I admire Investors with Skin in the Game

Anytime I study companies for a potential investment, I always try to do plenty of research on the company, reading annual reports, analyst reports and articles on the firm. Many times I end up reading very positive articles where owning company’s shares is mentioned as a no-brainer decision. After reading the articles however, I am always surprised when authors are not owning shares in this otherwise slam-dunk investment.

That being said there are valid reasons for not owning a company's stock, such as waiting for a pullback or due to conflict of interest. Either way however, I prefer to listen to an investor who has skin in the game. Authors who are good at writing articles, have very little to teach me about investing, where the major part of success is based on investor psychology, rather than neatly organized content. I believe in learning from those who practice their skills, not those who claim to have knowledge of it. After all, if you went for a surgery, would you go for the person that has all the theoretical knowledge, or would you go for the person who has actually practiced their skill?

I do not trust financial advisers whose goal is to sell you products you do not need. I cannot trust a college kid with a degree who has never dealt with psychological dilemmas of investing decisions. I enjoy reading articles written by authors who talk about their own experiences as investors.

I also prefer books from authors who have made it in the investing game, or at least discuss a particular topic from their own experiences. If they failed that is fine with me as well. Sometimes you increase your chances of success and gain more knowledge on a given topic when you learn what not to do, rather than what you should be doing. If you narrow down investing books to only those based on personal experience, rather than the academic ones describing your hypothetical returns, you are only left with a handful.

The reason why I prefer following investors with skin in the game is because you view situations differently when money is on the line, rather than using statistics and pie in the sky models. That is why I respect individuals with stake in the game. Warren Buffett for example, the world’s most renowned investor and the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) is the epitome of an individual with a stake in the game, who have always treated investors that have trusted him with their money as partners, and looked after their best interests. He made a lot of money for himself in the process as well.

Richard Kinder, the CEO of Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) is another individual that I greatly admire. His interests are aligned with the interests of Kinder Morgan (KMI) shareholders and Kinder Morgan Energy (KMP) limited partners. The higher the distributions that Kinder Morgan Energy Partners achieves, the higher the dividends that this CEO with the sky-high salary of $1/year will receive. Compared to Richard Kinder, even Buffett's $100,000/year salary looks excessive.

Compare this to the typical CEO compensation however, which runs into the millions of dollars, no matter what the financial performance of the company they are heading. Some CEO's spend more time gaming the system, and wasting shareholders' money on ill-timed ego boosting acquisitions or share buybacks, while collecting big paychecks. For example, in 2009 I posted a chart of the CEO's that collected enormous bonuses, while their companies were struggling and had to cut distributions to shareholders.

Full Disclosure: Long KMI and KMR

Relevant Articles:

- Complete List of Articles on Dividend Growth Investor Website
- Highest paid CEO’s in 2008 didn’t perform that well as a group
- The Importance of Corporate Governance for Successful Dividend Investing
- Warren Buffett Investing Resource Page
- The work required to have an opinion
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