Global, with no geographic or sector constraints, and deliberately focused where attention is scarce: smaller companies, owner operated businesses and industries institutions avoid. Most of the portfolio sits in Canada, Australia, Scandinavia and Japan. These businesses are not cheap because they are inferior. They are cheap because nobody is looking.

About ten positions at any time, sized by conviction and downside, never by index weight or sector balance. The spread across countries and industries follows from where value is found; it is never a target. The result is a portfolio that is concentrated, yet diverse.

Every investment is underwritten like a private equity deal. The work starts with the filings and the footnotes: balance sheet resilience, the quality of cash flow, and whether reported earnings are real. Then the people: the owner's integrity and capability, and how they allocate capital. Then the business: how durable its competitive position is. Screens narrow the field; judgment makes the decision. The central question is always whether the company can compound capital through a full cycle, not whether it will beat next quarter.

iolite holds a business for as long as the thesis is intact. A thesis should typically play out within five years, although the timing is often down to chance. iolite sells for three reasons: the market has priced the business above fair value, the thesis no longer holds, or a clearly better opportunity has appeared.

Risk is not volatility or tracking error. It is the permanent loss of capital. Downside analysis comes before upside analysis, every position is sized to survive being wrong, and when a thesis breaks, iolite acts rather than hopes.