In a recent episode of "Millennial Investing," host Kyle Grieve chatted with Jeremy Kokomoor, founder of Righttail Capital, delving into his distinctive investment philosophy and fund management practices. Kokomoor, who previously worked at T. Rowe Price, emphasizes a highly selective, long-term, and concentrated approach, aiming for deep alignment with his investors.
A cornerstone of Righttail Capital is its unconventional fee structure, inspired by Warren Buffett's 0/6/25 model. Unlike most funds that charge a management fee regardless of performance, Righttail imposes no management fee. Instead, it earns 25% of any performance above a 6% annual hurdle. Kokomoor champions this model for its strong alignment with investors, ensuring he only profits when clients achieve substantial returns. He openly acknowledges the financial challenges of foregoing a steady income stream, citing it as a primary reason for its rarity in the industry. Beyond fees, Kokomoor fosters alignment by being Righttail's largest investor himself, both in dollar terms and as a percentage of his net worth, alongside personal habits that ensure he's in the best frame of mind for decision-making. He also offers a management-fee-only option (1.25%) to cater to different investor preferences, noting a surprisingly even split among his partners.
Kokomoor rejects the conventional "value" or "growth" labels, asserting that all successful investing ultimately seeks quality businesses at fair prices. His priority is business quality, with price being a secondary but still crucial consideration. He views margin of safety not just as a low price, but also as inherent business quality: strong balance sheets, excellent management, and sustainable competitive advantages. These attributes allow companies to play "offense" during economic downturns, gaining market share while weaker competitors struggle.
Quantitatively, Kokomoor focuses on a company's reinvestment runway and the incremental rates of return it can achieve. He seeks businesses that can thoughtfully reinvest their cash flow to generate even greater future capital and cash flow. Qualitatively, this translates to investing in companies with strong "moats" – sustainable competitive advantages that protect them from competition and allow them to maintain high returns on capital. He highlights O'Reilly Auto Parts and NVR as examples. O'Reilly exemplifies continuous investment in growth (new stores, distribution), yielding phenomenal returns on incremental capital. NVR, a homebuilder, stands out for its asset-light model, avoiding land ownership by using options, and its aggressive, value-creating share buyback program, which has led to an "absurdly low" share count and tremendous long-term performance despite appearing optically expensive compared to peers.
Embracing a concentrated portfolio of 8 to 15 names, Kokomoor dedicates his time to becoming an expert on each holding. This allows for significant impact when investments perform well and manageable downside when they falter. He enters positions based on prior knowledge, perceived investment greatness, and a willingness to learn more as he owns the business, often starting with a 5% allocation and adding over time if performance and conviction grow. He remains flexible on market capitalization, though his current smallest holding is around $5 billion, expressing a desire to find more smaller, high-potential businesses in the future.
His investment cadence is slow, typically making zero to three new investments per year. This low turnover allows him to continuously deepen his understanding of existing holdings and explore new industries without pressure to deploy capital. He notes that periods of market dislocation, like early COVID-19, often present the best opportunities to upgrade portfolio quality.
For valuation, Kokomoor employs a "bond math" approach, calculating an investment's internal rate of return (IRR) by summing its cash earnings yield, growth without reinvestment (e.g., market dominance), and growth from reinvestment (capital deployed at high rates). He uses discounted cash flow (DCF) and traditional multiples as sanity checks, especially for high-growth, high-multiple companies, ensuring the projected returns are reasonable. This methodology helps him appreciate why a seemingly expensive business might still be a superior long-term investment due to its reinvestment capabilities.
Geographically, Kokomoor focuses primarily on North America (US and Canada) due to his understanding of their rule of law and shareholder-friendly regulations. He is open to other developed markets but avoids emerging markets where regulatory frameworks are less clear. He steers clear of industries like biotech, where specific scientific expertise is paramount, and commodity-dependent sectors like metals and mining, citing the difficulty of predicting commodity prices and the limited control companies have over their core product. His circle of competence includes industries with strong barriers to entry, such as specialized distributors, certain business services, software, and regulated monopolies (e.g., railroads, waste management), as well as unique companies in otherwise challenging industries, like NVR in homebuilding.
Jeremy Kokomoor's approach is characterized by deep research, patience, and a relentless focus on high-quality businesses with strong competitive advantages and intelligent capital allocation, all underpinned by a fee structure designed for maximum investor alignment.