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In his recent letter to prospective entrepreneurs, Mark Leonard discusses the opportunities in businesses with an “earned secret”. Here’s an excerpt from the letter: I tell this story to give two pieces of advice: 1) you don’t have to be a twenty-something year old with no dependents to start a … Read More

CSI recently released a document titled – Selected Investor Questions Received Through September 17, in which CFO Jamal Baksh and Mark Leonard respond to selected investor questions. Mark Leonard’s response to the following two questions highlights the attributes he looks for in great management. Here’s an excerpt from the document: … Read More

During his latest Annual General Meeting, Constellation’s Mark Leonard discussed how he goes about finding opportunities in which to invest. Here’s some excerpts from the call: Leonard: So lessons from the high-performance conglomerates. I’ll tell you one lesson I’ve learned, and that’s Roy Thompson wrote a book which I love … Read More

In his 2015 Shareholder Letter, Constellation’s Mark Leonard provided a great illustration, using (JKHY) Jack Henry & Associates Inc, of why good companies are not always great stocks. Here’s an excerpt from the letter: There’s one last lesson from JKHY that I’d like to share. It relates to you as … Read More

In this rare interview on The Harris Podcast, CSI boss Mark Leonard discusses his life before CSI and some of the jobs he did which including masonry, bouncing, and grave digging. Here’s an excerpt from the interview: Host: Shifting over to work experiences. So I think you shared with us … Read More

In his 2015 letter to shareholders, Mark Leonard posed the following thought experiment: How about a thought experiment? Assume attractive return opportunities are scarce and that you are an excellent forecaster. For the same price you can purchase a high profit declining revenue business or a lower profit growing business, … Read More

In his latest letter to shareholders, Mark Leonard has converted from his long held philosophy to maintain his current hurdle rates which means he can now invest all of the cash that his company produces rather than simply paying dividends saying, “Historically, we have paid three special dividends, and for … Read More

In the 2017 Constellation Software President’s Letter, Mark Leonard discussed his process for dealing with potential investments that don’t quite meet their hurdle rate. Here’s an excerpt from that letter: Maintaining Investment Discipline: I recently worked on a large transaction. With every day that passed, I could feel my commitment … Read More

In his 2012 Shareholder Letter, Constellation Software President Mark Leonard explained why founder businesses and distressed assets make great acquisitions saying: Our favourite and most frequent acquisitions are the businesses that we buy from founders. When a founder invests the better part of a lifetime building a business, a long … Read More