Trying to kill our own companies
“Routinely we try to kill our companies (they can be killed!), and we sift prospective investments.”
Investing
Nick Sleep and Qais Zakaria's December 2012 letter to Nomad partners, one of the letters in Nomad Investment Partnership Letters, 2001–2014.
Not acting is still a decision
“Inactive except, perhaps, for the observation, seldom made, that the decision not to do something is still an active decision; it is just that the accountants don’t capture it.”
Fire sales test whether you buy
“If you did not buy the companies you always wished you had owned when they were on fire sale over the last few years then, when exactly are you going to buy them?”
Changing a school's culture is brutal
“[Almost complete staff turnover] is brutal, but necessary, in order to change the culture.”
Customers respond to relative prices
“The activities were keenly priced but the centre found that customers responded more to relative prices and so rates were kept just under those of the competition, rather than ruinously low.”
Super-normal profits invite new competitors
“The risk with super-normal profitability is that the profits are an incentive for a new competitor: far better, Zak argues, to earn less, but for a much longer time.”
Good costs versus bad costs
“Zak’s family’s activity centre beat the competition because they understood the difference between good costs (nice staff, clean loos, good coffee) and bad costs (a whizzo new slide) and invested appropriately.”