Adam Karr
President and Portfolio Manager, Orbis Investments. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutiveorbis.com ↗
Adam Karr oversees investment teams and manages client capital at Orbis Investments using a long-term, contrarian, intrinsic-value approach. Prior to joining Orbis in 2002, he was a partner at Palladium Equity Partners and worked at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.
1shows
1appearances
21statements
4resolved
4supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Adam Karr said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Fleetcor's European EV charging business has better economics than fuel cards
“We can look at their business in Europe and we can see clearly that the economics on that are actually on par, in fact, better than their core combustible business.”
Orbis charges a zero base fee and refundable performance fee
“On our long only strategies, we
Have a refundable performance fee. For our larger institutional clients, there's a zero base fee. So if we don't add value, generate alpha, client pays, zero fee. If we generate outperformance, we share that with a client whereb…”
Orbis held zero Japanese equities in 1990 despite a 45% index weight
“You go all the way back to inception, 1990. Japan was 45% of the world index, and we had zero.”
All 35 Orbis analysts run concentrated 10-stock paper shadow portfolios
“All of our analysts run paper shadow portfolios. So we've got 35 analysts around the globe, and after generally a year or two, they will launch a paper portfolio. And that tends to be a concentrated expression of, call it their 10 highest conviction Recommenda…”
Karr's personal data revealed that scaling into new positions detracted value
“My view is that the riskiest position is your newest position. You've got the least insight. And so I have tended to scale into a position when I'm undertaking a new position. Turns out data says that's not right for me in particular. If it's sufficiently good…”
An investment manager's time horizon is bounded by their clients' horizon
“You have to have an aligned client base that allows you to do it because your time horizon is only going to be as long as their time horizon.”
Orbis mistakenly doubled down on AIG during the 2008 liquidity crisis
“And the next morning we had an investment committee meeting to make a decision as to whether or not we were going to add or sell our position in AIG. And we decided to add to it. The mistake, which I'll never forget, is the difference between liquidity and sol…”
Orbis saw under 10% net redemptions in 2008 without using lockups
“The best test case that we have is going back to the GFC in 2008. We don't have lockups, we don't have gates, and we saw less than 10% net redemptions in an environment when the global indices were down 35%.”
Orbis's balance sheet reserves can fund operations for multiple years
“We've been quite conservative in that, and it's going to depend because we've got clients across the globe
And they're on different fee structures and they're not on exactly the same fees.
So there's a mix in there, but it's more than a handful of years.”
Orbis is privately owned in perpetuity by a charitable foundation
“We are privately owned by a charitable foundation in perpetuity.”
Orbis senior partners receive a 12-year profit tail upon departure
“We participate in the firm, the most senior group of investors and leaders in the firm, which we call stewards.
And we're directly tied to the operating profits of the firm.
But what's unique about it is we have that interest while we're here in the seat drivi…”
Orbis mines decades of analyst paper portfolios with AI for ideas
“We have this incredible data set across all of these paper portfolios going back since inception. And we're now using AI to replicate what we would have been buying based on the historical algorithms of what we were doing. Now that doesn't drive it to be in th…”
Only 11 of 425 Phase One ideas entered Orbis's portfolio in 2022
“Last year, 2022, we had, I think there was 425 names that came through at the phase one level. 11 of them made it into the portfolio.”
Orbis narrows 350 analyst paper portfolio ideas into 60 to 70 positions
“If you step back, we've got 35 analysts across the globe. Each of them is running, call it a 10 stock paper portfolio. So that's 350 names. And In the strategy, we're seeking to narrow that down to call it 60, 70 high conviction positions in the global strateg…”
Orbis has held some Japanese and US equities for over a decade
“We've owned some of our stocks in Japan for 20 years. I've owned some companies in the US for a decade plus.”
Orbis evaluates analysts every six months using 30-page data scorecards
“All of our analysts get scorecards every six months. These are 25, thirty-page documents. It's going to look at Success ratio. It's going to look at win or loser skew. It's going to look at slugging percentage. It's going to look at that voting track record fr…”
Fleetcor is Orbis's largest equity position in the United States
“In the US, our largest position is a company called Fleetcore.”
Fleetcor's CEO owns $1 billion of company stock after 20 years
“He's been running the business for 20 years. He owns a billion dollars of stock.”
Harvard Business School admitted Karr at age 19 with deferred enrollment
“I applied to HBS when I was 19 in college, and they accepted you at the time contingent on a couple years of work experience.”
Orbis manages approximately $35 billion in assets under management globally
“We manage about thirty five billion dollars in AUM across the globe and a handful of strategies, long only, absolute return, multi-asset.”
The other half of the tape: Adam Karr's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Adam's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | President and Portfolio Manager, Orbis Investments | 1 | 21 | 100% 4/4 | full record on Capital Allocators → |