Filipino Value Investors

Bee Happy. Tony Tan Caktiong's Jollibee is now larger than its "langhap-sarap" beginnings. It has acquired restaurant subsidiaries and builds them into strong brands.

A fellow investor once raised a concern on the applicability of value investing here in the Philippines. Paraphrasing his comments: he observed that many Filipino investors try to mimic their US counterpart—then again, do we have the likes of Jim Rogers and Warren Buffett locally? It seems no one here succeeded using value investing alone.

It was a good, stimulating question which challenged the universality and relevance of value investing across borders. Immediately, I tried to reflect on it. My top-of-mind recall pointed to Manny Pangilinan. I didn’t know the knitty-gritty details of his investment checklist/filters, but I thought that when his investment vehicle, Metro Pacific, acquires whole businesses, it's definitely got to be rooted/grounded on the idea of having a return on investment not by way of stock price appreciation but by way of fundamental earnings generated by the business.

Paradigm Crossover between Stock Investing and Owning Businesses

The Philippine Stock Exchange Makati trading floor. Most are still mysticized by the inner workings of the stock market when its basic underpinnings can be rooted to ownership of real, alive businesses.

While one may initially perceive stock investing as a totally different matter from the idea of owning ordinary, real businesses, the truth is, they are, fundamentally and economically, the same thing. Of course, a sophisticated investor, arbitrageur, or short-term trader may immediately espouse that there are certain special considerations (e.g. legal qualities or market factors) inherent to stock ownership or trading that makes them quite different. But these things usually distract or confuse stock market investors from what should really matter most—that is, that stocks are, first and foremost, real businesses. This is what, I believe, the single, most essential paradigm to cause an investor to execute sound, long-lasting investments which consistently create wealth and compound value.