CEO & portfolio manager of Smead Capital Management (~US$5.5–6B AUM; Phoenix / Jersey City / London) — a concentrated value investor (25–30 holdings) with a heavy Canadian-energy sleeve. Running synthesis of his interviews, with per-transcript breakdowns and a stock index.
Owned (~1%); not a blue chip but a Circle K PE-rollup in the public market — bought on the Carrefour scare (insider buying), now chasing 7-Eleven / Seven & i.
Largest holding across the book, held since the Husky merger; ~1.6x capital while earning 20%+ (peak ~35%) returns on capital = multiple too low, so it buys back stock; trimmed only for the 10%-per-fund cap.
Owned (Bill); with Lennar "the Costco & Walmart of homebuilding" — lowest-cost new home, land-light balance sheet, into the most under-built US housing ever.
Owned since '22; John Fredriksen the best capital allocator, tanker supply shrunk, ~$100k/day rates — playing patience rather than selling the squeeze.
Owned since late 2024, added on Liberation Day 2025; a long-term commodity proxy — copper-dominant + coal/nickel/zinc + a marketing arm that mints money; owns Whitehaven too.
Owned since summer 2024 — the sleepy "grandmother" oil stock; Exxon owns 70% and half the float never trades, so the NCIB is a technical squeeze; premium argues for all-stock M&A. Critical of the 2025 "dividend growth" pivot.
New position this year; Blackrod 30k BOE/d growth with buybacks BEFORE the growth re-rate, Lundin-family stewardship and a narrow float that squeezes the buyback.
Owned (Bill); owns immuno-oncology and runs the most conservative income statement (expensed R&D) — cheap (~12x) in a policy-fear-depressed healthcare space.
2nd-largest holding; Meota SAGD + Hamlin rail terminal (no diluent, premium heavy blend, ~9-day cash turnover) and under-appreciated Vawn value under Adam Waterous — an acquisition vehicle once its stock is valued enough.
Owned; Clearwater waterflood throws off strong cash returns with unbookable long reserve life (reserves booked "for free"); should merge with Headwater for scale; "vote no" on the poison pill — shareholders should stay in control.
Owned (Bill; ~2% bought Q4 at 300/271); buying the policy headwind (the BAC/JPM playbook) with Hemsley insider buying — earns less than before but a great return if the S&P stalls.
Owned a decade (since the 2017 softwood-lumber dispute); the Quesnel, BC mill is the largest lumber mill in the world — supply curtailing (bullish) and wants a Jim Pattison open-market insider buy.
Owned; pure-play thermal coal — every energy transition pulls the old fuel forward (2024 the biggest coal year ever); hated China/steel sentiment = the opportunity.
Reference; recipient of Google's letter of credit — the illustration that "no one has enough capital" in the AI build-out, so the technology proliferates only as price falls.
Not owned; screens well on Waterous's criteria (low break-evens + high reserve life) — a natural consolidation target if sentiment sours; its Duvernay asset "should sit in Spartan Delta."
Not owned; poor returns on capital — a takeout target eventually ("won't be a company in 10 years"); fine if oil does well but not the highest-return use of capital.
Not owned; the generalist's default Canadian name (Murray Edwards is "daddy") — high quality, diversified, dominant liquidity, but not the highest-return producer.
Reference; fought Exxon over the Hess/Guyana asset and already produces in Venezuela — supermajors chase long-life offshore barrels rather than scaling in Canada.
Reference; what Devon paid in the US BLM sale illustrates the private-vs-public valuation gap — build the resource privately, then arbitrage the multiple to public players.
Not owned (too illiquid); interesting only for the Waterous/Fairfax partners — a non-oil-sands heavy-oil turnaround that could someday fold into Strathcona.
The asset-light 2002 winner used as a cautionary reference — the hyperscalers (Google included) are now capital-intensive, and it's the biggest Russell 1000 Value holding ("even value doesn't know what it is").
Owned then converted in the Strathcona takeout (took shares in shares; disliked the full-capital-gain US tax treatment); the NOL-takeout math made it "a banker's dream."
Reference; "eat or be eaten" — deep Permian plus un-sellable offshore/Oman arrangements; should sell Western Midstream after the Berkshire chemicals sale and buy back stock; at ~$40 with Buffett's 28% you get Anadarko + Oxy cheap.
Reference; the midstream/refinery spin-out that left Conoco a pure upstream supermajor — board member Doug Terreson built the "why upstream" framework.
Private / gray-market (not owned, too illiquid); has the most Clearwater scale and is minting cash — should go public, drop the dividend and roll up the play, but "they don't care."
Not owned; trades a higher multiple than Cenovus but lacks the technical squeeze; a possible Canadian supermajor consolidator (Elliott + Suncor could take out Cenovus all-stock and spin the US refineries).
Not owned; prefers Glencore over Teck simply because Glencore is bigger in coal — notes Glencore's near-hostile take of Teck's Elk Valley met-coal (EVR).
Not owned; if forced to own one gas name it's Tourmaline (Mike Rose the best gas allocator) — but Smead owns no direct gas (gas has "negative convexity" at the lows).
Reference; owns 70% of Imperial (so Imperial floats Exxon bonds and Exxon takes most of the NCIB); fought Chevron over the Hess/Guyana long-life asset; only Canadian politics could ever displace its control of Imperial.
Reference; the mega-IPO framed as a lottery ticket you needn't swing at — by Newton's third law its listing forces passive indexes to sell the largest constituents, marking the dilution moment as the mega-caps turn from buybacks to raising equity.
Not owned (exited) — the only Canadian name Smead bought and sold; disliked the ever-rising dividend and the agent-owner Veren merger; 8.4% dividend a red flag. Would re-look only on a dividend cut + buyback pivot.
In one line: A concentrated value investor (25–30 names) whose signature call is that Canadian oil is in a "golden era" nobody will admit to — a rationalized, consolidating market of scarce heavy-oil / SAGD producers priced at capital multiples "too low" for the 20%+ returns they deliver — wrapped inside a broader value view: commodities beat stocks for a decade, the AI-capex hyperscalers are "this generation's Nortel," and it's "the revenge of the value investor." The 2025 backfill (Mar/Jun/Jan → Jul-16) shows the thesis building over a full year; his father Bill Smead co-runs the firm and appears alongside him (Feb-05).
Golden era of Canadian oil. Scale, better egress and a rationalized (few-player) market make this "a golden era… and no one is saying that." Operators are right to grow into it (Cenovus, Strathcona, IPCO, Tamarack).
"Who's your daddy" — consolidation to a few majors. Every Canadian major has a controlling capital allocator (Waterous/Strathcona, Edwards/CNQ, Exxon/Imperial, Li Ka-shing/Cenovus); the game rolls up into 4–5 Canadian and 3–4 US supermajors (2M bbl/d, ConocoPhillips the template), done all-stock — the endgame behind Imperial's premium, MEG's takeout and APA as a "sitting duck." A railway-duopoly paradigm.
Dividends-vs-buybacks doctrine. Dividends are liabilities (a US holder loses ~23.6% of a Canadian dividend to withholding + tax; "the government isn't in the buyback business"); the right order is grow marginally → buy back cheap stock → only then a small/special dividend. Whitecap's 8.4% payout is a red flag.
3-year $90 oil / diff compression. The world needs ~4M bbl/d of new supply over 3 years and "the only way to fix it is price." The old $25 WCS diff is "gone… not in my lifetime" (he sees $5–$15) as pipelines multiply — be long oil unhedged, sell the refineries (they'll under-earn). Fade geopolitical shocks (the Venezuela raid, April tariffs).
Commodities beat stocks; the AI-capex bear case. Commodities beat the S&P over the next 10 years (a 20-year rotation). The hyperscalers are "this generation's Nortel" — asset-light winners turning capital-intensive, so returns on capital fall even as revenue grows (Meta's incremental ~$45B at ~3%). "You don't want to own the people that do capex."
Revenge of value. The S&P is no longer diversified (~40% in the top 10–15) after a record 15-year momentum stretch; the top-10 turns over every decade. Hides in unloved value: European banks (Barclays/UniCredit/BAWAG), regional banks (Fifth Third/WAL/M&T), healthcare (Merck/Amgen/UnitedHealth), homebuilders (Horton/Lennar) and lumber (West Fraser).
Repeatable frames & the insider-buying filter. EV-per-flowing-barrel arbitrage (~$30k build vs ~$60k public), returns-on-capital vs price-to-capital (35% ROC never trades at 2x capital), technical float squeezes (Imperial's 70% Exxon stake), DD&A-per-barrel (waterflood reserves booked "for free"), and following founder/insider open-market buying "veraciously" (Bouchard, the Lundins, Jim Pattison, Hemsley). 25–30 names — "patience is the scarcest" edge.
The funds & the media presence
What it is: Cole Smead (CEO/PM) and his father Bill Smead (founder/chairman) run Smead Capital Management (~US$5.5–6B, Phoenix) — two concentrated value mutual funds (a US portfolio Bill leads and an international / "X-US" portfolio Cole leads), both built on the firm's eight criteria for common stock selection. Grounded in their own transcript statements (Mar-18 30:07, Jun-12, Feb-05).
Offering
What it is
How they run it
Seen in the index
US Equity fund (Bill)
Concentrated 25–30-name US value portfolio on the eight criteria + return-on-invested-capital.
Bill is the final decision maker; hold winners "to a fault," minimize turnover ("rub a bar of soap and it gets smaller").
Registered with the OSC (as of Jul 2 2025) to offer separate accounts + Canadian mutual funds, distributed wholesale through banks/dealers.
First formal move into Canada after ~6 years owning Canadian businesses; "sticking to our core business."
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Media presence (free)
Cole's A Book with Legs podcast + frequent guest spots (In the Money, CNBC); quarterly webcasts featuring one stock on the eight criteria.
Free, public-facing; how retail investors encounter the frameworks (this archive is largely drawn from it).
the eight criteria, DD&A-per-barrel, who's-your-daddy
How it serves retail investors. The funds are mutual funds retail can hold directly; the Smeads "eat exactly the same cooking" (these two portfolios are the only common stocks Bill and Cole own personally). The free podcast/interviews and quarterly webcasts teach the repeatable method — the eight criteria, returns-on-capital, insider buying — so a small investor can apply the same lens. Cole argues the small investor has a structural edge a diversified trillion-dollar institution lacks.
Transcripts
One dated page per appearance — each has its talking points and the saved transcript. Newest first.
Cole Smead appearances discovered via search (Cole Smead interview), not yet processed — verify publish dates & channels, newest first. Limited to the last ~2 years. None queued yet.