Pieter Slegers — Why We Are Partners
The product manifesto restated in full: the three buckets, the eight company characteristics, the 15–20-stock developed-markets mandate, the two questions to ask any adviser — and three investment mistakes named without hedging.
One-line take: the archive's reference document for
what the product is, and the most useful page for reading every other issue. Three things are set out.
The alignment claim: "I have all my investable assets invested in the companies I write about", framed through Munger on incentives, with the reader addressed as a Partner and the strategy dated to the 2023 Owner's Manual.
The mandate, in full: three buckets —
owner-operator stocks (with the academic claim that family and founder-led companies beat the S&P 500 by
3.7% and 3.9% a year),
monopolies and oligopolies, and
cannibal stocks — plus the operating rules:
worldwide but developed markets only, 15–20 stocks, low turnover, no market timing, and eight required company characteristics.
The mistakes, named: "
Selling Ulta Beauty in March 2025. The stock is up +50% since then"; "
Buying Judges Scientific in April 2025. The entire market for scientific instruments (especially Judges) is struggling"; and "
Buying Novo Nordisk because I thought the stock was cheap. Up until now, the stock only became cheaper." François Rochon's rule of three is the frame — one year in three the market falls 10%, one stock in three disappoints, one year in three underperforms. Two of the three named mistakes are acted on within days: Judges Scientific is
sold on 31 May, and Novo had been re-argued as a buy
two days earlier. The reader test offered is worth keeping: ask any adviser whether they are invested in the product themselves, and whether it has a track record — "not too many bankers will pass both criteria."
1. Stocks & names mentioned
A philosophy issue with no stock recommendations; the three names appear only as named past mistakes, and the views below are the retrospective judgements stated in this post — not fresh recommendations. Research legend: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis. Written post with no timestamps — the At link opens the article.
| Ticker | Name | Research | View | What he said | At |
|---|
| ULTA | Ulta Beauty | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Named as a mistake of omission — a sale that should not have happened. "Selling Ulta Beauty in March 2025. The stock is up +50% since then." No current view, no valuation, no repurchase intention is expressed; it is listed under "poor investment decisions in the past" with the responsibility accepted — "There is only one person to blame: me." The instructive part is the category: this is the one mistake in the list caused by selling rather than buying, which sits directly against the Munger line quoted five days later — "the best time to sell a great stock is almost never." | read ↗ |
| JDG.L | Judges Scientific plc | STK | Negative | Named as a purchase mistake, five days before it is sold. "Buying Judges Scientific in April 2025. The entire market for scientific instruments (especially Judges) is struggling right now." No defence is offered and no recovery case is made — which distinguishes it from the Novo entry in the same list. The full exit follows on 31 May: all 680 shares at a 42.5 GBP limit, with the key learnings set out there. Read together, this post is the announcement of the conclusion and the next one is the execution. | read ↗ |
| NVO | Novo Nordisk | QT · SA · STK · FA | Neutral | Named as a process mistake rather than a broken thesis: "Buying Novo Nordisk because I thought the stock was cheap. Up until now, the stock only became cheaper." Note the precise wording — the error identified is the reason for buying (cheapness), not the company. That is consistent with the position being defended at length two days earlier on business grounds (the Wegovy pill launch, 1 million patients treated, better efficacy than Lilly's) and rated STRONG BUY on 7 May. It is the same objection first recorded on 28 April. Nothing is sold. | read ↗ |
One tension worth recording. Novo Nordisk appears in a list of mistakes two days after being singled out as one of three portfolio "steals" with a full bull case. The two are reconcilable — the mistake named is the original buying rationale (cheapness), not the current holding — but a reader following the issues in sequence gets "steal" on 24 May and "mistake" on 26 May with no cross-reference between them. The same pattern recurred on 7 May, nine days after the 28 April mistake list.
2. Talking points
The alignment claim, and the test it implies
- "I have all my investable assets invested in the companies I write about. Your success is my success and the other way around."
- Framed by Munger on incentives: "I've been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it."
- Turned into a portable test for the reader: ask any adviser or banker "Are you invested in this product yourself?" and "Does this investment product have a great track record?" — proceed only on two yeses. "Spoiler alert: not too many bankers will pass both criteria."
The three buckets
- Owner-operator stocks — still run by their founder. The evidence cited: family companies outperform the S&P 500 by 3.7% a year and founder-led companies by 3.9%.
- Monopolies and oligopolies — "able to operate at attractive conditions due to the lack of competition", with the Buffett hierarchy quoted from The Myth of Capitalism: monopoly, else duopoly, else oligopoly.
- Cannibal stocks — heavy repurchasers, "when outstanding shares decrease, your stake in the company increases". Munger: "Pay close attention to the cannibals."
- These three labels are exactly the ones applied in the individual dives — Arista an Owner-Operator, FICO an Oligopoly and a Cannibal.
The mandate, stated as constraints
- "The portfolio will invest worldwide (developed countries only)"; "We'll own 15–20 stocks"; "We won't trade a lot. Activity and costs harm our results"; "We won't try to time the market (I'm way too dumb for that)".
- Eight required characteristics: sustainable competitive advantage, management with skin in the game, healthy balance sheet, low capital intensity, good capital allocation, high profitability, plenty of reinvestment opportunities, and a fair valuation.
- The negative screen is equally explicit — not for readers who want to get rich quick, blindly follow advice, or outperform every single year.
Three mistakes, named
- Ulta Beauty, sold March 2025, "up +50% since then" — a selling error.
- Judges Scientific, bought April 2025, into a struggling scientific-instruments market — a buying error, executed as a sale five days later.
- Novo Nordisk, "bought because I thought the stock was cheap" — a reasoning error, and the one that is not being acted on.
- The accountability language is unqualified: "I feel personally responsible for them. There is only one person to blame: me."
Rochon's rule of three
- One year in three the market falls at least 10%; one stock in three disappoints; one year in three you underperform the index.
- Its function is to pre-commit to a base rate of failure, so that an individual bad outcome does not trigger a strategy change.
- Quoted again five days later to frame the Judges Scientific sale — the same frame doing the same job twice in a week.
What the product actually is
- "Well over 1 million readers across all channels", a Community described as the core, and the stated goal: "Reach financial independence and help each other along our journey."
- The working routine is disclosed in unusual detail — 13.5-hour days, seven days a week, no meetings before 3pm, a fixed daily structure, credited to Atomic Habits, Eat That Frog and Deep Work.
- And qualified honestly: "This passion also comes at a cost: it's a very intense lifestyle… The most important thing at the end of your life is not how much you worked. It's all about love."
3. In plain English
A jargon-free summary of the thesis behind each argued name. (Renders on each name's consolidated page.)
JDG.L — Judges Scientific Negative
Judges Scientific buys small companies that make specialist laboratory instruments and runs them as a group. It was bought for the portfolio in April 2025 and is named here, in public, as a mistake.
The reason given is that the whole market it serves is struggling — scientific instruments generally, and Judges in particular. No recovery case is offered and no defence is attempted, which is the tell: of the three mistakes listed in this article, this is the only one where the conclusion has already been reached rather than merely admitted.
Five days later the position is sold in full. The detailed reasoning appears there — stagnant growth since 2022, dependence on US federal research funding that is being cut, and a founder who stepped down as chief executive in February 2026.
ULTA — Ulta Beauty Neutral
Ulta Beauty runs American cosmetics stores. It appears here only as a regret: it was sold in March 2025 and the shares have risen about 50% since.
What makes it worth recording is the type of error. Every other mistake in this article involves buying something that then fell. This one involves selling something that then rose — the mistake you never see in a portfolio statement, because the loss is invisible.
It also sits awkwardly beside the rule quoted five days later, that the best time to sell a great stock is almost never. No view is expressed on Ulta today, and there is no suggestion of buying it back.
Summary derived from the archived Compounding Quality post (text in transcript.txt) for personal study. Not investment advice. © Compounding Quality / Pieter Slegers for source material.