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Matthias Knab, Opalesque: The Buffett disciple and value investing icon returns outside capital for health reasons, closing a chapter that turned $1 into nearly $13 for his partners
Guy Spier, the Zurich-based value investor who famously paid $650,100 alongside Mohnish Pabrai for a charity lunch with Warren Buffett in 2008, is winding down the Aquamarine Fund for external investors and returning outside capital. In a deeply personal annual letter to his partners, Spier disclosed that the decision was driven not by performance or market conditions, but by health reasons - and his obligation, as he put it, to treat his investors' capital with the seriousness it deserves.
Spier, who participated in the Opalesque Zurich Roundtable in 2010 and was featured on Opalesque.TV, has managed the Aquamarine Fund since its inception in September 1997, growing assets to approximately $470 million. The fund will transition to a family office structure, with Spier continuing to manage his own capital alongside his existing team.
A 28-Year Track Record
For 2025, Aquamarine returned 11.3% versus 17.9% for the S&P 500. But the long-term numbers tell the fuller story: since inception in 1997, the fund has compounded at 9.4% annually, edging out the S&P 500's 9.2%, the Dow's 9.0%, the MSCI World's 8.0%, and comfortably surpassing the FTSE 100's 4.8%. Total cumulative return since inception stands at 1,185.6%, compared with 1,103.4% for the S&P 500.
The 2025 performance was driven by contributions from BYD, American Express, and Bank of America, while Ferrari, Indian Energy Exchange, and Exor were detractors. By year-end, the portfolio had been significantly consolidated to just seven holdings as roughly half the assets were liquidated to meet redemption requests.
Aquamarine Fund - Key Figures at Wind-Down
AUM: ~$470 million • Inception: September 1997 • Cumulative return: 1,185.6%
CAGR since inception: 9.4% vs. S&P 500's 9.2% • Cash raised for return: ~$235 million
Remaining portfolio: 7 concentrated holdings • Transition: Family office
"This Is Not the Letter I Wanted to Be Writing"
In the most candid section of the letter, Spier recounted how a grand mal seizure while driving back from a skiing day in Klosters with his children led to the discovery of a brain tumor. Surgery at Hirslanden Hospital in Zurich revealed grade 4 glioblastoma. Despite early and aggressive treatment under the Stupp protocol, the cancer recurred in September 2025, fundamentally changing Spier's priorities.
"Although my mind and investing abilities remain intact today, we have no way of knowing when that might change. My condition could stabilize for a long time, or it might not."
Spier wrote that he initially considered offering investors a choice between redemption and staying invested, but after consulting with family, his team, directors, and legal advisors, he concluded that a full return of capital was the right course of action. The decision was executed with characteristic discipline: the portfolio was liquidated through Sanford Bernstein and IIFL Capital at VWAP, with aggregate brokerage fees under 10 basis points - reasonable given it was the largest liquidation in the fund's history.
A Retrospective on Nearly 200 Holdings
Spier's letter included a candid retrospective on the fewer than 200 companies held over 28 years. He credited his mentors - Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger foremost, but also Tom Russo, Mohnish Pabrai, Nick Sleep, Li Lu, and many participants in the VALUEx investor conference - for shaping his approach of studying what great investors owned and reverse-engineering their reasoning.
This led to successful investments in branded consumer businesses (Nestl, Heineken, McDonald's), credit rating agencies (Moody's, CRISIL, CareEdge), insurance companies (Berkshire Hathaway, Aflac, RLI Insurance), and financial infrastructure plays (Mastercard, American Express, Indian Energy Exchange). At the same time, he was refreshingly honest about mistakes: selling CRISIL too early and missing a potential 200x return, exiting Moody's after the 2008 crisis out of litigation fears, never acting on Nick Sleep's Amazon and Costco analysis, and the time-consuming foray into resource extraction that culminated in his largest single loss with Horsehead Holding.
"Over a Cornish pasty on the King's Road, Nick Sleep and Qais Zakaria shared their analysis of Amazon and Costco. I did not bite."
The "Fiduciary Gene" - Five Criteria for Choosing a Manager
With outside capital being returned, Spier shared the framework he will use for his own family office allocations. He identified five characteristics he looks for in stewards of capital:
1. Skin in the game - the manager must invest their own money alongside investors, ideally in the same portfolio. Spier contrasted Buffett's total alignment at Berkshire with the misaligned incentives of a UBS bank manager who personally owned Berkshire shares but placed his father's money in an S&P 500 selection instead.
2. Primary or sole focus - capital management should be the person's main activity, with most of their net worth committed. He cited Bernard Arnault at LVMH, John Elkann at Exor, and Chris Hohn's focused operation as examples.
3. An activity, not a business - when money management becomes a business, the temptation shifts from making money with investors to making money off investors. Spier's own zero-management-fee structure with a cumulative hurdle was designed to avoid this trap.
4. Demonstrable competence and candor - a manager who describes mistakes accurately and learns from them is far more trustworthy than one who makes excuses or keeps starting new funds.
5. The fiduciary gene - the most critical of all. The manager must want a good reputation and to be fair with investors because that is how they want to play the game of life, not because of how much money it makes them.
Portfolio Positioning: Durable Compounders
Looking ahead, Spier described a portfolio philosophy that has evolved over the past decade away from binary outcomes and toward what he calls "time-friendly compounders" - businesses where the range of outcomes runs from decent to superb with minimal risk of permanent loss. The remaining portfolio is concentrated in names like Berkshire Hathaway, Mastercard, American Express, Moody's, and Nestl.
On BYD, Spier argued the thesis is straightforward: most integrated operations, lowest costs, and the ability to drive industry consolidation and restore profitability on its own terms. Companies with more uncertain outcomes, like Indian Energy Exchange, are being de-emphasized.
The Power of Friendship - and How to Talk to Someone Who Is Sick
Perhaps the most moving sections of the letter deal not with finance but with human connection. Spier described how his diagnosis acted as a "flare" that revealed exactly where everyone stood, echoing Douglas Murray's writing about moments of crisis. He named dozens of friends - from Li Lu flying in from Seattle to Mohnish Pabrai from Austin, from Atul Gawande reaching out after reading an earlier letter to the Chabad community in Zurich - who showed up when it mattered.
He also made a pointed and practical request: do not send him medical suggestions or miracle cures directly. Every such message, however well-intentioned, pulls him back into the role of patient when he would rather simply be a friend discussing ideas, investments, or life. Instead, he asked that any research leads be directed to his wife Lory or to his colleague Chantal, where his world-class medical team at Hirslanden and the University of Zurich can properly evaluate them.
"Hineni" - Here I Am
The letter concludes with a meditation on the Hebrew word Hineni, meaning "Here I am" - the response given by Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah at moments of profound calling. For Spier, it represents accepting a script different from the one he wrote for himself.
He drew a vivid analogy from the world of classical music: the pianist Maria Joo Pires at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, realizing as the orchestra begins that she has prepared the wrong concerto, then steadying herself and playing brilliantly. Spier writes that unlike Pires, he has no score at all and will have to improvise.
"I was prepared to play the music of compounding capital for decades to come, but that is not the music I have been given. And - unlike Maria Pires at the Concertgebouw - there is no score, so I will have to improvise, to the best of my ability. Hineni. Here I am."
Spier will continue to host his VALUEx investor gatherings and plans to be in Omaha for VALUEx BRK 2026 on May 1, 2026. He will also continue writing a family letter with investment insights, which former investors are welcome to receive.
The Aquamarine Fund's wind-down is being administered by SS&C, with a Deloitte audit to follow. A holdback will be maintained until the audit is complete, after which remaining funds will be distributed.
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