Whitney Tilson's New Book Will Still Be Relevant '10 or 20 Years From Now'

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Kase Capital founder and Managing Partner Whitney Tilson recently co-authored a new book,
The Art of Value Investing: How the World's Best Investors Beat the Market
, with media executive John Heins. Based on eight years of interviews from
Value Investor Insight
, a monthly newsletter created by Tilson and Heins,
The Art of Value Investing
aims to answer all of an equity money manager's most important questions.
"We've interviewed 200 of the greatest value investors in the world -- Bill Ackman, David Einhorn, Seth Klarman, Leon Cooperman -- you name it, both in the hedge fund and mutual fund industry," Tilson told Benzinga. "There's such an enormous accumulated wisdom from all of these interviews that we've done -- these are in-depth, eight-page interviews -- so what we've done for this book is go through and compile the most insightful things any of these managers have said and organized them by topic." There are chapters regarding circle of competence, when to buy, when to sell, how to develop an investment strategy, tips on short-selling -- to name a few. "Critically, one of the most important things I'm reminded of every day is how to control your emotions -- the mental side of investing," said Tilson. "We're really proud of it and we think it's a good book for novice investors, but even the savviest pros can take some lessons from this as well."
Building an Empire
Tilson and Heins started by asking money managers how they built their firms, as well as their track records. "What's your edge?" they'd ask. "How do you differentiate yourself from everybody else out there?" "The second part of the interview is, 'Tell us about four or five of your best stock ideas right now,'" said Tilson. Why were these billionaires -- who typically won't talk to the press -- willing to share their ideas with Value Investor Insight? "Some of them are doing it because they want to get their name out there and they're looking to build their business and this is just publicity," said Tilson. "But a lot of managers talk to us that don't talk to the media in general for two reasons. One is because I'm in the business and I know a lot of these people personally. We've gotten interviews that way. "Secondly, we are very different from a typical reporter who is just looking for a quote to put in a story. Sometimes those quotes come out wrong or you do a long interview with someone and they choose to use the one quote that makes you look bad, whereas we do in-depth interviews that really make someone look good. We're interviewing managers, keep in mind, who pride themselves on doing in-depth research into the stocks they own. So it only makes since that if these guys wanna talk stocks, they want to talk stocks in an in-depth way. So the fact we have a long format that allows them to go into depth and really show the quality of their research and their thinking is something that's very different from just talking to a reporter."
A Much Broader Book
Tilson said that he feels
The Art of Value Investing
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is much broader than his last book,
More Mortgage Meltdown: 6 Ways to Profit in These Bad Times
. "I think this book will be as interesting and as relevant 10 or 20 years from now as it is today," he said. "There's not a single stock idea in The Art of Value Investing. That's not what it's about." While Tilson contributed to
The Art of Value Investing
, he said that his co-author deserves most of the credit. "My role -- I'm a full-time hedge fund manager," said Tilson. "John is the full-time CEO of Value Investor Media. So I helped open doors in the industry to identify promising, up-and-coming managers. David Einhorn and Bill Ackman are personal friends of mine. I help open doors for certain managers who otherwise might not have talked to what was initially, of course, an unknown publication when we first started. "But John Heins conducted most of the interviews himself. He has a fabulous background for this -- he's a Stanford MBA, he was a senior executive in the publishing industry, but he was also a business writer for Forbes. He's got a very strong business background and understands investing and he's an incredible writer and has the publishing background. Initially I did all of the interviews with him, and then it became kind of superfluous. He did such a superb job with it. He deserves the actual lion's share of the credit for actually doing and writing up almost all of the interviews and deserves the lion's share of the credit for actually pulling the book together and going through those 200 interviews and pulling out the best stuff and organizing it in an easy to read, tight way. I tip my hat to John for both Value Investor Insight and the book that came out of it."
Louis Bedigian is the Senior Tech Analyst and Features Writer of Benzinga. You can reach him at 248-636-1322 or louis(at)benzingapro(dot)com. Follow him @LouisBedigianBZ
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Posted In: NewsHedge FundsSuccess StoriesTechTrading IdeasGeneralJohn HeinsKase CapitalMore Mortgage MeltdownThe Art of Value InvestingWhitney Tilson
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