Guy Spier’s share portfolio revealed
South African-born Guy Spier is one of the best-known value investors and the author of The Education of a Value Investor.
Since 1997, Spier has managed the Zurich-based Aquamarine Fund, with $350 million in assets and 150 investors.
Spier was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1966 to German parents. When he was three months old, they moved out of South Africa, and they continued to move often during his childhood.
He studied law at Brasenose College, Oxford, and completed an MBA at the Harvard Business School in the United States.
Spier’s Aquamarine Fund was inspired by and styled after Warren Buffett’s 1950s investment partnerships.
His admiration for Buffett is still evident today, as Berkshire Hathaway forms the biggest holding in his portfolio.
Aquamarine owns 30 of Berkshire’s prized Class A shares, priced at a whopping $460,000 each.
Spier sticks to his value-investing style, although he admits that it has become harder for value investors to find opportunities.
He is not a fan of activist investing. In his book, he writes, “my goal as an investor is to compound money for my shareholders, not to pick unnecessary fights or conduct myself like an avenging moral crusader.”
Spier does not trade very often.
He started a position in Twitter in 2020 that he sold in the second quarter of this year.
He significantly increased his holding in Micron at the end of 2020. He also started his position in Google in 2020 and in Alibaba and Daily Journal in 2021, and he still holds them.
In 2020 he sold out of Stellantis and significantly reduced his position in Ferrari. In 2021 he sold out of Wells Fargo.
The table below shows Aquamarine Capital’s share positions as of 30 September 2022.
| Name | Value ($ million) | Portfolio Weight |
| Berkshire Hathaway Class B | $38 | 22.8% |
| American Express | $28 | 17.2% |
| Bank of America | $23 | 14.1% |
| Mastercard | $19 | 11.4% |
| Ferrari | $15 | 9.2% |
| Berkshire Hathaway Class A | $12 | 7.4% |
| Micron Technology | $10 | 6.1% |
| Moody’s | $7 | 4.0% |
| Seritage Growth Properties | $5 | 2.7% |
| Alibaba | $4 | 2.3% |
| Daily Journal | $3 | 1.8% |
| Alphabet Class A | $2 | 0.9% |
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