5 Investors with excellent track records

The 5 investors below have excellent track records and for each of them there are plenty of resources to understand their investment process. Let's begin!

1. Bill Ackman

Probably the most famous investor on the list. Bill have had some ups and downs with bad calls like herbal life and valeant. However, over the years, he has still managed to outperform.

His fund, pershing square, also publishes letters/reports for investors to look at and to try and understand his investment approach. 

Generally, Bill Ackman is a very concentrated investor preferring to hold less than 10 stocks at a time. He prefers consumer discretionary companies and he especially likes franchise companies e.g. domino's pizza and chipotle mexican grill.

From 2004-2022Q1 his performance has been 16.4% (after fees) vs 10.2% for the SP500.

2. Rob Vinall

Rob Vinall is another great investor and also follows a concentrated approach. His investments are little more spread out over the globe given that he is based in Switzerland. Investors can follow his moves by signing up for free on his website. He manages money under RV Capital and his fund's name is the business owner fund.

Recently, he has suffered quite a bit with his investments in Carvana and Alibaba, but even after accounting for this, his compounded at 14% since 2008. Before the beginning of the year, his fund grew close to 20% per annum!

3. Chuck Akre

Chuck Akre has been in the game for a long time and he is famous for his "three-legged-stool" approach. As an investor, he is focused on quality companies and is slightly less concentrated than the previous two investors.

You can see a Google talk on his investment approach here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O38I7QIc_eQ

The Akre Focus Fund has total annualised returns of 14.83% vs 12.98% SP500 since 2009.

4. Francois Rochon 

Francois Rochon is an intriguing investor based in Canada. He has a similar approach to Akre, with an emphasis on quality, but also compares investing to art...it must be because he is French?!

His annual letters are very good and each year he summarises his best ideas as well as his worst ideas. His fund is called Giverny Capital.

He too has given a Google talk:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ejmn_pxJwtI

The Rochon Global portfolio has compounded at 15.7% since 1993 compared to its benchmark which compounded at 9.9%.

5. Terry Smith.

Lastly, Terry Smith of fundsmith is also one to follow. Based in England, his approach is similar to Akre and Rochon i.e. quality investing.

Given that he is based in England, he has a few investments in established European brands. He also likes the consumer staples category.

He has also given a few talks:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B_-YBTI_EYw

His performance since 2010 has been 15.8% vs 11.2% MSCI World Index.