Dakota began working with Spyglass Capital Management from its inception in October of 2015. Prior to the launch of Spyglass, Dakota had worked closely with Jim Robillard (Founder and CIO) through our partnership with Edgewood Management, Jim’s predecessor firm where he spent over a decade on the investment team.
We are grateful for our relationship with Spyglass and the opportunity to help grow their firm assets to over $1.4 billion with $716 million in the mutual fund, as of June 30, 2024.
Spyglass manages a single strategy with approximately $1.4 billion in assets (as of June 30, 2024) and is available via mutual fund, separately managed account, and a UCITS vehicle.
Spyglass has eight employees, including two Research Analysts, who work with Jim on the investment team. Spyglass’s portfolio is comprised of 25 rapidly growing, high-quality, U.S. companies operating across a wide array of industries that are experiencing secular growth trends.
The Spyglass Growth Strategy is a fixed, 25-stock portfolio. This discipline challenges the team’s conviction in every single stock and forces the team to make difficult decisions when it comes time to sell. Spyglass’s portfolio businesses share common traits. They operate in secular growth industries, they are run by outstanding entrepreneurial management teams, and they enjoy market-leading competitive advantages. Spyglass prefers companies that have recurring revenues and those that can fund their operations from the cash they generate.
Spyglass has a strict limit of 7% of invested capital in any one company and 25% in any one sub-industry group. One of the keys to Spyglass’s framework for portfolio construction is to adjust its position sizes in coordination with its internally calculated, risk-adjusted, present values. Spyglass further diversifies across revenue growth rates and the relative maturity of the thesis.
Spyglass was launched in 2015 and Jim Robillard has been researching and investing in growth businesses for nearly 20 years. Jim draws on his experience as a fundamental investment analyst and applies the process and portfolio construction techniques that he developed during his time at Edgewood.
Deep, fundamental research on a limited number of stocks allows the team to leverage its conviction.
Spyglass applies the same approach year after year, and managing risk in a high-growth portfolio is a key element of Spyglass’s long-term success.
Jim and the Spyglass team have a true passion for investing and identifying unique businesses in secular growth areas of the economy; they are driven to consistently improve and deliver long-term, risk-adjusted, excess performance.
If you would like to learn more about Spyglass and/or speak with the Portfolio Manager, call Andrew O’Shea at (804) 873-5197 or email at aoshea@dakota.com.