In this special issue of Signal, we are excited to take the wraps off three “partnerships” that we are growing between IOI, The Brier Fund of Superforecasters, Spinoff Advisors and Sheila Chesney of Chesney and Company Advisors. These efforts aim to improve our investment process as well as our firm!

Our guiding principle at IOI is to make you, our members, better investors. One way that happens, beyond teaching you a decision making framework and building your skills, is to expose you to other unique, thoughtful investing ideas. We do this a bit with the Covered Call Corner each month by looking at the portfolios of successful investors for new ideas. In this issue, though we focus on the initial fruits of these three new relationships between IOI and others with special expertise inside and outside of investing.

First, is a piece written for us by Brett Specter. Brett attained Superforecaster status during a 4 year tournament on the Good Judgment Project team. He continues to forecast professionally for Good Judgment Inc., the commercial spin-off of that project. He is President of Brier Fund LLP, an investment club whose members are comprised of former Superforecasters. Good forecasting habits and practices are essential to our valuation process and this partnership seeks to strengthen those.

Second, is a piece that Erik has written for Joe Cornell’s Spinoff Report. As you may know, spinoff investments have been shown to outperform market averages in a variety of ways over time. Mr. Cornell’s independent third party research company is the leading research publication focusing squarely on these types of investments for institutional and family office clients. Erik is looking at Yum China’s opportunity here and you can expect to see more collaboration as opportunities arise.

Finally, IOI has taken on a new investor. Sheila Chesney is CEO of Chesney & Company, LLC, a private wealth management firm. Her firm specializes in the use of alternative investments as a tool to build wealth. Excellent valuation skills are particularly important to her and her work with Erik and IOI has materially changed how Sheila looks at and evaluates investments. Sheila serves on several boards, including Dispersive Technologies (Atlanta, GA) and the cardiovascular board of the Medical University of South Carolina. She is a Certified Financial Planner™ and a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst™ as well as an alumnus of IOI’s private coaching. Sheila is well connected in the investment advisory community and we are expecting great things from her extensive experience investing in and guiding start up ventures.

We are excited about each of these nascent partnerships and hope you will find them helpful to your investing skills and results as well!

Thank you for your patronage and support!
Team IOI