Mike Nicoletti and Jason Wallace here, 2 of your 3 Telltales hosts. When we’re not analyzing markets and companies on Telltales, we manage Top Mark Capital Partners, an investment partnership Mike started under Hunt’s mentorship in 2012.
We take a long-term approach to investing. We focus on finding businesses run by great management teams who have a long term vision, the benefits of which will take time to materialize. By having patience and looking further out than others, we are playing a different game entirely.
This is why we refer to Top Mark Capital Partners as an investment partnership and not a hedge fund. The relationship we seek with YOU is quite different.
Our partnership is raising publicly under a 506(c) designation under an evergreen structure that can admit new partners each quarter. Below you will find a summary of our investment philosophy and process. If you resonate with our approach, we invite you to consider joining our partnership. The next opportunity is January 1, so Schedule a call now or send an email to mnicoletti@topmarkcapital.com to get started.
Sincerely,
Mike Nicoletti & Jason Wallace
Top Mark Philosophy
“To enjoy a reasonable chance for continued better than average results, the investor must follow policies which are (1) inherently sound and promising, and (2) not popular on Wall Street.”
BENJAMIN GRAHAM
Challenge Conventions to Achieve Exceptional Outcomes. Ex: concentrated equity investing is a structurally advantaged approach that requires patience and a long-term outlook.
Embrace the Manic Nature of Mr. Market. We believe in loose form EMH, meaning we believe the market does a relatively poor job of pricing securities relative to their long-term potential. Furthermore, recent increases in passive indexing is creating more, not less, asset miss-pricing. Opportunity abound.
Harness the Power of Long-term Thinking.We believe that identifying management teams that think and allocate capital for the long-term and have a penchant for value creation is key to successful concentrated equity investing. We do not attempt to ‘time’ the markets and as such it may take a long or a short amount of time for the market to properly value a company.
Top Mark Process
“If your behavior and that of your managers is conventional, you’re likely to get conventional results – either good or bad. Only if the behavior is unconventional is your performance likely to be unconventional ...and only if the judgments are superior is your performance likely to be above average.”
- HOWARD MARKS
1. Themes. We orient our research efforts around themes. Our themes are driven by long-term underlying trends that take decades to materialize or events that are more acute in nature. Both trends and events provide a starting point for understanding sectors and businesses affected by or affecting a given theme.
2. Investment Ideas. Further research into sectors and businesses within a theme may uncover investment ideas. In many cases, promising investment ideas have management teams that are making long-term investments related to a particular theme or event.
3. Portfolio & Risk Management. Our portfolio represents our best investment ideas. We actively monitor those positions for changes relative to our investment thesis and apply an IRR based approach to exiting those positions as they realize their potential.