Tweedy Browne's John Spears and Jay Hill on value investing and insider buying | S08 E17

In this episode of The Acquirers Podcast, Tobias Carlisle and Jake Taylor welcome John Spears and Jay Hill from Tweedy Brown to discuss their deep value investment philosophy, centered on identifying companies trading at significant discounts to private market value. The firm, founded in 1920, has maintained a consistent focus on traditional value investing, using two key criteria: stocks must be cheap relative to comparable M&A deals and also cheap on an absolute basis, avoiding inflated multiples driven by low interest rates. A core differentiator is their emphasis on insider buying—specifically, material, free-will purchases by C-suite executives exceeding $100,000—as a powerful validation signal. The guests also introduce their ETFs, Copy and iCopy, which combine insider buying with quantitative cheapness, with a strong tilt toward international small and mid-cap stocks. Despite a prolonged period of underperformance for value investing, especially against the Magnificent Seven, the team remains confident in their long-term approach, citing the UK market as particularly undervalued. The episode concludes with a philosophical reflection on resilience, drawing parallels between the honey badger’s physical toughness and psychological flexibility—thick skin to filter noise, loose skin to remain adaptable under pressure.