Cisco Systems, Inc.
Thesis
We bought shares in Cisco around 2011-2012 when it was trading at roughly 10x earnings with over $40 billion in cash on its balance sheet. Despite slower growth, we believed we were getting significant value at that price.
Did it work?
worked
confidence: high
The long thesis in Cisco as a deep-value play at ~10x earnings with a large cash pile clearly played out: the stock returned +546.6% over roughly 15.6 years, approximately a 12-13% annualized return. The value premise — that the market was underpricing a cash-rich, modestly growing business — was decisively validated by this substantial price appreciation. With the full holding period elapsed and a strongly positive outcome in the stated direction, confidence is high.