INTERVIEWS WITH:
Praise for The Value Investors
"Ronald Chan's book contains two of my favorite subjects—investing and biographies. Seeing them combined in such a flowing format is very enjoyable."
—Donald Yacktman, President and Co-Chief Investment Officer, Yacktman Asset Management Co.
"With wisdom, perspective, insight, pragmatism, and emotional intelligence, Ronald Chan delivers invaluable and timeless guidance that individual and institutional investors all over the world can effectively apply to improve their investment performance."
—David M. Darst, CFA, Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney
"Ronald Chan's interviews with leading value investors bring forth outstanding investing insights. The investors explain their successful approaches and provide examples to learn from. I recommend this book to all investors, small or large, novice or experienced."
—Prem C. Jain, McDonough Professor of Accounting and Finance, Georgetown University, and author of Buffett Beyond Value
If Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone are so smart, why are their stocks long-term losers?
We live in the age of Big Media, with the celebrity moguls at the helms of the media conglomerates telling us that "content is king" and "growth is good." But for all the excitement, glamour, drama, and publicity they produce, why can't these moguls and their companies manage to deliver the kind of returns you'd get from closing your eyes and throwing a dart? In The Curse of the Mogul, Jonathan A. Knee, Bruce C. Greenwald, and Ava Seave lay bare the inexcusable financial performance that lies beneath Big Media's false veneer of power.
In an industry built on celebrity, mogul-fueled megalomania has run rampant, with shareholders footing the bill. Moguls have successfully propagated a myth that both makes them appear indispensable to the business and justifies their lousy performance: since they are managers of creative talent and artistic product, being subject to appraisal using traditional strategic, financial, or operational metrics is just unfair, isn't it?
But the stark facts speak for themselves:
?Since 2000, the largest media conglomerates have lost $200 billion in market capitalization from their collective balance sheets-making Citigroup's red ink look like a pale blush.
?These media companies have consistently underperformed for over a generation-not just since the Internet emerged as a competitive force but for the decade before anyone ever heard of "new media."
?Misguided investment and acquisition strategies have created the paradox that, in media, the faster revenues grow, the worse the stocks perform.
By rigorously examining individual media businesses on their own terms, the authors point out the difference between judging a company by how many times it's CEO is seen in Sun Valley and by whether it generates consistently superior profitability. The book is packed with enough sharp-edged data to bring the most high-flying, hot-air-filled mogul balloon crashing down to earth.
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