Interview With Steven Kiel Of Arquitos Capital On Small Cap Special Situations Investing

ValueWalk’s Raul Panganiban interviews Steven Kiel, founder and portfolio manager of Arquitos Capital and chairman of Enterprise Diversified.

Q2 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc

Interview with Steven Kiel

 

Transcript

Hello podcast listeners. Today’s a very special episode with Steve Kiel, founder and Portfolio Manager of Arquitos Capital and chairman of Enterprise Diversified. Before founding Arquitos, Steve was an attorney and a private practice. He’s a member of the Army Reserves and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and currently holds the rank of Major. In today’s episode, we discuss his approach and style to invest in and will oak asset management. I want to welcome Steve to the show. And I want to welcome all our listeners to a very special episode.

Welcome to ValueTalkswith Raul.

Just wanted to welcome all my listeners to a very special episode. I have Steve Kiel, Founder and Portfolio Manager of Arquitos Capital and chairman of Enterprise Diversified. Steve, welcome to the show.

Very thanks Raul, I appreciate it.

All right. Yeah, if you just tell me about your background, and what led you to finance and investing?

Sure. So I’ve had Arquitos Capital for about seven and a half years or so. My background is as an attorney, I worked for a nonprofit as well, when I first got out of undergrad, also a Judge Advocate in the Army Reserves about 19 years in there as well. So do a little bit of legal work still, on a very part time basis. But yeah, you know, change careers from the legal field to, to finance here about 10 years ago. And I’d say, you know, the reason was really the kind of the self learning the margin of safety by Seth Klarman and Joel Greenblatt book, you know, other things like that had had been a, a kind of, you know, self learning exercise through the years and had been investing personally and enjoyed it. And, you know, had an opportunity to, to do it full time. There are quite a few of us out there, especially emerging managers, who’ve kind of followed the minister Bry model, which, you know, ultimately follows the Buffett partnership model that had the opportunity to change careers and, and so did that about 10 years ago and started the fund about seven and a half years ago.

And then just want to know, what was the inspiration behind the name Arquitos? And if there’s any special meaning?

Yeah, so Arquitos is a rough translation for the arches. And there’s a city in southern Mexico that has a, an aqua called Los Arquitos, the arches, and very rich one of the richest cities in North America few hundred years ago. And the reason reason for that was because of these aqueducts brought water down from the mountains, outside of the city over into the city centre. So yeah, it’s kind of taken took that idea that we’re off the beaten path, we’re off Wall Street a little bit different. But we have that ultimate goal of bringing prosperity to the investors in our ketosis in the same way that the aqueduct Los Arquitos brought prosperity of the people of will aka city, so I’m going to so long ago.

Very cool. Yeah. If you can just tell me about your overall philosophy and core beliefs in regards to investing?

Yeah, so ultimately, it’s based on a special situations approach.