The fortuitous purchase of some McDonald’s Corp. stock forever altered Jonathan Booth’s life at just 11 years of age. His uncle, a CPA, gave the shares to him as a gift, then made a tradition of purchasing additional shares every birthday and Christmas.
“He really opened me up to it at a young age,” Booth tells Business Report in a new feature. “When I was 19, he took me to the Berkshire Hathaway annual stockholders meeting—that’s like Woodstock for capitalists.”
From that experience, Booth’s love of finance was borne. He went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting at LSU, and passed the CPA exam with one of the 10 best scores in the U.S.
Later, he met his business partner, the equally qualified Kevin Laird, while working for accounting firm KPMG, and the two formed Booth-Laird Investment Partnership in 2007. Today, the portfolio management company is earning accolades for its unique approach to pooling investors’ money to invest as a single portfolio, as it focuses on long-term capital growth through in-depth research, disciplined investing and strong relationships.
With a minimum buy-in of $100,000, Booth-Laird is not your typical portfolio manager.
“We’re not sitting down and asking about your risk profile, your goals and that sort of stuff,” Booth says. “That’s not what we do. We are a private investment partnership and we pool people’s money to invest in the stocks that we see fit. We limit ourselves to our 10 to 20 best ideas.”
The duo’s highly selective process has helped them avoid some costly mistakes in the last nine years, and given them a pretty high batting average on returns. Out of roughly 50 investments, Booth says they’ve only lost money a handful of times. Sometimes, that means Booth-Laird must walk away from an investment. They once spent an entire month analyzing online travel agencies, but ultimately chose to walk because they weren’t confident in the industry’s future.
“We’ll go weeks or months without making a single trade in the market,” Booth says. “If we can find two to three new ideas a year we’re in great shape.”
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