Ben Claremon: How To Evaluate Management & Capital Allocation

<p>Hey Guys! This week is a clash of podcast hosts: Me vs Ben Claremon.&nbsp;</p> <p>Ben is Partner and Portfolio Manger at Cove Street Capital and the Podcast Host of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/compounders-the-anatomy-of-a-multibagger/id1579124518" target="_blank">The Compounders Podcast</a>. Ben conducts great interviews with founders/CEO of public companies. Today he shares his findings, favorite CEOs, his Management Assessment Framework, what makes for great capital allocation, and Ben's greatest business of all time.</p> <p>If you like what you heard, check out Ben on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/BenClaremon" target="_blank">here</a> and Cove Street's <a href="http://covestreetcapital.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Assessing-Management-Cove-Street-Capital-June-2019.pdf" target="_blank">Management Presentation</a>. <br> </p> <ul> <li>[0:00] Who is the most impressive CEO?</li> <li>[2:00] Element Solutions ($ESI)</li> <li>[4:00] Joey Levin ($IAC)</li> <li>[7:00] Upsides from Knowing the CEO</li> <li>[12:00] The Compounders Podcast Lessons</li> <li>[18:00] Charismatic CEOs</li> <li>[25:20] Proprietary Management Assessment Framework</li> <li>[40:00] Insider Transactions</li> <li>[50:00] Capital Allocation is the Golden Goose.</li> <li>[1:00:00] Profitability vs Growth</li> <li>[1:10:00] Ben’s Ultimate Team</li> <li>[1:27:00] More from Ben Claremon and Closing Questions</li> </ul> <p>Finally, a big thanks to the following sponsors for making the podcast a reality.</p> <p>Mitimco</p> <p>This episode is brought to you by MITIMCo, the investment office of MIT. Each year, MITIMCo invests in a handful of new emerging managers who it believes can earn exceptional long-term returns in support of MIT's mission. To help the emerging manager community more broadly, they created&nbsp;<a href="https://emergingmanagers.org/" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">emergingmanagers.org</a>, a website for emerging manager stockpickers.</p> <p>For those looking to start a