Oksenholt Capital Management LLC
We Invest Our Own Money.
Oksenholt Capital Management LLC is a privately owned investment firm overseeing investments in public equities, real estate and businesses we own and operate.
We don’t have outside investors, and we don’t intend to. There is no fund to raise and no deadline for returning capital. We invest our own money, which gives us the freedom to be patient, act when we see an opportunity and, just as importantly, do nothing when we don’t.
Our Capital
Permanent Means Permanent.
Oksenholt Capital grew out of decades spent building businesses, buying real estate and investing the money those businesses produced.
We don’t manage money for other people. Nobody is asking us to put capital to work, and there isn’t a clock telling us when we have to sell something and give the money back.
Some years there is a lot to do. Other times, we’d rather hold cash and wait. We like having that choice.
Our operating businesses carry no outside debt. We do use debt in real estate because, used properly, it makes sense. We generally favor conservative, non-recourse financing and don’t want any investment to depend on leverage to work.
We’re not against debt. We’re against needing it.
Where We Invest
Public Equities
A Stock Is a Piece of a Business.
And we try not to make it much more complicated than that.
We look for companies we would be happy to own outright: businesses with good economics, capable people and sound balance sheets. Then we ask what we’re being asked to pay.
Price matters. A great company can be a lousy investment at the wrong price, and an unpopular company can be a very good investment at the right one.
We tend to invest for the long term, but that doesn’t mean we fall in love with what we own. Facts change, people change and prices change. When the facts change, we’re perfectly willing to change our minds too.
Most of the time, we’re happy to let management run the company. Occasionally, we see something differently. If we have a strong view about valuation, strategy, capital allocation or the treatment of shareholders, we’re willing to say so.
Real Estate
We Have Been Doing This a Long Time.
Real estate has been part of our business for decades. We and our affiliates have acquired, developed, owned and operated multifamily, resort, hospitality, commercial and other properties through good markets and bad ones.
We like real estate for fairly old-fashioned reasons. You can see it, improve it and, if you do things right, collect cash from it. Buy the right property in the right place, don’t put too much debt on it, take care of it and time can do a lot of the work.
Not every investment needs a complicated thesis. Sometimes a good asset, bought well and managed properly, is enough.
Operating Businesses
Building Businesses Changes How You Invest.
We’ve been operators longer than we’ve called ourselves an investment firm.
Today, Oksenholt Capital and its affiliates own and operate businesses across hospitality, technology and related industries. Good people run those businesses. We try to give them room to do their jobs, provide capital when it makes sense and help when we can actually add something.
Running businesses has also shaped the way we invest.
A spreadsheet can tell you a lot, but it can’t tell you everything. We’ve hired people, made payroll, lost customers, opened businesses that worked and dealt with things that didn’t work the way we expected. We’ve borrowed money and paid it back. We’ve also seen how quickly a balance sheet that looked perfectly comfortable can become the most important thing in the room.
You look at financial statements a little differently after you’ve lived on the other side of them.
How We Think
Start With the Downside.
We like upside as much as anybody. Before we spend too much time thinking about what we might make, though, we want to understand what we can lose.
What does the business really earn?
How much debt is there?
Is demand durable or are we looking at a good year and calling it a trend?
Does management have enough of its own money at risk to think like an owner?
What happens if we’re wrong?
And what are we paying?
There isn’t a formula that answers all of that.
We do the work, talk it through, make a decision and put our own money behind it. Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong.
The trick isn’t to never be wrong. It’s to avoid being so wrong, or so leveraged, that you don’t get to make the next decision.
Why Our Structure Matters
01
We Invest Our Own Capital
There are no outside investors and no clients. The money at risk is ours.
02
We Don’t Have a Fund Clock
A good investment doesn’t suddenly become a bad one because a fund has reached year seven. If we still want to own something, we can keep owning it.
03
We Don’t Have to Do Something
This may be one of our biggest advantages. If nothing looks particularly attractive, we can wait.
04
We’ve Actually Operated Businesses
That certainly doesn’t mean we’re always right, but it gives us a perspective we value.
05
We Think in Years
We’re interested in what something can become over time, not whether the market agrees with us next quarter.
Our Story
Built, Not Raised.
Jon Oksenholt started his first business with very little money and built from there.
There was no institutional capital behind it and no private equity sponsor. Businesses came first, followed by real estate, and over time the capital generated by those businesses and investments became Oksenholt Capital.
That history still explains a lot about how we think.
We’ve always known what it feels like when the money at risk is actually yours.
We also don’t care very much whether an opportunity fits neatly into somebody else’s category. It might be a public company, a private business, an apartment building, a resort or a technology company. What matters is whether we understand it, trust the people involved, can live with the downside and believe we’re getting considerably more value than we’re paying for.
When those things line up, we’re interested. When they don’t, we wait.
Research & Perspectives
Sometimes We Have Something to Say.
From time to time, we publish our work on public companies and investment situations where we’ve developed a strong view.
These aren’t reports written for clients. We don’t have clients. They’re our own views, based on our own work, and they often involve securities in which we have our own money invested.
We don’t expect everyone to agree with us, and that’s fine. The point is to show our work and explain how we got there.
Love, Loyalty & Cashflow.
We’ve used those three words for a long time.
Love what you do. Be loyal to good people. And never forget about cash flow.
There are more sophisticated ways to describe an investment philosophy. We’re not convinced they’re better.
Oksenholt Capital Management LLC
Public Equities | Real Estate | Operating Businesses
Privately owned. Investing our own capital.
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