Insights into the London Value Investor Conference 2025

Richard Oldfield
Richard Oldfield
Chair | Partner

Richard Oldfield

Chair | Partner

Richard Oldfield founded Oldfield Partners LLP in 2005, after 9 years as chief executive of a family investment office. Before this, he was director of Mercury Asset Management plc, which he joined in 1977. He was Chairman of the Oxford University investment committee and the first chairman of Oxford University Endowment Management Ltd from 2007-2014.

He is now chairman of Shepherd Neame Ltd, and trustee of a number of charities. The second edition of his book “Simple But Not Easy”, a “slightly autobiographical and heavily biased” book about investing, was published by Harriman House in December 2021.

Richard Oldfield

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The London Value Investor Conference originated about 10 years ago and, despite the unfashionability of ‘Value’, has become popular with investors – both managers and owners. Attended last month by around 350 people, this year’s conference was, as usual, notable for the dogs that did not bark as much as for those that did.

Two managers presented the attractions of car parts companies and a third a bus company, but despite this focus on things that have wheels no one suggested a car manufacturer. Given the low valuation of car companies, there is a probable contradiction here: either the car parts companies are not as attractive as advertised or the car manufacturers deserve attention. We suspect the latter, and hold Stellantis (owner of Fiat, Chrysler and other makes) and, indirectly through Toyota Industries, Toyota Motor.

The other non-barking dog was Japan: mentioned only in the morning introduction and by one other presenter. Toyota Industries is an example of the attractive and the unattractive side of developments in Japan. The Toyoda family is planning to take the company private at a 23% premium to the share price before their offer in April, presumably recognising the severe undervaluation common to many Japanese holding companies. The bid, however, is bitter-sweet, heavily understating the value of the underlying assets.

The elephant in the room during the conference was the US Administration. Apart from some insights by Anthony Scaramucci at the end of the day, the President was hardly mentioned: the volatility of the policy on tariffs has been too much to allow investment decisions to be based on them. We share the attitude of investors at this conference in concentrating on the merits of individual companies rather than countries; but we are very much alert to the possibility that political volatility and its currency and economic effects may be the trigger which brings to an end the long cycle of underperformance by many of those well represented at this conference, Value investors, and especially those focused more on opportunities outside the US.

Which brings us to the mouse that roared: the attraction of non-US equity markets (even if Japan was omitted), whose total market capitalisation is only half that of the US, a fact which, to a Martian briefed on relative population size and relative GDPs, would seem surprising.

The MSCI World Index has risen 18% since it bottomed on 7th April, the day before the introduction of penal ‘reciprocal’ tariffs by the US was delayed. After such a rapid rise there is good reason to expect a pause. With the majority of strategies at Oldfield Partners trading at single-digit earnings multiples, we would envisage any such pause to be the pause that refreshes.

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