Harvey Sawikin's guest appearances

Harvey Sawikin

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Real Vision Daily Briefing: Finance & Investing

My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

Ben Thompson

Meb Faber

Tyler Cowen

Josh Wolfe

Annie Duke

Michael Mauboussin

Marc Andreessen

Brian Koppelman

Kyle Samani

Tim Urban

Peter Attia

David Epstein

Jason Zweig

David Tisch

Bronwyn Varty

OwlTail

BIO: Harvey Sawikin is the co-founder and co-manager of Firebird. Launched in early 1994, Firebird’s funds were the first dedicated to the stock markets of Russia and the former Soviet Union.STORY: Harvey invested twice in a bank and a vodka company without due diligence. Instead, he believed that other companies who had invested in those investments had done the job of verifying their viability. Harvey lost huge amounts in both investments.LEARNING: You’ll fail if you rely on someone else’s due diligence and work. The most dangerous time to invest is when it’s the easiest to invest. “Relying on someone else’s due diligence is a mistake because you never know what’s going on or when stuff starts to go wrong.”Harvey Sawikin Guest profileHarvey Sawikin is the co-founder and co-manager of Firebird. Launched starting in early 1994, Firebird’s funds were the first dedicated to the stock markets of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Harvey also co-founded the Amber funds, which do private equity in the Baltic States. Before Firebird, he was an M&amp;A lawyer at Wachtell Lipton after attending Harvard Law School and clerking for a Federal judge. Harvey’s novel, about a young lawyer who becomes an inside trader, was published by Simon &amp; Schuster in 1995. He lives in Manhattan with his wife of 32 years and a neurotic 15-year-old cockapoo.Worst investment everOne of the largest banks in Kazakhstan, BTA Bank, approached Harvey’s company with an investment proposal. Another fund in the region had taken a position in it. The bank was supposedly very close with management and had excellent insight into how the company would build. The company looked cheap, with a reasonable price to book, and the economy was performing well. So Harvey invested in the bank.It turns out the bank’s loan book was crooked, and there was a lot of self-dealing. The guy who was the main power behind the bank was arrested for misappropriating millions of dollars from the bank through bad loans. The bank was put into bankruptcy and was taken over by another bank. The shareholders were almost wiped out. Harvey’s company had invested $20 million and got under a million back.In another incident, Harvey was very interested in getting involved in Ukraine. When a vodka company was brought to their attention, they became keen on investing in it, especially since a famous hedge fund in New York had bought a direct position. The fund said they had maxed out how much they could take and were willing to sell Harvey part of their stake.Harvey’s company made its investment, and within two or three weeks, the vodka company released gross earnings. Its financial results were 40% below where they were supposed to be.Harvey believed they had been duped by the hedge fund and wound up litigating against them. He eventually dropped the case due to the ruinous litigation costs in England and where the loser pays. He surrendered to losing that investment.Lessons learnedYou’ll fail if you rely on someone else’s due diligence and work.Be careful when investing during a bubble because it becomes invisible to you when you’re inside it.Andrew’s takeawaysDo your own due diligence.Don’t overestimate the knowledge, skills, and persistence of other investors.The most dangerous time to invest is when it is the easiest to invest.Harvey’s recommendationsHarvey recommends Twitter as a source of real-time information as long as you follow the right people.No.1 goal for the next 12 monthsHarvey’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to hang onto his Russian positions and make sure his investors recover their money and continue to find value in the rest of Eastern Europe when the war is over.Parting words “If you don’t obsess over your mistakes, you’re not a real investor.”Harvey Sawikin [spp-transcript] Connect with Harvey SawikinFacebookTwitterInstagramWebsiteBookAndrew’s booksHow to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock MarketMy Worst Investment Ever9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemTransform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 PointsAndrew’s online programsValuation Master ClassThe Become a Better Investor CommunityHow to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock MarketFinance Made Ridiculously SimpleFVMR Investing: Quantamental Investing Across the WorldBecome a Great Presenter and Increase Your InfluenceTransform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 PointsAchieve Your GoalsConnect with Andrew Stotz:astotz.comLinkedInFacebookInstagramTwitterYouTubeMy Worst Investment Ever Podcast

BIO: Harvey Sawikin is the co-founder and co-manager of Firebird. Launched in early 1994, Firebird’s funds were the first dedicated to the stock markets of Russia and the former Soviet Union.STORY: Harvey invested twice in a bank and a vodka company without due diligence. Instead, he believed that other companies who had invested in those investments had done the job of verifying their viability. Harvey lost huge amounts in both investments.LEARNING: You’ll fail if you rely on someone else’s due diligence and work. The most dangerous time to invest is when it’s the easiest to invest. <blockquote>“Relying on someone else’s due diligence is a mistake because you never know what’s going on or when stuff starts to go wrong.”</blockquote><blockquote>Harvey Sawikin</blockquote> <h2>Guest profile</h2>Harvey Sawikin is the co-founder and co-manager of <a href="https://fbird.com/home" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Firebird</a>. Launched starting in early 1994, Firebird’s funds were the first dedicated to the stock markets of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Harvey also co-founded the Amber funds, which do private equity in the Baltic States. Before Firebird, he was an M&amp;A lawyer at Wachtell Lipton after attending Harvard Law School and clerking for a Federal judge. Harvey’s <a href="https://amzn.to/3oZ0bAV" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">novel</a>, about a young lawyer who becomes an inside trader, was published by Simon &amp; Schuster in 1995. He lives in Manhattan with his wife of 32 years and a neurotic 15-year-old cockapoo.<h2>Worst investment ever</h2>One of the largest banks in Kazakhstan, BTA Bank, approached Harvey’s company with an investment proposal. Another fund in the region had taken a position in it. The bank was supposedly very close with management and had excellent insight into how the company would build. The company looked cheap, with a reasonable price to book, and the economy was performing well. So Harvey invested in the bank.It turns out the bank’s loan book was crooked, and there was a lot of self-dealing. The guy who was the main power behind the bank was arrested for misappropriating millions of dollars from the bank through bad loans. The bank was put into bankruptcy and was taken over by another bank. The shareholders were almost wiped out. Harvey’s company had invested $20 million and got under a million back.In another incident, Harvey was very interested in getting involved in Ukraine. When a vodka company was brought to their attention, they became keen on investing in it, especially since a famous hedge fund in New York had bought a direct position. The fund said they had maxed out how much they could take and were willing to sell Harvey part of their stake.Harvey’s company made its investment, and within two or three weeks, the vodka company released gross earnings. Its financial results were 40% below where they were supposed to be.Harvey believed they had been duped by the hedge fund and wound up litigating against them. He eventually dropped the case due to the ruinous litigation costs in England and where the loser pays. He surrendered to losing that investment.<h2>Lessons learned</h2><ul><li>You’ll fail if you rely on someone else’s due diligence and work.</li><li>Be careful when investing during a bubble because it becomes invisible to you when you’re inside it.</li></ul><h2>Andrew’s takeaways</h2><ul><li>Do your own due diligence.</li><li>Don’t overestimate the knowledge, skills, and persistence of other investors.</li><li>The most dangerous time to invest is when it is the easiest to invest.</li></ul><h2>Harvey’s recommendations</h2>Harvey recommends Twitter as a source of real-time information as long as you follow the right people.<h2>No.1 goal for the next 12 months</h2>Harvey’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to hang onto his Russian positions and make sure his investors recover their money and continue to find value in the rest of Eastern Europe when the war is over.<h2>Parting words</h2> <blockquote>“If you don’t obsess over your mistakes, you’re not a real investor.”</blockquote><blockquote>Harvey Sawikin</blockquote> [spp-transcript] <h3>Connect with Harvey Sawikin</h3><ul><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/harvey.sawikin" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/HarveySawikin" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li><li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/hsawikin/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a></li><li><a href="https://fbird.com/home" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Website</a></li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/3oZ0bAV" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Book</a></li></ul><h3>Andrew’s books</h3><ul><li><a href="https://amzn.to/3qrfHjX" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market</a></li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/2PDApAo" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">My Worst Investment Ever</a></li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/3v6ip1Y" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them</a></li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/3emBO8M" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points</a></li></ul><h3>Andrew’s online programs</h3><ul><li><a href="https://valuationmasterclass.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Valuation Master Class</a></li><li><a href="https://astotz.kartra.com/page/become-a-better-investor-community" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The Become a Better Investor Community</a></li><li><a href="https://academy.astotz.com/courses/how-to-start-building-your-wealth-investing-in-the-stock-market" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market</a></li><li><a href="https://academy.astotz.com/courses/finance-made-ridiculously-simple" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Finance Made Ridiculously Simple</a></li><li><a href="https://academy.astotz.com/courses/fvmr-investing-quantamental-investing-across-the-world" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">FVMR Investing: Quantamental Investing Across the World</a></li><li><a href="https://academy.astotz.com/courses/gp" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence</a></li><li><a href="https://academy.astotz.com/courses/transformyourbusiness" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points</a></li><li><a href="https://academy.astotz.com/courses/achieve-your-goals" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Achieve Your Goals</a></li></ul><h3>Connect with Andrew Stotz:</h3><ul><li><a href="https://www.astotz.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">astotz.com</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewstotz/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a></li><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/andrewstotzpage" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li><li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/andstotz/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/Andrew_Stotz" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/andrewstotzpage" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">YouTube</a></li><li><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/my-worst-investment-ever-podcast/id1416554991?mt=2" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">My Worst Investment Ever Podcast</a></li></ul>

Harvey Sawikin – Do Your Own Homework

My guest this week is Harvey Sawikin, a co-founder and lead portfolio manager at Firebird Management, which manages funds dedicated to investing in emerging market equities. Emerging markets are often a blind spot for investors of all types: most of us have never traveled to the far east or eastern Europe, where many of the thousands of emerging market public equities operate. I’ve been very lucky to travel quite a bit in Asia and the Middle East, but never to eastern Europe, which where Firebird focuses its investments. Harvey and I discuss his 24 years of experience evaluating emerging and frontier market countries, industries, and individual stocks. We discuss his experience buying privatization vouchers in Russia, banks in the Baltics, and how today’s emerging market opportunity set compares to the past.  Like so many of these conversations with investors who have earned significant excess returns, its clear investing opportunities in emerging markets are often disguised. Finding them requires risk, hard work, discipline, and a dose of luck and timing. Please enjoy my conversation with Harvey on Emerging Market Opportunities.  For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Links Referenced Via Books Referenced  The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel  Education of Rick Green, Esquire   Show Notes 2:26 – (First Question) – Most memorable travel experience since the beginning of Firebird 5:41 - How Harvey got interested in emerging markets investing, specifically, Eastern Europe and Russia 10:00 – How does the landscape for emerging markets today compare to when he first started 12:30 – What are the factors of an emerging market to look at and why do some not pan out 15:04 – Do countries have to meet minimum criteria before Harvey and his team will even start to do work on an emerging market 17:33 – How does Harvey distinguish between frontier and emerging markets 18:37 – Thoughts on the access points that regular investors have into emerging markets, such as ETF’s and Mutual Funds 23:48 – How does Harvey think about risk exposure when constructing a portfolio 25:56 – Looking at the bottom up part of the equation, what factors within a company or sector are considered as part of the investing decision 31:05 – Dividends in emerging markets 33:09 – How do US equities stack up as an investment against fixed income          34:53 -  The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel 36:52 - How do US equities stack up as an investment against emerging markets 39:38 – What type of investor allocate funds to emerging markets 42:37 – The value of travel in understanding emerging markets 50:19 – Biggest mistakes that emerging market investors make 54:49 – What in today’s markets has the smell of opportunity 55:53 – Harvey’s interest in Via 56:58 – Interest in buying gold coins 1:00:05 – If Harvey could only choose one country to visit, business or pleasure, where would he go 1:01:09 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Harvey              1:01:38 –  Education of Rick Green, Esquire Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

My guest this week is Harvey Sawikin, a co-founder and lead portfolio manager at Firebird Management, which manages funds dedicated to investing in emerging market equities. Emerging markets are often a blind spot for investors of all types: most of us have never traveled to the far east or eastern Europe, where many of the thousands of emerging market public equities operate. I’ve been very lucky to travel quite a bit in Asia and the Middle East, but never to eastern Europe, which where Firebird focuses its investments. Harvey and I discuss his 24 years of experience evaluating emerging and frontier market countries, industries, and individual stocks. We discuss his experience buying privatization vouchers in Russia, banks in the Baltics, and how today’s emerging market opportunity set compares to the past.  Like so many of these conversations with investors who have earned significant excess returns, its clear investing opportunities in emerging markets are often disguised. Finding them requires risk, hard work, discipline, and a dose of luck and timing. Please enjoy my conversation with Harvey on Emerging Market Opportunities.  For more episodes go to <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast</a>. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/bookclub" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub</a>. Follow Patrick on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/patrick_oshag" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@patrick_oshag</a> Links Referenced <a href="https://ridewithvia.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Via</a> Books Referenced <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Education-Green-Esquire-Harvey-Sawikin/dp/0684803631/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1517631805&amp;sr=1-2&amp;refinements=p_27%3AHarvey+Sawikin" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Education of Rick Green, Esquire</a> Show Notes 2:26 – (First Question) – Most memorable travel experience since the beginning of Firebird 5:41 - How Harvey got interested in emerging markets investing, specifically, Eastern Europe and Russia 10:00 – How does the landscape for emerging markets today compare to when he first started 12:30 – What are the factors of an emerging market to look at and why do some not pan out 15:04 – Do countries have to meet minimum criteria before Harvey and his team will even start to do work on an emerging market 17:33 – How does Harvey distinguish between frontier and emerging markets 18:37 – Thoughts on the access points that regular investors have into emerging markets, such as ETF’s and Mutual Funds 23:48 – How does Harvey think about risk exposure when constructing a portfolio 25:56 – Looking at the bottom up part of the equation, what factors within a company or sector are considered as part of the investing decision 31:05 – Dividends in emerging markets 33:09 – How do US equities stack up as an investment against fixed income          34:53 - <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel</a> 36:52 - How do US equities stack up as an investment against emerging markets 39:38 – What type of investor allocate funds to emerging markets 42:37 – The value of travel in understanding emerging markets 50:19 – Biggest mistakes that emerging market investors make 54:49 – What in today’s markets has the smell of opportunity 55:53 – Harvey’s interest in <a href="https://ridewithvia.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Via</a> 56:58 – Interest in buying gold coins 1:00:05 – If Harvey could only choose one country to visit, business or pleasure, where would he go 1:01:09 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Harvey             1:01:38 – <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Education-Green-Esquire-Harvey-Sawikin/dp/0684803631/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1517631805&amp;sr=1-2&amp;refinements=p_27%3AHarvey+Sawikin" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Education of Rick Green, Esquire</a> Learn More For more episodes go to <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast</a>.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at <a href="http://investorfieldguide.com/bookclub" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub</a> Follow Patrick on twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/patrick_oshag" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@patrick_oshag</a>

Harvey Sawikin - Emerging Market Opportunities - [Invest Like the Best, EP.75] 