Alex Waislitz Quotes

102 Alex Waislitz Quotes

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It’s very hard to find good companies with good passionate management. When you do find that and you build a relationship, you want to grow with them.
Alex Waislitz

We are not paper shufflers. We are growth and expansion focussed…
Alex Waislitz

We always keep a little in cash and we always have the ability to move fairly quickly if an opportunity comes up.
Alex Waislitz

One of the worst decisions we made was not selling our entire holding into the rising tech valuations. We probably left on the table another $20 million or $30 million.
Alex Waislitz

We learnt not to get carried away with the crowd but go back and do the fundamental analysis.
Alex Waislitz

We are looking for returns of 25 percent a year.
Alex Waislitz

We look for managers who have the flexibility to grow and learn as their business is developing.
Alex Waislitz

It’s important to employ people who have skills that are different from your own or better than your own.
Alex Waislitz

Our strength is we go beyond the numbers to the actual business.
Alex Waislitz

We have avoided the venture capital market because our experience is that it takes a lot longer and costs a lot more than originally planned.
Alex Waislitz



[In August 2003] My father is my principal mentor. He’s 81 years old and still working. He’s helped me set up a property division of Thorney over the past four years.
Alex Waislitz

[In August 2003 on Richard Pratt] Richard’s work ethic is legendary, as is his practice of getting out onto the factory floor and talking to find out what’s really going on. He has a great feel for business…
Alex Waislitz

[More on Richard Pratt in August 2003] Richard’s philosophy is he only tends to interfere in divisions when they are having problems.
Alex Waislitz

We look for companies with good cash flow.
Alex Waislitz

We follow simple, commonsense rules. We look for companies which have good people, good cash controls and ambitions for growth.
Alex Waislitz

In good times and bad times, there are opportunities.
Alex Waislitz

I don’t get hung up on the external economic outlook because I think that there’s enough to do every day.
Alex Waislitz

[In September 2003] We are focused on companies that are value propositions, that are undervalued for whatever reason. We always look for value scenarios but we are also expansionist and look for companies with the potential to grow.
Alex Waislitz

Coal is a very cyclical business…
Alex Waislitz

[On their investment in TVSN] We’re trying to recover our loss of around $6 to $7 million through the receivers. We believe we have grounds to recover a fair amount of this money but it’s still a painful lesson and will be a painful process.
Alex Waislitz



What has been interesting to see is how easy it is for prices to come off, particularly in the medium and small cap range, as liquidity dries up. Usually what happens is it gets overdone and it can present buying opportunities.
Alex Waislitz

[On medium and small cap shares.] The price falls can be exacerbated if any of the small cap fund managers find they have redemptions in their funds and are required to raise cash in a less than orderly fashion [such as through selling shares to raise cash.]
Alex Waislitz

A tribe of Indians in Canada went to their chief to ask how cold the upcoming winter would be so they could prepare by collecting the right amount of wood. The chief told the tribe that it would be a cold winter and so the tribe went out and started collecting wood to keep them warm when winter arrived. The next week the tribe decided to again ask the chief whether the winter would be cold and again he said he thought it would be cold. So the tribe went out again and collected more wood. About this time, the chief through he would call on the local meteorologist to find out if in fact his feeling about it being cold was correct. The meteorologist told the chief it was indeed going to be a very cold winter. Another week passed and winter was fast approaching. The tribe asked the chief a third time if he thought it was going to be a cold winter. For a third time he said it was going to be cold. Off went the tribe and collected more wood. In the meantime, the chief went back to the meteorologist to ask how could it would be. The meteorologist said he thought it would be the coldest winter on record. The chief asked him why he was so sure and he said, ‘You know it’s going to be cold when the Indians are collecting as much wood as they can.’
Alex Waislitz

Our approach to investing is still fundamentally base on a value investment approach. We look at the fundamentals of the business, focus on management and make an assessment of where the company go in its market.
Alex Waislitz

No matter how much work and preparation you put into a transaction there is always the unexpected or unpredictable that can potentially wipe you out, which therefore requires you to have a degree of diversity and spread of risk.
Alex Waislitz

No matter how smart or diligent you think you have been, you must avoid the classic risk of having all your eggs in one basket.
Alex Waislitz

Bravely pursue initiative or innovation.
Alex Waislitz

Don’t expose yourself to any one investment. You don’t have all the answers. Spread your risk.
Alex Waislitz

We still think the best way to achieve long-term performance comes from the stock market and, in particular, the emerging sector of the market.
Alex Waislitz

I think you always have to be prepared to look at stocks that are unpopular…
Alex Waislitz



[In 2005] I think without a doubt anyone who wants to be serious about the investment game needs to make several trips to China to get a sense of what is going on there.
Alex Waislitz

[In 2005] I think the Australian market is still very sensitive to the US economy… While China is the biggest new influence, the US still is the key to world growth and equity markets.
Alex Waislitz

The restrictions of being able to invest in the stock or divest the stock where you have a board representative are real.
Alex Waislitz

[In 2005] The research and technology that comes out of Australia is world standard and has global application. Unfortunately, this technical expertise has not been matched by commercialisation expertise.
Alex Waislitz

[In 2005] I remain convinced that the convergence of computer power, robotics, nanotechnologies and biotechnology, coupled with the impact of the human genome project and similar work, is going to change the world forever… I stress again, the area is not for the faint-hearted. It requires considerable patience…
Alex Waislitz

[In 2005] There’s a lot of money in the system at the moment looking for a home, mainly coming from the growing superannuation pool.
Alex Waislitz

Our focus on due diligence means we probably only proceed with one in twenty of the deals that are put to us.
Alex Waislitz

[In October 2006] We’ve had years when we’ve been up 100 percent, 70 percent or even 200 percent, but on average 20 percent compound or 25 percent.
Alex Waislitz

My parents came out of the Holocast era. They came here with nothing, couldn’t speak the language. It was the classic immigrant story of hard work, sweat and sacrifice.
Alex Waislitz

[On his father being a real estate salesman and then getting into become a property developer.] I suppose he was an old school type of developer. He didn’t believe in overborrowing, because he knew of the cycles in property and was prudent.
Alex Waislitz



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