Sequoia Fund

Thoughts on several companies the current managers of the Sequoia Fund like can be found here. One of the companies commented upon by them is Mohawk Industries (MHK).

Some excerpts from the latest shareholder meeting:

"Mohawk sells floor covering. Its sales are driven primarily by existing home sales, commercial construction and remodeling and, to a lesser extent, new home sales. It's no news that we haven't been buying or selling a lot of houses, and we haven't been building many houses. In fact, we built way too many houses. And it's going to take a long time for that excess inventory to get sopped up.

One way to think about Mohawk today, and to put it into the context of Bob's comments, is to look at the pluses and minuses for the company as it exists now, given the way we feel about the economy. On the downside, of course, is this continuing contraction of consumers' spending and their being more thrifty — obviously, it's better if people are going to throw around a lot of money, buy vacation houses, and put flooring in — Mohawk will suffer from that.

But the structure of the company is such that it's in a pretty good position, even if people are going to be thrifty because its product line goes from goods that are very expensive to those that are very inexpensive. If the consumer moves down market, Mohawk still stands in a good position to capture a lot of that business."

"On the other side, somewhat offsetting a longer-term contraction of consumer spending, is the fundamental driver of housing, which is household formation. And that is simply going to continue no matter how thrifty we are."

"If you just look at the numbers, there's a very big demographic wave coming to create demand for housing in the future. So it's very, very difficult to tell how long the recovery in demand is going to take, but the fundamental driver of housing is still there. It's alive and walking around. So I think over the long run Mohawk will be fine.

It will be difficult for it to produce the same volume of sales as in the past because there's not going to be a housing boom. But again, partially offsetting that, the business itself — the whole industry has contracted. Marginal players are strapped."

"When demand returns, Mohawk will be manufacturing with its most productive assets. So over the long run, it will be okay. When exactly that is going to happen I'm not prepared to say because I don't know.

What I would add to that is Mohawk has a terrific family ownership. It's the kind of owner-manager whom we really like. It has a very good duopoly position in the industry. Shaw is the other major flooring company. With only two large companies in that industry, you should have very rational pricing over time. They are much stronger than any of the smaller companies."

This fund came about after Warren Buffett decided to end his partnerships. After ending them, he asked Bill Ruane (the founder of the Sequoia Fund) to take care of his former investment partners.

Adam

Long position in MHK

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