3 Stock Picks From a Great Investor

Managing money is hard. Most professionals aren't very good at it and underperform their benchmark index. According to the Vanguard Group, "When removing the effects of survivorship bias, the percentage of [mutual] funds that underperformed the market [was] 62% for the 10-year period, 67% for the 15-year period, and 72% for the 20-year period."

So when we heard of an investor named Philip Tasho of TAMRO Capital Partners whose funds have easily outperformed the markets over the last decade, we invited him over to Fool headquarters for a chat.

Let's get down to the meat: Tasho's top three holdings are Colfax , The Advisory Board , and Chico's . I asked him to say a few words about each. Here's what he had to say (transcript follows):

Philip Tasho: Our largest position in our small-cap strategy is Colfax. It's been our top position for the past two years. This is a laggard; this is a company that's relatively new. It was founded by the Rales brothers, and they are known for really being successful at Danaher , which we own in our large-cap diversified equity strategy fund with great success. So when we heard about Colfax, we thought, this could very well be another opportunity, because we were extremely impressed with the management team and also what they're doing there. It's global in nature, it's more industrial, but it's energy infrastructure, and that's in demand everywhere, so we're very impressed with the strategy they're putting in place. It's mainly growth through acquisition, but they're doing something similar at Colfax as they've done at Danaher, and they've developed the Colfax business systems -- whatever company they acquire, they want to put in place the process where they'll have continuous improvement in terms of operating facilities. And that's what they're known for. So that leads the list in our small-cap strategy.

The Advisory Board, I think, is our next one. That's ... the efficient administration of health care to help hospitals and other companies within that industry to put in best practices so they can deal with not only the surging demand for health care, but also the most efficient way in which to administer it. So that is our second-largest.

And then third, in our small-cap strategy, is Chico's, and that's the ... mature women's retailer. It's a very successful laggard that we hope will eventually turn into a leader.

Morgan Housel: Do those three positions make up more than 2% each of the portfolio? We were talking about the size of your positions earlier.

Philip Tasho: They're a little over 2%, all three of them.

The article 3 Stock Picks From a Great Investor originally appeared on Fool.com.

Morgan Housel has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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