Ben Weiss and I are motivated to build a company focused on delivering outperformance for clients by constructing a concentrated portfolio of high-quality companies and holding them for the long term. It sounds simple, but commitment and execution are everything.
Ben and I both grew up on a street named Daytona in Clayton, MO and attended Meramec Elementary school. Being a few years older than Ben, I actually babysat for him a few times and remember looking through his baseball card collection, playing Nintendo games, and playing basketball. He moved away when he was still in grade school. He tells me he briefly ran away in protest when his parents told him he was moving. Ben and I didn't see each other or reconnect until well into adulthood when Ben was reading a very niche industry publication called "Value Investor Insight" and came a cross an interview with me where I was outlining a case for why Gamestop's business was going to be made obsolete by the change of video game distribution from in-person to online. He picked up the phone and gave me a call which began a friendship and correspondence around deep fundamental equity analysis and our passion for investing.
For the past 15 years, I have been a principal and portfolio manager of Eidelman Virant Capital's Value Select strategy. My father started the predecessor to Eidelman Virant in 1982, and I've had the joy, honor, and opportunity to work with him. He's been an incredible mentor, teacher, and partner and is the best investor I've ever met. I could (and probably will) write a book about everything he's taught me about why stocks go up, but some of the keys have been the importance of incentives, balance sheet strength, and value along with countless larger lessons on investor psychology, mean reversion, and betting big when we really find a good one. Together, we evolved our strategy from owning deeper value, low-price to book stocks, to finding companies with leading management and cultures which we still felt were materially undervalued.
After graduating from Law School and practicing law for a few years, Ben Weiss was so passionate about investing that he left law to start his own hedge fund 8th & Jackson Partners LLC in 2004. I'm proud to say that I was one of his first investors and invested because I had insight into both his strong personal character and his investment acumen from our many idea exchanges. Ben's favorite way to invest is to concentrate significantly in companies with great people running great companies. We began working together more closely to a point where we wanted to partner.
In January, 2022, Ben and I saw an opportunity to create a new company that combined our passion with what we think can deliver the best long-term results.... and thus Daytona Street Capital was born. We think investing in companies that are dominant in their industry, have the best people, wow their customers and are priced to deliver expected share outperformance could deliver successful results for our clients.
Disclosures
This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a complete description of our investment advisory services. It is in no way a recommendation of any security or a solicitation or offer to sell investment advisory services. This should not be construed as advice to buy or sell any particular security. This is not definitive investment advice and should not be relied on as such. It does not consider any investors’ particular investment objectives, tax status, or investment horizon. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment or strategy is suitable for a particular investor. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and Daytona Street Capital assumes no duty to and does not undertake to update forward-looking statements. Certain investments mentioned in this post may not have been held by clients of, or recommended by, Daytona Street Capital. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
