Gilgamesh_

Diamond Hill Investment Group: A Wounded Wildebeest?

Here is some comic relief:

This character, Tim Eriksen, is now crying to the board at DHIL because the stock price dropped. Go figure.

This guy cannot win for losing.

Here is his Yahoo bulletin board post, late April 2009:

"I [Tim Eriksen] am writing to you [DHIL board] to express my strong disappointment in the fourth quarter operating results of the company. Operating margins, which have been trending lower over the last two years, in spite of increasing revenues,...[blah, blah, blah]..."

tinyurl.com/Crying-Eri...

Onwards and upwards,
Gilgamesh

On Aug 14 03:53 AM Tim Eriksen wrote:

> Diamond Hill manages over $5.5 billion and you pick a tiny $50 million
> of their AUM (assets under management), in a sector that everyone
> knows has gotten creamed in the last year, and then based on its
> performance you draw generalized conclusions about the company as
> a whole.
>
> Then you brilliantly look at YoY comparisons in EPS and find it falling
> despite rising AUM. Well if you were smarter you would have also
> seen how operating income rose YoY and that the lower EPS results
> were solely due to investment income incurring a loss, which is understandable
> based on how the market has performed so far this year. It is quite
> obvious that earnings power is continuing to grow at Diamond Hill.
>
>
> Then you compare current performance to Buffett's historical performance.
> So you are using different timeframes in your comparison and in addition
> most of the time period for Buffett tracks changes in book value
> not investment performance (meaning it includes operating companies
> Berkshire owned). If that isn't comparing apples to oranges, I don't
> know what is.
>
> Keep up the crappy work. I guess it just goes to show that anyone
> can get their thoughts published on the web these days.

Diamond Hill Investment Group: A Wounded Wildebeest?

Tim Eriksen,

I’m sorry you have a different perspective regarding methodologies, assessment of management, and near term direction of DHIL’s market valuation. Unfortunately, it is difficult to elaborate on certain assumptions and details in this forum, as you might agree.

Nevertheless, after detailed research, my opinion that DHIL was grossly overvalued at $90-$100 was firm. I will reassess its situation, since DHIL has dropped by 45%. Some questions I’ll ask may include the following: Has Ric Dillon and friends resigned?; is DHIL still handing out stock grants like it is candy?; etc.

Nonetheless, good luck with your position; I trust you didn’t “bet the house” on DHIL at $100 per share. And, as always, best of success with raising cash and running your hedge fund.

Truly,
Gilgamesh

Diamond Hill Investment Group: A Wounded Wildebeest?

Testing.