to be eventually right but not be able to fund the losses.” The first guy to short Wirecard had to cover 19 years before it hit zero. Buffett told him he and Charlie studied shorting and concluded it was too hard.

15.He gives almost everything away. ~$500M a year. $10 prevents an unwanted pregnancy in Africa. $40 saves a child from severe malnutrition. $50 prevents permanent blindness.

16.Tangen asks: advice to young people? Hohn, who runs the world’s most profitable hedge fund: “Go on a spiritual path.” The guy who made $18.9B last year ends the interview saying only purpose and meaning matter.

The headline: the world’s best quality investor just sold his biggest tech compounder because he thinks AI is breaking the moat. Quietly, with conviction, on an 8-year horizon, while everyone else is still buying the AI winners of 2023.

[Leaders 𝕏 Junction @LeadersJunction]

This is how you can diffuse any conflict instantly‼️‼️

[Osaretin Victor Asemota @asemota]

This is right on the money. They don't need any of the other parts but just cable and news. America is in trouble if they succeed at doing this. They also have the backing of Darth Vader and Thanos. The people are still media pawns.

[Real Madrid Info ³⁶ @RMadridInfo]

Sunday's El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona drew a staggering global audience of over 650 million viewers.

Serting a new record for worldwide viewership in club football match.

Globally, El Clásico is the most-watched sporting event.

— AS

[Out of Context Human Race @NoContextHumans]

The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge averages 260,000 vehicles daily, each paying a $8 toll.👀💰

[Lagos Transport Fest @Lagtranspofest]

As the e-commerce landscape continues to evolve, so does the demand for efficient logistics solutions to support the growing volume of online transactions.

At the Lagos Transport Fest 2024, the session ‘Nigeria’s e-commerce Industry and the growing impact of efficient

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

There is only one boss

[EnvironmentGo! @environment_go]

@AMAZlNGNATURE That's beautiful.

[Scholarship for PhD @ScholarshipfPhd]

Literature Review Structure

[Carl Vellotti 🥞 @carlvellotti]

Many people confuse OKRs and KPIs

They're both about measuring against goals, so what's the difference?

I love this extremely tactical 1-pager:

[The Green Turf @eliavot_]

Marcotti wrote this article 2 years ago and it is still relevant today.

[The Real Deal @RealDealPodz]

xG wise no question which team created more chances tonight.

[Osaretin Victor Asemota @asemota]

"You are not advertising to a standing army but a moving parade" - Ogilvy

This is so true. Consumers change daily.

[Osaretin Victor Asemota @asemota]

Old money also relies heavily on politics and power. New money initially defies it until it realizes there is no other way. I read a book on the Rothschilds and others (See below) that gave me a different perspective on wealth and power. It is very much intertwined.

[NP @nadalprop_]

Rafael Nadal x Real Madrid

14 French Opens 🤝 14 Champions Leagues

36 Masters 🤝 36 LaLigas

5 Davis Cups 🤝 5 Club World Cups

2 Olympic Golds 🤝 2 Europa Leagues

GOAT tennis player 🤝 GOAT football club

[Scott Gorlick @sgorlick]

Today, Uber is a $140B company with more than 6 million drivers.

But in the early days, we had to overcome the same chicken and egg problem many startups face:

Without drivers ➡️ riders couldn’t get a car
And without riders ➡️drivers couldn’t make $

Here’s how we solved it:

[Dr. Toks 🦇 @fimiletoks]

This picture is misleading.

1. There is nothing like "original" alignment. The Lagos state government intended to build a 4 lane coastal road as an alternative to the Lekki Epe expressway to start at water corporation because it doesn't have any rights to the shoreline. 250m from the high tide line along Nigeria's coastline belongs to the FG. The Lagos state government decided to settle for its own ROW along the water corporation drive. The FG initially denied Lagos access to build the Lekki - Ikoyi bridge until the Late President Yaradua granted Fashola approval to demolish some of its properties at the end of Ikoyi hence it didn't make any sense for Lagos state govt to dream of asking for permission for a coastal RoW along the shoreline from the FG when Tinubu Gazetted the road. Obasanjo, as of that time, was a sworn enemy of Tinubu.

2. The FG, the owner of the 250m RoW, now has its own plan. How do you intend to bend an 8 lane road beside Ligali towers, avoid Gtbank event centre, merge it with Ligali Ayorinde street, handle collateral human and vehicular traffic running across the road to all the businesses on water corporation drive? Will the government fence off the road and block access like Lekki - Epe? Imagine GT food and drink festival or the usual concerts and activities along the water corporation drive. Will you build pedestrian walkways?

3. If the government decides to use the Water Corporation drive, more houses and businesses would have to be demolished for the road and the setback. Lekki - Epe is a 6 lane road. Imagine how wide an 8 lane road will be with setbacks. Can the water corporation drive accommodate this? More businesses, more buildings more compensation. Even at the point where the road merges in front, a lot of houses will have to give way.

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

The world's most livable cities, 2023:

1. Vienna 🇦🇹
2. Copenhagen 🇩🇰
3. Melbourne 🇦🇺
4. Sydney 🇦🇺
5. Vancouver 🇨🇦
6. Zurich 🇨🇭
7. Calgary 🇨🇦
8. Geneva 🇨🇭
9. Toronto 🇨🇦
10. Osaka 🇯🇵 (tied)
10. Auckland 🇳🇿 (tied)

According to The Economist Intelligence Unit

[Jacked Aecus | Wisdom for Men @JackedAecus]

20 Unspoken Rules for MEN.

1. Never shake a hand sitting down.