Some of you coming to this website might be wondering how I got into investing and the investment world. Here is the short version. I share this story to every prospective partner:
Origins
As a young child, my interest in investing started when I saw the local stock and commodity tickers displayed on the evening news. The commodity futures tickers of corn, soybeans and beef were important to my grandparents who own and operate a small farm west of Cedar Rapids. Every day when the market would close, my grandmother would record the close price of these commodities along with the major stock market indices.
One day during the recovery after the crash of 2008, I asked my father if it would have been a good idea to invest during the darkest days of the crash in March 2009. He answered that it probably would have but that investing in the stock market is gambling (which turns out is true if you have no idea what you’re doing). After that conversation, I shelved the interest and went towards a career in science and engineering.
Getting it Together
After some very serious conversations in the fall of 2019, my wife and I decided it was time to get our finances in order. We were living paycheck to paycheck even though we were making over $140,000 each year. We had a total of $80,000 in various debts including: maxed out credit cards, student loans, personal loans, car loans and others lines of credit. We decided to cut our spending and start paying off debt in Dave Ramsay fashion. The results were amazing and we paid off all of our debt except for the house by April of 2021! Along with the debt payoff, an interest in true investing grew out of the hard times experienced during the global pandemic.
The “Oh Shoot” Moment
In the spring of 2020, Coronavirus Disease better known as COVID-19 rocked the world. Stay-at-home orders were issued and economies ground to a halt overnight. The stock market was not immune to the chaos. The S&P 500 index dropped ~34% from its February 19th high to its lowest point on March 23rd amid the economic uncertainty. In the ensuing years, some companies went on to achieve record financial results and all time highs.These were known as the “stay-at-home stocks”. Other companies, especially those in the travel industry, struggled to return to their pre-covid operational levels. I worked for one of the latter companies- a large aerospace company. Nearly all of my 410(k) account was invested in the company stock which dropped by ~56% amid the uncertainty and did not recover until two years later.
After the painful experience, I sought to learn how to invest in order to:
1) Understand what happened
2) Achieve better returns
3) Achieve financial freedom earlier
4) Understand how to prevent permanent losses of capital
Learning to Invest
With financial independence in mind in May of 2020, I started to learn how to invest like some of the best investors in the world starting with a book called Rule #1 written by Phil Town. The book just clicked with me and the methods made sense. The strategy I started learning has long been called “Value Investing” since Benjamin Graham released his seminal book Security Analysis. I started learning with other methods as well such as YouTube videos and online articles.
In July of 2020, I came up with the audacious plan to withdraw what was left of my 401(k) and some of my wife’s 401(k) to try out the strategy with real money. When I started to execute the investment strategy, growing pains were abundant in the second half of 2020. A stock would be bought and then sold a few hours or days later- certainly not a tenant of value investing. I had to learn to control my emotions and buy for the long-term. That all started to come together around November where I decided to buy and hold until certain strict criteria were met.
Over the ensuing time from July 14th, 2020 until June 21st, 2023, the strategy (detailed above) delivered a cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.9% compared to 11.99% for the S&P 500 index.
Origins of Koopman Partners LP
Starting in May of 2021, I felt a growing dissatisfaction with my engineering career. I ended up sticking around for another year while starting to gravitate heavily towards my interest in investments. After much consideration, I decided to leave the engineering career in June of 2022, I started a web-based sports blog devoted to a niche sport. After operating the website for several months, I realized that I was not passionate about blogging and decided to close it out in April of 2023.
After a couple of excellent and enjoyable years of investing in 2021 and 2022, I started to explore how to start an investment partnership to share the strategy and benefits with my family, friends and anyone I meet. After several months of paperwork and preparation, Koopman Partners LP was founded in March of 2023 with the partnership commencing operations on June 22nd, 2023. This is an exciting journey and it is my sincere hope to have you join in with me to enjoy this journey alongside me!
Background
Koopman Partners is a contrarian investment partnership focused on four main industries: Industrials, Materials, Energy and Consumer Goods.
We are a concentrated and non-correlated investment for investors who seek a diversification of approaches within the stock market.
For details regarding our strategy and mindset, please see our Investor Deck.
Koopman Partners sells securities in accordance with Regulation D, Rule 506(c) exclusively for accredited investors, subject to verification.
Koopman Partners is not a financial advisory firm, financial planner or registered investment advisor. We do not offer or give financial advice.