Investing Against the Tide

chapter 18

Some memorable company meetings

I keep my company meeting notes in ruled A4 notebooks (I prefer notebooks to individual sheets of paper that can easily get lost over time). I started taking notes of my UK company meetings in 1987 and by the time I stopped running the Special Situations Fund I was on my fifty-second book (with just under 100 notes per book that’s about 5,000 company meetings). Similarly, I did the same for European company meetings starting in 1985, the year Fidelity European Fund was launched, and have filled thirty-seven books.

There is a possible myth that such company notes are of great interest to the outside world. Looking back at these notes I find most today rather mundane and full of details that meant ...