The company is brand new and has a short track record, but what it has is very impressive. He co-authored Poor Charlie’s Almanack, the best book available about Charlie Munger and writes for several national periodicals. Probably better known than Weitz Funds, but only because Whitney Tilson is a well known author in addition to fund manager. There is no load, of course, and the funds charge between 1.1% and 1.3% of assets per year.

The fees are exceptionally reasonable, as one might expect for an alt-Berkshire. Two of the three funds mentioned above lag the market over the past five years. The returns have not been as strong recently, including over the time I have owned the funds (about four years). According to the company, the Value, Partners Value and Partners III funds have earned annual returns of 13.5%, 13.6% and 14.2% respectively versus an S&P gain of 10.7%. The Weitz Funds family of funds has consistently beaten the S&P 500 over the past twenty years. Although Countrywide has been a good investment for the family over the last fifteen years, it will obviously weigh negatively in the near term. Unfortunately, Countrywide Financial also makes up a good sized chunk of the portfolios. Omaha-based TD Ameritrade is held by most of the funds, as is USG – the housing sector-plagued but undervalued bankruptcy play that Berkshire currently owns 18% of. Other top holdings include the Washington Post, Wal-Mart and AIG, all of which have clear Buffett ties. Not surprisingly, Berkshire Hathaway the number one holding in three of the four marquee funds. I like that – but I also like his investments. Weitz lives and operates out of Omaha and projects the down-home, midwestern aw-shucks kind of air. And the managers make no secret of the similarities between themselves and Buffett.

There is an income fund and a money market fund, but the rest of the funds are very similar to each other and essentially aim to mimic a conglomerate like Berkshire Hathaway. Wally Weitz and co-manager Brad Hinton run a total of only eight funds. This is the only of the fund companies I will discuss in which I have invested.

Surprisingly, some of the alts that seem most obvious to me are not mentioned, so I will mention them. I promised a few weeks ago to devote a few posts to “alt-Berkshires” and will continue today anyhow, but it turns out this is exactly the topic one of the cover articles in the current issue of that magazine. Well it turns out US News & World Report is stealing my thunder.

Dhandho investor near mr