Global Value Investing

As an investment adviser focused completely on value investing, we use an intensive research and valuation process to identify companies trading at significant discounts from their intrinsic value, with the potential for producing reasonable returns that are more than commensurate with the risks assumed.

1983

Tweedy, Browne begins investing outside the U.S.

This makes us contrarian by nature because we identify overlooked or misunderstood opportunities that we believe will pay off for our investors. Our heritage of value investing dates back more than 100 years, our investment philosophy has been thriving since the 1930s, and our current investment committee members have worked together, on average, for nearly 30 years.

WE HELP INVESTORS ACHIEVE THEIR LONG-TERM FINANCIAL GOALS BY ADHERING TO A CLEARLY DEFINED FRAMEWORK OF VALUE INVESTING—A TIME-PROVEN APPROACH TO BUILDING WEALTH.

Value investing is our only business, and it is how we invest our own money. As of December 31, 2021, our current Managing Directors and retired principals and their families, as well as employees of Tweedy, Browne, had over $1.5 billion in portfolios combined with or similar to client portfolios.

Our commitment to rational-based investing transcends beyond the fiduciary responsibility we hold for our clients’ capital to the vigor with which we invest our own personal assets.

A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price.

BENJAMIN GRAHAM, The Intelligent Investor

ABOUT US

Tweedy, Browne Company LLC is an SEC-registered investment adviser with a longstanding, disciplined approach to value investing.

We strive every day to deliver adequate returns against lower risk to help investors fulfill their long-term objectives. We apply our proven framework of value investing by identifying investment opportunities through our intensive research process. Taking a disciplined and conservative approach, we invest in deeply discounted companies where we believe there lies meaningful potential for financial reward. We are transparent in our process and straightforward in our communications, offering clients our integrity, trust and humility as their longstanding investment manager.

THE CONSISTENCY OF OUR RESULTS OVER MANY DECADES HAS CONFIRMED OUR CONFIDENCE IN THE VALUE-ORIENTED APPROACH THAT HAS DEFINED OUR SUCCESS.

A BRIEF HISTORY

Since the founding of our firm in 1920 as Tweedy & Co., a dealer in closely held and inactively traded securities, we have pursued a value-oriented approach to securities, first as a market maker, and later, as an investor and manager. For more than 100 years, through depressions, recessions, and stock market cycles, through a quadrupling of interest rates and the advent of double-digit inflation, and through the emergence and disappearance of numerous investment fads, we have adhered to the same value-oriented principles of analysis and investment.

Our longstanding investment approach derives from the work of the late Benjamin Graham, widely known as the “father of value investing.” Graham was the co-author of the first textbook on investment research, Security Analysis (1934) and the author of The Intelligent Investor (1949), two of the founding texts in neoclassical investing. We embrace Graham’s investment philosophy, which stresses fundamental analysis, diversification, buying with a margin of safety, activist investing, contrarian mindsets, minimal debt, and buy-and-hold investing.

Our investment team has been working together on average for

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Graham, through his investment firm Graham-Newman Corp., was one of our primary brokerage clients from the 1930s through the 1950s. Through Graham, our firm’s original partners developed brokerage relationships with investment legends Walter Schloss and Warren Buffett.
In 1959, the partners of then Tweedy, Browne & Knapp pooled their capital in a partnership investment vehicle. In 1968, the firm accepted our first outside money management clients as limited partners of this vehicle. In 1975, Tweedy, Browne registered as an investment adviser and began managing separate accounts for individuals and institutions.

TODAY

Tweedy, Browne is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut with nearly 50 employees who instill a culture of collaboration and client-centricity, and share a particular passion for value investing. Our firm is managed by our Management Committee, comprising Jay Hill, Thomas H. Shrager, John D. Spears, and Robert Q. Wyckoff, Jr., each a Managing Director and member of our Investment Committee. The firm is owned by our Managing Directors, certain other employees and by Affiliated Managers Group, Inc., which holds a majority interest through a wholly owned subsidiary. The Management Committee is responsible for all business decisions made by the firm.

When you invest, what you are doing is buying an interest in the business. If you accept that framework and that lens, it will drive everything you do in terms of analysis or figuring out what the business is worth.

WILL BROWNE

OUR PHILOSOPHY

As disciples of old school value investing, we take a “private equity approach” to public markets, looking to invest in undervalued common stocks, with limited leverage, and applying a businessperson’s approach to company valuations. Our objective is to exceed the reasonable expectations for our clients’ long-term investment goals by efficiently and effectively applying the time-proven framework of value investing as a builder of wealth.

TRADITIONAL INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY

The investment management principles we practice derive from the work of Benjamin Graham (1894 – 1976), professor of investments at Columbia Business School and author of Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor.
Our research seeks to appraise the worth of a company, what Graham called “intrinsic value,” by determining its acquisition value, or by estimating the collateral value of its assets and/or cash flow. The term “intrinsic value” may also be referred to as private market value, breakup value or liquidation value. The process is more closely related to credit analysis, for we are as concerned with the return of our capital as we are with the return on our capital. Investments are made at a significant discount to intrinsic value, which Graham called an investor’s “margin of safety.” To the extent market conditions warrant, investments are generally sold as the market price approaches intrinsic value, with the proceeds reinvested in other investments that offer a greater discount to our estimate of intrinsic value.

ADHERING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF INTRINSIC VALUE AND MARGIN OF SAFETY RESULTS SEEKS TO REDUCE THE DECISION TO PURCHASE OR SELL SECURITIES TO A DISCIPLINE, RATHER THAN AN ART.

We compiled a research piece entitled What Has Worked In Investing, which describes more than 50 academic studies of certain investment criteria that have produced high rates of return. In these studies, attractive returns were found for stocks with one or more of the following investment characteristics: low stock price in relation to book value; net current assets; earnings; cash flow; dividends or previous share price; small market capitalization and a significant pattern of stock purchases by one or more insiders (officers and directors), or by the company itself. What Has Worked In Investing also outlines the value-oriented investment characteristics that have been the core of Tweedy, Browne’s investment philosophy and stock selection decision making process for more than 50 years and are the basis for the management of our privately managed accounts and all other investment types we offer.

INVESTMENTS IN VALUE STOCKS THAT PAY HIGHER THAN AVERAGE DIVIDENDS

In 1979 a client asked us to manage for him a unique trust account where current income and capital appreciation were the investment objectives. While our traditional value approach did not focus on income generation or yield, we nonetheless accepted the challenge to accommodate our client. We set up an account and began working on identifying companies we believed were reasonably valued and paid above-average dividend yields. Over time, we took on additional yield-oriented assignments in 1991 and another in 2004. Initially, we focused only on US-based dividend-paying equities, but in 2003 we expanded our opportunity set to include a global universe of equities. Also in 2003, qualified dividends began enjoying the same attractive tax rates as long-term capital gains. In light of our long and positive experience managing high dividend yield portfolios and the tax-advantaged status of dividends, in 2006 we decided it made sense to formally offer this approach to our managed account clients and mutual fund shareholders.

THERE ARE A NUMBER OF REASONS WHY WE BELIEVE DIVIDENDS ARE IMPORTANT

  • Over the long term, the return from dividends has significantly contributed to the total returns produced by equity securities. For example, according to Standard & Poor’s, dividends comprised an average of approximately 35% of the monthly total return of the Standard and Poor’s 500 Stock Index (the “S&P 500”) from 1926 to 2009.
  • Stocks with apparent high and sustainable dividend yields may be more resistant to a decline in price than lower yielding stocks because the stock is, in effect, “yield supported.”
  • The reinvestment of high dividends in additional shares of high dividend-yielding stocks during stock market declines can help lessen the time necessary to recoup portfolio losses.
  • The ability to pay cash dividends is a positive factor in assessing the underlying health of a company and the quality of its income stream. This indicator is particularly relevant considering the complexity of corporate accounting and numerous recent examples of “earnings management”, including occasionally fraudulent earnings manipulation.
  • Dividends treated as “qualified dividend income” received by individual taxpayers are taxed at the same favorable rates as long-term capital gains for most investors. (Note: This should not be considered tax advice. We encourage you to consult your tax advisor.)
  • And most importantly, there is an abundance of empirical evidence which suggests that portfolios consisting of high dividend yielding securities may produce attractive total returns over long measurement periods.

For a more thorough analysis, please check out our white paper, which contains a compilation of studies that examine the impact of dividends on investment returns.