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Chuck Akre

David_Snowball
in Fund Discussions
Greg Ostedgaard, president of Financial Professionals, Inc., and an MFO reader was on a conference call with Chuck Akre and the Akre Focus (AKREX) folks today. In that case, they announced that Mr. Akre is stepping away from day-to-day management at the end of December.

The Akre folks have been prepping for this day for years, and Mr. Akre seems comfortable that he's leaving his shareholders in good hands. I've attached our succession story, from February, for what interest it holds.

https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2020/03/manager-changes-february-2020/

David

Comments

  • TheShadowTheShadow
    Found this filing concerning the change:

    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/811030/000089418920008631/akrefocusfund102820204.htm

  • BenWPBenWP
    Turnover for AKREX has always been very low, with M* pegging it a 4% currently. One consequence of this, I assume, is the amazing low tax bills presented to shareholders at year end. AUM have risen commensurate with the fund's great success since 2011, so management must have been faced with the problem of what to do with the new cash. Just what did Mr. Akre train the new colleagues to do if it was not to find new stocks for the fund to buy? Have they been trained to buy more of the winners? I enjoyed the anecdote about Mr. Akre's bedroom built off his office so he wouldn't have to stop working. OTOH, I have to wonder why a PM would need to work such long hours at a quintessential buy-and-hold fund. Seems as though he could go home and sleep peacefully. We have more than one account happily invested in AKREX.
  • Jim0445
    In November 2019, Chuck Akre appeared on Wealthtrack (PBS and youtube) with his co-manager Neff and talked about the coming transition. I'm hanging on. Here's a link to that 25 minute program:
    https://wealthtrack.com/finding-compounding-machines-with-the-great-investor-chuck-akre-his-gen-x-co-manager-john-neff/
  • tgwmiw
    In the NOV commentary David wrote that investors should not be anxious that Mr. Akre is leaving AKREX. I hope that he is right. In 2009 Mr. Akre left a mutual fund to start AKREX. His analysts stayed to run the old fund which has consistently underperformed AKREX. Its current symbol is HFCSX and it has a 2 star Morningstar rating. Investors will need to closely monitor AKREX. It has a high expense ratio (1.32) and a high PPE (38.42). Performance has already slowed: 1YR (91 percentile rank), 3YR (50 PR), 5YR (29 PR), 10YR (15 PR). There have been many mutual funds that were never the same after the star manager left. Will that happen to AKREX? Only time will tell.
  • Gary1952
    BenWP said:

    Turnover for AKREX has always been very low, with M* pegging it a 4% currently. One consequence of this, I assume, is the amazing low tax bills presented to shareholders at year end. AUM have risen commensurate with the fund's great success since 2011, so management must have been faced with the problem of what to do with the new cash. Just what did Mr. Akre train the new colleagues to do if it was not to find new stocks for the fund to buy? Have they been trained to buy more of the winners? I enjoyed the anecdote about Mr. Akre's bedroom built off his office so he wouldn't have to stop working. OTOH, I have to wonder why a PM would need to work such long hours at a quintessential buy-and-hold fund. Seems as though he could go home and sleep peacefully. We have more than one account happily invested in AKREX.

    AKREX has served me well. A funds turnover rate does not mean there is little work. I am sure that there is a lot of review, study and investigation for new and existing holdings.

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