Click Here to Receive Our Weekly Earnings Call Notes
Dear Reader,
I founded Avondale in 2011 because I couldn’t find the right home to pursue my passion for investing. I loved the craft of investing and wanted to dedicate my professional life to learning how to be the best investor I possibly could, but I knew that this type of thinking has little place in the investment industry as it stands today.
At Avondale, we think long term, care about our clients and are driven by a basic desire to never stop learning. These couldn’t be further from the values of Wall Street. On Wall Street greed, hubris and reckless self-interest reign supreme. And so I knew that if I wanted a home to pursue my passion in the right way, I would have to build it, which is why I created Avondale.
Our mission is to be the investment industry’s answer to the organic food movement. Financial markets are like grocery stores and the shelves have been stocked by Wall Street. Wall Street’s products are sugary, fatty and bad for your long term financial health.
We’re not the first to realize that Wall Street is producing junk food. Over the last decade many individuals have adopted index funds as a low cost way to avoid many of Wall Street’s tricks. But we think that this is the equivalent of saying “rather than try to figure out what’s healthy, I’m just going to buy the whole store.” That’s not a great approach when the store is filled with junk.
At Avondale, we take a different approach. We have trained ourselves to identify only the best organic ingredients and prepare a farm-to-table investment meal that is not only good for you but tastes good too.
We embrace the fact that doing this in the right way takes hard work. It takes developing a truly unique supply chain, interviewing farmers and learning about how they produce their crops. It takes building processes and relationships that are completely off the beaten path. It takes being open minded about new methods and embracing old ones. Above all, it takes a relentless commitment to doing what’s best for the customer.
We view investing as a fundamentally human pursuit. We’re not about algorithms, derivatives or Sharpe ratios. We are about building long term relationships. We want to fundamentally change the way that the investment industry conducts business, and we are always looking for partners who share our mission. Whether you are an individual, advisor or professional investor, if this letter makes sense to you then we are interested in hearing from you. Welcome home.
Sincerely,
Scott Krisiloff, CFA
CEO
Avondale Asset Management