A 138-Year-Old Thrift Trading 38% Below Book

Travel Capitalist

05 May 2026 — 4 min read

A federally-chartered savings bank in the American Midwest carries $39M of book value, sits on roughly $20M of excess capital above what regulators require, and trades at a $24M market cap. The math, before we even get to the buybacks, is $0.62 on the dollar of book — and management has been paying themselves to retire shares for two years running. Daily volume is so thin that the latest repurchase authorization equals about a quarter of the entire year's float turnover. The stock is up 79% over the past year and still trades below book.

This is not a story stock. It is the kind of half-smoked cigar Mr. Buffett used to bend down to pick up.

Why is S&P 500 hard to beat?

Because it purchased every stock when it becomes large (for only 0.01% position) and held on to it forever. Very few people purchased Nvidia in 2001 despite dotcom bubble and never bought or sold any shares. The so-called "rebalance" doesn't really buy any existing shares

69 Pence on the Pound for a Book That Compounds at 18.5%

A London-listed insurance private equity firm trades at £240M market cap against £350M book value — a 31% discount to NAV. The same NAV has compounded at 18.5% per year for the last nine years (11% per year since 2005). Of 23 current investments, exactly one is marked below cost.

2025 Annual Letter to Limited Partners

To my limited partners: The S&P 500 index went up 16.39% (17.54% with dividends) in 2025, ending the year with another all-time high just like 2024. The bull market run from 2023 seems unstoppable, an easy 78% gain in three years just by holding the index,