Human behavior, not just financial analysis, drives outperformance in investing.

We founded Micawber Capital to help people we care about grow their wealth and increase financial security. We aim to preserve capital by having a large margin of safety in our investments while attempting to generate attractive returns through market cycles.

Separately Managed Account

We offer investors a concentrated, non-diversified, long-only equity strategy through a separately managed account (SMA). You maintain direct ownership of the underlying securities in your portfolio which will provide additional control and transparency with regards to customization and tax-loss harvesting. Accounts may be set up as Individual, Joint, or IRA. We use Interactive Brokers as our custodian.

Partnership

Too often, we see advisers counsel one thing for clients and another for themselves. We believe that aligning ourselves with our clients creates the proper incentives. Thus, Mr. Mepani and his immediate family aim to invest the majority of their liquid net worth in the same strategies that are offered to clients.

Fees

Our goal is to keep fees simple and low. All accounts are charged a 1.00% fee on assets.

Portfolio Manager

Micawber Capital LLC’s managing member is Rahul Mepani, CFA (LinkedIn). He has spent over 20 years managing investment portfolios in a variety of strategies and asset classes including market neutral equity and macro. Prior to founding Micawber, his experience includes time at Balyasny Asset Management, Independence Capital, and Visium Asset Management.

Mr. Mepani graduated from Harvard University in 2001 with an A.B. degree in computer science. He received his CFA charter in 2006.

He lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife and two children.

Our Investment Philosophy

THINK LIKE AN OWNER

Stocks represent an ownership stake in a business. They are not pieces of paper that happen to have prices. If you buy an investment property with four friends as equal partners, you own one share out of five. You are entitled to twenty percent of the profits from rent after expenses like painting, cleaning, advertising, and taxes. Similarly, if you own twenty shares out of a hundred shares in a company, you own twenty percent of that company. You are entitled to twenty percent of the profits from sales after expenses. So, if you buy stock in a company, no matter how little, you are an owner of that company.

INTRINSIC VALUE

With work and experience, a range of values can be determined for a business. This range may be wide or narrow depending on the characteristics of the business and your knowledge of it. To go back to our investment property, you may have a very good idea of what a three-bedroom house would cost in your hometown, maybe even down to a 5% range. On the other hand, you probably don’t know within 30% what a million square feet of warehouse space sells for in Northern Virginia. This value is often referred to as intrinsic value.

VOLATILITY IS GOOD

The stock market price of our business may vary wildly from its intrinsic value. You are given a price quote every day for your stock and it may be very volatile. Imagine someone offered to buy your home for twice what you think it’s worth or your neighbor offered to sell you their home for half your estimate. This happens regularly in the stock market when investors are feeling frightened or greedy.

MARGIN OF SAFETY

We are looking to make investments that reduce the chance of a permanent loss of capital. We do this by buying companies at a market price that is substantially below our estimate of intrinsic value. If we can buy our property at a significant discount to what we think it is really worth, we have mitigated most of the risk in the investment from the outset.

Portfolio Characteristics

Company Investment Criteria

High Returns on Capital
Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Ample Reinvestment Runway
Excellent Management
Fortress Balance Sheet
Great Valuation

Performance

YTD Return

1.78%

As of 1/6/2021

Annualized Return

16.53%

Since inception

Inception Date

8/12/2019

# of Holdings

19

Notes and Disclosures

The benchmarks included in this report are the S&P 500 TR Index in USD which tracks the S&P 500 Index with all dividends reinvested and The Russell 1000 Value Index in USD. The Adviser believes that the indices are an appropriate benchmark for clients because it is constituted of similar securities (country, size, industry) as those in which the Adviser invests on behalf of clients or in which the client may commonly invest on their own.
Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. There is potential for both profit and significant loss.
Performance numbers are net of all client fees, commissions, and expenses.
The consolidated returns shown above include all SMA accounts of the Adviser from inception to date.
The returns have been calculated using a time-weighted return methodology by a qualified custodian, Interactive Brokers.
The prices and valuations of securities have been provided by independent outside parties to Interactive Brokers.