Blue Tower Q3 2017: Investing in Japan

The Global Value strategy returned 12.89% gross (12.57% net) for Q3 2017. A major change made to the portfolio this quarter was to exit our investment in Nicholas Financial. Our investment thesis that Nicholas would be capable of having superior underwriting compared to their competitors seems unlikely to work out. It appears that the regulations passed by the CFPB have made their collections more difficult in ways that we did not anticipate. In addition, the development of new technologies such as big data analytics of borrower behavior and ignition kill switches appears to have changed the dynamics of the subprime...