Longleaf Partners recently had a special conference call, motivated to do so by current market conditions. You can listen to it here (it lasts just over 90 minutes). The call features Mason Hawkins and Staley Cates, and they explain that the current sell-off has been painful. Yet it offers up some wonderful bargains. Among the holdings named they're especially bullish on include Dell and Chesapeake (which I don't own), and DirecTV Group (which I do hold).
Longleaf has also released a special shareholders letter in advance of releasing the normal third quarter report later.
I believe (but could be mistaken) that in the conference call they used Dell as an example of a stock with huge cash reserves. Although this is true in a strict sense, they also have equally huge current liabilities. In fact, the Current Ratio of Dell is a mere 1.197 (and this assumes they will collect all their receivables). I usually respect Longleaf, but that is just plain misleading....
Posted by: JonL | October 20, 2008 at 12:10 PM