Why will someone sell you a dollar for 50 cents? Because in the short run, people are irrational on both the optimistic and pessimistic side.

Long term debt and bank debt (including off-balance sheet financing must be judiciously employed. There must be room to expand the debt position if required.

You find bargains among the unpopular things, the things that everybody hates. The key is that you must have patience.

Try to pick a fund manager who has a well-defined strategy, has been through these things before, and go invest and stay with him.

To my knowledge there are no good records that have been built by institutions run by committee. In almost all cases the great records are the product of individuals, perhaps working together, but always within a clearly defined framework. Their names are on the door and they are quite visible to the investing public. In reality outstanding records are made by dictators, hopefully benevolent, but nonetheless dictators.

One of the dangers about net-net investing is that if you buy a net-net that begins to lose money your net-net goes down and your capacity to be able to make a profit becomes less secure. So the trick is not necessarily to predict what the earnings are going to be but to have a clear conviction that the company isn't going bust and that your margin of safety will remain intact over time.

We do liquidation analysis and liquidation analysis only.