Industry Funds Management’s Clyde Haldane says stock brokers don’t like him.

“The dealers hate us,” says the executive director, listed equities at Melbourne-based IFM. “We buy or sell one stock a year.”

Haldane says he has been thinking about long-term investing for 15 years but has only been putting his theories into practise seven years.

He and another colleague manage a portfolio of 18 stocks. The average holding period is 10 years. The fund has $200 million in assets under management. It recently won a $20 million mandate from legalsuper.

IFM manages about $10 billion in Australian stocks. Haldane says assets under management are growing slowly.

His strategy is based around investing in companies that have a satisfactory return on capital invested.

“Companies that are good at re-investing their capital will perform well as stocks,” says Haldane. He is dismissive of earnings forecasts saying they are essentially fictional.

“If you don’t invest as a company you won’t thrive,” says Haldane.

His fund has investments in Computershare Ltd., Cochlear Ltd. and CSL Ltd.