The Investment Portfolio

The world’s greatest fortunes all follow the same method.

They put most of their wealth into one exceptional company, the one they know better than anyone, protected by a durable competitive advantage, and they hold on to it. This is not a privilege reserved for an elite. It is a method, and it can be copied.

Musk. Bezos. Arnault. Zuckerberg. We picture them juggling a thousand sophisticated investments. The reality is almost embarrassingly simple. Each of them holds most of his fortune in a single company, his own. A company he understands down to its smallest gears, whose competitive advantage, risks and growth drivers he knows better than any analyst.

Warren Buffett calls this durable competitive advantage a moat, like the water-filled ditch that protected a medieval castle from attackers.

This is no accident. It is exactly what Warren Buffett has been describing for fifty years, and what these fortunes apply, whether they realise it or not.

Concentration, deep knowledge, the long term.

What to copy is not their companies, it is their method

Let us be clear, buying the companies of the world’s richest people is not enough. Their success does not come from the name of their business, but from the way they own it.

What we borrow from them is the discipline. Focus on a small number of excellent companies, know them in depth, make sure they have a genuine durable competitive advantage, understand their risks, and hold them for a long time.

And there is one point private investors almost always overlook, the price. A wonderful company bought far too expensively can remain a poor investment for years. The costliest mistake is not missing a good company, it is paying much more than it is worth.

Everything lies in the word exceptional, and in the price at which you buy. Applying the same recipe to a mediocre company, or to an excellent company bought too expensively, leads nowhere.

An extraordinary opportunity, becoming a co-owner of exceptional companies

Here is the most remarkable part. Thanks to the stock market, anyone, with a modest sum, can become a co-owner of the best companies in the world. Sit at the same table as their leaders and the greatest investors, benefit from their competitive advantage and their growth, and compound alongside them.

For centuries, you had to be born in the right place to own a share of a great company. Today, the door is open to everyone. It is an extraordinary opportunity, and almost no one truly seizes it.

What these fortunes know, and what nobody points out

A fortune breaking a record makes the headlines. Nobody mentions it when the same fortune is cut in half in a single year, and that happens regularly. Why don’t its owners sell in a panic?

Because they know their company. Volatility does not frighten them, it is the price of exceptional returns over the long term. Diversification is protection against ignorance, Buffett said. Someone who understands what he owns does not need to spread himself across forty positions to sleep at night. He needs conviction.

This is where almost everyone falls away. Not for lack of means, but for lack of method and patience. So the real question is not how much these fortunes own, it is why so few people copy a method that is so openly available.

How we apply this principle

You have not built your own empire, and you do not need to put all your wealth on a single name. The faithful translation of this principle for an investor is a focused portfolio. A few exceptional companies, chosen with the same standards a founder applies to his own, studied in depth, and held for a long time.

That is exactly what The Mitzpahor Portfolio is. Several companies, but very few, and a deliberate concentration on our strongest convictions.

The method, plainly

It rests on a handful of disarmingly simple principles.

1. Own a small number of companies you truly understand, rather than a diluted collection.
2. Favour a fast-growing company with structurally wide margins. Wide and lasting margins prove a real competitive advantage, not just a passing good spell.
3. Demand a durable competitive advantage, a strong brand, high switching costs or an unbeatable cost position, that protects profits.
4. Properly analyse the risks specific to the company, because a return is worthless if you have not understood what could break the business model.
5. Let the company compound, favouring those that skilfully reinvest their profits, the snowball that grows with every turn.
6. Never overpay, and know when to buy and when to sell.
7. Hold for the long term, and act with method, never with emotion.

From the start of 1980 to the end of 2025, Berkshire Hathaway stock, Warren Buffett’s company, multiplied more than 2,300 times, against around 200 times for the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested, according to Berkshire Hathaway’s annual letters. No magic, just discipline applied over a long time.

Buying at the right price, selling for the right reasons

Timing matters, but not in the way people imagine. Nobody can predict the direction of the market, and we do not claim to.

We buy when a company meets all our criteria and its price is reasonable relative to the value we estimate. We buy heavily when fear marks down the best companies, during crises in particular. When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble.

And when no company meets these conditions, we buy nothing. We may go several months without a single purchase, our cash ready to be deployed. Doing nothing when nothing justifies action is part of the method. It is even one of the hardest disciplines of all.

We rarely sell, and never out of emotion or because of a temporary dip. We sell for two reasons only. When a fundamental change undermines what made us buy, or when a clearly superior opportunity appears elsewhere.

Reacting fast when the fundamentals change

Holding for the long term does not mean closing your eyes. A competitive advantage can erode, a business model can come under threat, management can change course. We constantly monitor the fundamentals of every company in the portfolio.

This is where we make the difference. If a fundamental change undermines the reasons we hold a stock, we are able to sell very quickly, without waiting for the next scheduled update. And you are informed first, before we act ourselves, with the precise reason for our decision.

You do not find out weeks later in a summary. You find out first.

What we bring, the method for the tech era

For decades, Buffett’s followers avoided technology, judged too unpredictable. They were right in their time. But today, the most formidable compounding machines in the world are technology companies, and traditional tools measure them poorly. A company that reinvests everything into growth looks expensive at the very moment it is building an empire.

We have adapted Buffett’s tools to separate what simply keeps the business running from what funds its future growth. As a result, we identify exceptional companies that the market wrongly sees as mediocre. Buffett’s rigour, applied to the companies of our time.

A method you judge in real time

At Mitzpahor, you do not receive a promise, you receive reasoning. For every decision, we lay out the why, openly. You do not follow us blindly, you understand and you decide as an informed adult.

Our most valuable asset is your trust, so we build everything around it.

• Subscribers first, when we buy or sell, you are informed before we act, never the other way round.
• We also own up to the decisions that turn out to be wrong, because an honest method is judged on everything, not only on its successes.

For educational purposes only. The Portfolio is a non-personalised model and does not constitute individual investment advice. Mitzpahor may hold the securities presented. All investing involves a risk of capital loss, and past performance is no guide to future performance. Even the best go through it. Berkshire Hathaway stock, Warren Buffett’s company, lost 51% between September 2008 and March 2009. If a fall like that would push you to sell, the stock market may not be for you.