Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

President and chief investment officer of Semper Augustus Investments Group, Chris Bloomstran has 29 years of professional investment experience with a value-driven approach to fundamental equity and industry research. Semper Augustus manages concentrated, all-cap portfolios with typically long holding periods and a general benchmark and geographical agnosticism. The investment process maintains business quality at a high level and stresses the importance of price below intrinsic value. The approach is eclectic, resulting in ownership in some businesses ideally held forever, now fashionably compounders. They own some things cyclically, will own the long side of merger arbitrage, and occasionally have the chance to opportunistically put money to work in oddball special situations with extremely low risk and high upside.

Bloomstran received his bachelor of science in finance from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he also played football. He served as president of the Board of Directors for the CFA Society of St. Louis and has been a director on the board since 2001. Bloomstran has judged the local CFA Institute’s Global Investment Challenge for many years and has been honored to judge the Regional and the Global Finals since 2016. A member of the CFA Institute, he earned his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1994.

Bloomstran writes extensively on Berkshire Hathaway, and more broadly on thematic topics related to the stock market and the economy. His annual year-end letter is widely read among the value investing community. Recent interviews include an “Invest Like the Best” podcast episode and an interview with the Investment Masters Class in Australia. He much enjoys giving back through mentorship and loves speaking regularly at many colleges and universities. Most recently he was honored to speak at Columbia Business School’s Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing.

Mr. Bloomstran will deliver the keynote for the 2020 Claremont Finance Conference.