110. Blackparta
I am always especially pleased whenever I notice this guy has replied or posted a message—he frequently provides clear, solid commentary on various companies and general investing topics, usually seasoned with great humor. (It’s well worth checking out his memes in the meme thread. 
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A common problem in investing seems to be unnecessary emotion, which often leads to hasty orders driven by FOMO or panic. It feels like this user, at least, consistently manages to think rationally and see the forest for the trees without letting emotions get in the way.
People also tend to easily forget to look at the bigger picture and the fundamentals, both in life and in investing. People get bogged down in details or overlook different facets and angles, but Blackparta seems like someone whose execution never falters because of that; he does the groundwork and looks at the whole picture.
From this guy’s thoughts and posts, every one of us can gain food for thought and valuable tools for our own investing activities. 
1. Tell us who you are in thirty words.
A 40-year-old industrial engineering and management graduate living in Vantaa, originally from South Karelia, husband, and father of three. Over ten years at the same company in various roles. Calm, introverted, reflective, liberal, everyday comedian.
2. Tell us three things few people know about you.
As a child, I wanted to become a children’s book author.
I once slept a night on the shores of the Black Sea under the open sky, stargazing. It was a public beach.
For several years, I played the mobile game Empires & Puzzles daily under this same handle and was part of the top teams in Finland at the time. I even briefly topped the global leaderboard for a fleeting moment.
3. What interests and hobbies do you have besides investing?
I enjoy spending time at the summer cottage. My father has owned a cottage for 35 years, and I spend a lot of time there during the summers. I’ve played Finnish baseball (pesäpallo) since I was a little boy.
4. What is a typical weekday like for you?
I often wake up in the middle of the night to our 3-year-old son squeezing in between my wife and me. After that, my sleep is fragmented for the rest of the night, and I wake up tired at the first sound of the alarm, snooze a bit, and finally force myself up.
Then I wake up my son and we do the morning routines together. We say good morning to the girls (aged 11 and 7) before they head off to school. Fortunately, the girls are very self-reliant. I quickly get outerwear on my son, and we hurry to daycare for breakfast. Then I head home for remote work or to the office. At this point, coffee is grabbed, and I settle in at my computer. I don’t eat breakfast myself. On work-from-home days, my wife has made coffee; she moves downstairs to do her work, and I go upstairs. I start working and simultaneously check whether any new announcements have come from companies in my portfolio or if there’s a new analysis from Inderes. If something looks interesting, I’ll at least skim through it. I don’t spend much time on this. Between work tasks, I glance at whether stock prices have moved and might place buy orders if a previously planned entry level is approaching. I might also skim through the Inderes forum.
After the workday, either my wife or I pick up our son from daycare. I usually cook dinner. The kids have various hobbies, so this part of the day tends to be a rush to get dinner ready on time. Somewhere in between, I very quickly glance at the US stock market and my holdings there (under a minute). After dinner, there’s possibly a bit of free time, chores, children’s activities, or just hanging out together. Evening snacks for the kids, and after that, bedtime routines. I read a book to my son, and sometimes the girls listen in too. I sing the kids a bedtime song or two. These days, my son insists that someone lie next to him for a bit before agreeing to stay in his bed alone. At this stage, Dad might nod off too. I wake up on my own after a while and drag myself downstairs to my wife, who has been taking care of other chores in the meantime. We watch shows together on TV, during which I can multitask and follow the closing hour of the US market. Then, after evening routines, it’s off to bed.
5. What are you like as an investor?
A value investor, contrarian, and almost entirely FOMO-free. However, I also hold some positions that clearly fall outside traditional value investing, such as Bioretec and Witted. Granted, those haven’t fared very well.
6. What is your investing history like?
My parents invested my child benefits for me in OP funds. They didn’t end up yielding massive returns, but they still ended up in the green. As a child, I always knew I owned these funds and kept track of their status whenever a paper statement arrived in the mail.
As a young adult, I made my first independent investments. I remember taking a risk-averse route and putting cash into a one-year fixed-term deposit, which, according to my hazy memory, yielded something like a 5–6% annual interest rate. Later on, between 2006 and 2008, I invested a few thousand euros into China and India funds.
I watched the financial crisis wipe out all the profits in my portfolio and then some. At that point, the portfolio was deep in the red. We lived—or at least I lived—in the paper era, where investments were checked whenever a new statement landed in the mailbox. Every letter looked worse than the previous one, and paper losses were very significant relative to my total wealth. As it started giving me anxiety, I brought it up with my father. I asked whether I should sell while there was still something left to salvage. Fortunately, my father had seen more of the world over the years, and he stated that prices would eventually bounce back. I didn’t touch the portfolio at all. That turned out to be pretty much right at the bottom, and eventually, the portfolio recovered back into positive territory.
I liquidated the entire portfolio in 2013 when I decided to purchase my first apartment. Investing fell by the wayside for a few years after our first child was born and following my separation from my partner at the time, the mother of my child.
If I recall correctly, I began buying funds again gradually in 2015. Nothing remains of those purchases today. I discovered index funds in 2016. At that stage, I bought index funds and some actively managed funds covering India, Latin America, China, Africa, commodities, etc. Gradually, I started paying more attention to management fees, so the share of index funds increased.
In 2019, I sold the apartment, and my wife and I bought our current home together. This time, I didn’t touch my portfolio.
The Covid dip: At that point, I was convinced that everything would turn out fine in the end. After all, my portfolio had recovered from the financial crisis, so surely we could beat a single bug. I bought index funds during the dip. I didn’t hit the absolute bottom, but for the first time, I felt on top of the game. It had always bothered me that I didn’t buy anything during the financial crisis. Granted, I had been younger, and that crisis was on a completely different scale, where the entire financial world seemed on the verge of collapse. Around this time, pretty much all extra cash went into the market. I have never used leverage.
As share prices rose broadly in 2020 and 2021, I noticed that my India fund hadn’t moved much. I added to it, after which it generated really nice returns.
In 2021, rising valuations terrified me. I didn’t sell anything because of it, but I was very reluctant to make additional purchases. The money I allocated to the world index is nicely in the green today, and had I simply put more there, I would have done much better.
Instead, I channeled savings into peer-to-peer (P2P) lending. I have now exited those almost entirely. In the end, they were no gold mines, but at least I didn’t use that cash to buy bubble-priced Finnish equities. Relatively speaking, I did well. I held Russian and Ukrainian P2P loans, but managed to sniff out the escalating risk early enough. I began systematically reducing them well before the turn of 2022. I managed to pull out about 95–98% before the war broke out.
Another win was buying Kazakh loans at a discount during their attempted coup when it started looking like the coup would fail.
Even if these moves appear rather random and risky, I always made sure to maintain diversification.
I started stock picking in 2021. However, I did it very cautiously with pocket money (a few hundred euros). Those picks went completely down the drain, but the spark was ignited.
2022–2024:
I began buying individual stocks more actively around spring 2022. As we all know, generating returns with Finnish equities has been tough. Yet, I’ve managed to post a modest positive return every year.
Swedish and US stocks also found their way into my universe. Along the way, my investing style has evolved more toward value investing.
The last time I bought index funds for my portfolio was in November 2022.
7. What is your portfolio like? What are your three latest purchases, and why did they end up in your portfolio?
I still retain index funds, which make up about 25% of the total portfolio. These can carry on living their own life without me touching them.
The remaining 75% consists of individual stocks.
I’ve always believed that I dare to take more risk if I keep the position sizes small enough. Because of this, my portfolio holds exactly 50 different companies. That might sound extreme, but it works for me. It includes, among others, a textile manufacturer in Jordan (headquartered in the US), Alibaba, a Brazilian brewery, three different companies from Israel, two from Sweden, eight from the US (including PayPal), and a large number of familiar Finnish companies. The largest holding is something as exotic as Nordea, which I added to significantly when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed.
The current geographic allocation in equities is: Finland 61%, USA 18%, Sweden 7%, Israel 7%, Brazil 3%, China 2%, and Greece 2%.
Excluding negligible top-ups, the three most recent additions to the portfolio have been Citycon, Nurminen Logistics, and Coffee Holding.
Citycon was added because the share price relative to its book value is extremely attractive. I consider the stock undervalued. The price fell hard as interest rates rose. In my view, there is a solid chance that Citycon will benefit from falling interest rates.
Nurminen has performed well in a difficult market, and I felt €0.78 was a good entry point. Posts by @Iikka also influenced my decision. Sometimes it pays to listen to people smarter than yourself, though you should never copy anyone blindly.
Coffee Holding is a cigar-butt company that looks like it might have pulled off a turnaround. When I bought the stock, it was trading 16% below its NCAV (Net current asset value - Wikipedia).
Since then, the stock has gained over 10% as of writing. I want to see how earnings develop, because in a best-case scenario, this has multi-bagger potential. I struggle to see any real downside to fair value with a balance sheet like that, despite violent price volatility.
8. What does your stock-picking process look like step-by-step?
The process varies slightly depending on the company. It might be good to refine it further going forward. I constantly strive to improve myself in this area. Nowadays, I first think about how much I stand to lose by buying the stock. Only after that do I consider how much I could make. I try to sketch out a rough back-of-the-envelope estimate of normalized earnings, and if I believe in growth, I can accept slightly higher valuation multiples. I usually bypass unprofitable growth companies altogether, as their downside is easily a real 100%. People always say stocks can drop 100%, but without debt, it’s hard to go bankrupt—especially while generating profits. I often start with the balance sheet if the business seems cyclical. Goodwill gets stripped out, and usually intangible assets too. I review past revenues, net income, ROE, etc., along with their trajectories. If a company heavily engages in stock-based compensation for management, that’s a red flag for me. It doesn’t necessarily end the process, but it heavily impacts the final verdict. I might contemplate whether Covid distorted past figures—was it just pull-forward demand, with no return to that level? I might watch the CEO interview, read the interim report, listen to the earnings call, etc., and often all of the above. I try to dig up news and read forum discussions on the topic with a healthy grain of salt. I’ll likely read an equity research report or two as well. I bracket a price range at which I’d be willing to buy. I rarely use DCF models, though I’ve tried them on occasion. I also look at charts frequently and might initiate below my intended buy price if my gut says the price could dip a bit lower first. I usually buy low-liquidity stocks from depressed investors, so prices can swing considerably. This part is more art than science.
Typically, I buy domestic shares in several tranches (keeping transaction costs to max 1%), adding more if the price drifts lower. For foreign stocks, I buy in larger sums at once due to fee structures. With Incap, I should have bought more around €6.10, but my position ended up at just 100 shares. I intended to add lower down. That tactic failed there, but in many other cases, it has saved me money. Incap stung a little, as I considered it clearly the best investment opportunity at the time and had even briefed a friend on it well in advance.
9. If you had to pick 4 valuation multiples for the rest of your life, which would you choose and why?
EV/FCF This takes into account the company’s leverage/cash balance as well as free cash flow.
EV/EBIT Similar to the above, but accounts for operating profit instead of cash flow. In my opinion, it better reflects periods of heavy growth investments. That said, it has its pitfalls—for instance, Tecnotree looks cheap under it. You shouldn’t rely on just one multiple.
P/TBV Book value stripped of fluff. Often provides a clearer picture of the balance sheet than P/B. It doesn’t apply to all business models, however.
Dividend Yield % I want to keep my membership in the dividend camp. Receiving dividends is nice, even if distributing them isn’t always the most rational move. Still, if the market prices a stock ridiculously cheap, and management fails to buy back shares, and there is no expensive debt to repay nor sound capex to make, it’s good to see some return while holding. Furthermore, dividend yield provides security and conviction when I buy, say, a textile company based in Jordan. They could award massive bonuses to management or pour money into man-made island projects, but when they pay a 6% dividend, I’m content.
10. If you had to pick 4 financial metrics for the rest of your life, which would you choose and why?
ROE because there must be a qualitative aspect included, and besides, it’s good to gauge what kind of return on equity is achievable.
ROIC Another quality-defining metric.
Revenue Growth % On average, companies fare better when revenues grow.
Debt/EBITDA to reflect how leveraged the company is relative to operating profitability.
11. What are your three greatest strengths as an investor? And in what area would you most like to improve?
It’s never easy to praise yourself, but perhaps these would fit:
- The courage to go against the herd and see the forest for the trees.
- Patience to wait.
- The ability to ultimately change my mind when I realize I’m probably wrong.
There’s always room for improvement. It would be amazing to foresee the future clearly and pick tomorrow’s high-flying growth rockets. However, a more attainable area of improvement would be gaining a deeper understanding of various economic cycles and the cause-and-effect relationships behind them.
12. Describe these companies in fifty words each:
- Boreo (you gave me good insights on this, yet I held on and took an even bigger loss)
Has been in a massive bubble in past years, clearly visible in its charts. It was likely one of the most overhyped bubbles on the entire Helsinki exchange. On low volume, the share moves sharply due to thin trading. The balance sheet is weak, and its domestic exposure is substantial. Still, the CEO communicates well. Personally, I couldn’t buy before seeing an operational turnaround.
- Citycon
A perpetual disappointment that keeps sliding year after year. Capital returns paired with directed share issues at the same time—utter nonsense! Add a CEO carousel to the mix, and it’s no wonder the stock is where it is. They’re trying to shore up the balance sheet by selling some shopping centers. Falling interest rates should help the debt-laden company. Citycon trades at a steep discount to book value. It has taken far too much punishment.
- Nurminen Logistics
An outcast that many refuse to own. This is a value investor’s pick, with a P/E around 9 and an EV/EBIT of 5.5. Nurminen is hardly as bad as it’s made out to be. As an option, if the war in Ukraine ends, Nurminen could benefit over some time horizon. It recently made a couple of acquisitions, which could bolster earnings power and lift the stock.
13. What are your most important sources of investing information, excluding Inderes and its forum, and company materials?
YouTube, stockanalysis.com, finance.yahoo.com, and investing.com.
I also glance at Kauppalehti from time to time, though less so lately.
14. How do you utilize macroeconomic news and data in your investing?
Probably not very much, ultimately. I might try to use them loosely to get a sense of general direction for the near future.
15. You have to hand your portfolio over for five years to three forum members and three Inderes staff members. Who would you choose and why?
@Iikka has a fairly similar style to mine, and he wouldn’t FOMO the portfolio away.
@JHeiskanen seems like a great pick for my portfolio and a good partner for Iikka.
@Opa as the third piece. There has to be at least one fellow industrial engineering guy on the team if I’m away.
@Verneri_Pulkkinen knows a lot about everything. I’ll explicitly forbid him from buying Boreo, though.
@Thomas_Westerholm strikes me as a very competent fellow.
@Rauli_Juva He has caught some flak for his recommendations on Kamux, Harvia, etc., but Rauli at least dares to disagree and doesn’t just nod along.
16. What help do you get from the Forum that you can’t find elsewhere?
An immense amount of information compiled in one place. On top of that, thanks to the forum, I’ve learned a ton of things that I now take for granted.
17. You are also a talented meme artist. Where does your creativity come from? And are you a funny memester in real life too?
I think I’m funny at times, but only around people I know well. I also painted for a brief period, and although I wasn’t particularly good at it, it was an outlet for creativity. Nowadays, memes are probably the ideal way for me to channel that creative urge.
18. What are your goals regarding investing?
The goal is to retire a bit earlier than my theoretical statutory retirement age of 100. Maybe around age 60. The purpose is also to secure financial stability in case unexpected short-term challenges or crises arise before retirement.
I invest the child benefits for my kids just as my father did for me. Of course, I try to achieve better returns for my kids than my dad did. The intention is to provide them with a small nest egg—for instance, for their first home down payment—so that no additional loan guarantees would be required.
19. You seem to have a great eye for spotting pitfalls. How can Rookie avoid these traps, like Blackbeard does?
I’ve stepped into plenty of traps myself, but perhaps it’s about looking at the pit before you look at the potential upside. What if that growth stock stops growing, and it’s currently at a P/E of 60 and P/B of 10? If you allocate 10% of your portfolio to something like that and the growth falls flat, the fallout will be brutal. The higher the risk of the investment, the lower its weight should be in the portfolio. Keep stable, boring compounders at the core of the portfolio, and then tinker with other ideas on the fringes. Everyone is free to do as they please, but for me, what matters most is ensuring that a few bad calls don’t destroy the entire portfolio. Slow and steady wins the race…
20. What would you like to thank Inderes and the forum community for?
I want to thank Inderes and the forum for all the lessons I’ve soaked up like a sponge. Let’s keep the forum active, and in the end, it will benefit us all.
Thank you for the fantastic answers, Mustaparta!
Do you really need to be a diehard bull or bear, or hold rigid opinions? Not necessarily. The strength of Mustaparta and many other smart investors is their ability to remain objective and see the forest for the trees, something he mentions in the interview as well (“seeing the forest for the trees” was on my mind before I even received his answers 
).
If you get angry and heated over investing, forum discussions, or anything else, take a breath and reconsider things; otherwise, you’ll easily lose your way. Childish, spiteful tantrums (like petty protests directed at others) never look smart, and investing out of spite or emotion often leads to bagholding (FOMO bagholding is my specialty :D). Good manners, team spirit, mutual understanding, and above all, high-quality, investment-focused discussion are the core strengths of this Forum. So let’s appreciate one another—at the very least, we can “thank” those members who dedicate so much time to company threads producing quality content with likes. 
I’d like to highlight this point one more time:
16. What help do you get from the Forum that you can’t find elsewhere?
An immense amount of information compiled in one place. On top of that, thanks to the forum, I’ve learned a ton of things that I now take for granted.
Have a great weekend!