Trust and happiness

On Feb 22nd, Everest's partners gathered in Shenzhen for the fund's annual shareholder meeting. The event took place in a serene tea house. Consistent with our practice in previous meetings, we discussed our performance, explained our process, dived into our portfolio businesses, shared our investment pipelines, and most importantly, savored the moment of happiness together.

As LSE professor Paul Dolan explained the key ingredients of happiness. The secret is fairly straightforward: purpose and pleasure. Precisely during this shareholder meeting, we genuinely experienced a sense of happiness in both these aspects.

First and foremost, we've reemphasized to our partners that our key purpose is to create long-term value for them. They've entrusted their hard-earned assets in our hands, and we take this trust extremely seriously. We uphold the spirit of transparency and fiduciary responsibility, by organizing face-to-face shareholder meetings when possible, writing long shareholder letters regularly (mostly are over 30 pages) and sharing investment memos (the longest is over 2,000 pages).

Secondly, Everest has meticulously selected partners who are like-minded. They share our values and resonate with the sense of pleasure, regardless of the external environment. Undoubtfully, the past three years have been quite tough. But our collaborative approach has proven to be the key to navigating through the tough times and emerging stronger.

Here is from a partner after the meeting:

"Thank you for having me yesterday Min. It really was a special event. I was always impressed by you really, but now I'm even more impressed and I have no doubt you will succeed eventually. Keep concentrating on growing yourself and Zhouzhou, this is a very long game, success will find you eventually."

Here is Zhouzhou's thought:

"Trust is a good thing, maybe the best of all, especially in asset management industry where profit is often generated from the opposite of trust.

Fortunately, in Everest's 2024 Shareholder Meeting, I was able to see a session full of mutual trust.

Everest’s partners have no doubt that Min has the quality and ability to take good care of their money, and Min has no doubt that his parnters will always stand by.

Warren Buffett once said in an interview that one of the reasons he enjoyed investing is that he liked the feeling of being trusted.

Min, definitely, shares Warren’s feeling."

We sincerely appreciate everyone who has joined us. Trust and happiness are the cornerstones that underpin our journey together.