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Is anyone following Munger's old company the Daily Journal, or know of anywhere with good discussions about it? I just closed some GOOGL calls and looking for something new.

Is anyone following Munger's old company the Daily Journal, or know of anywhere with good discussions about it?

I don't follow it too much, but I've seen three interesting pieces about it in the last year or so, short excerpts below. Also, the Value Investors Club is generally a great place to go for solid writeups. With their lurker's membership, you can see posts at least 45 days old and also usually a few back-and-forth comments between adjudicated members.

Daily Journal Accused of Incorrect Accounting, The Rational Walk, July 2025
https://rationalwalk.com/daily-journal-accused-of-...

I think Charlie Munger fully supported the conservative accounting policy regarding the current expensing of software development costs and any knowledgeable shareholder who bothers to read the company’s filings has known about the policy for years. From the materials that Daily Journal released, Mr. Parker’s campaign against the company is full of demands (including seeking to dictate the timing of board meetings and other company deliberations) that hardly seem reasonable. I doubt he will gain any traction with the company’s shareholders if he launches a proxy campaign.

Berkshire’s Charlie Munger Long Chaired This Legal Publisher. Its Stock Looks Cheap. Barron's Andrew Bary, November 2025
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/top-stocks/berkshi...

Daily Journal was highlighted Monday on X by Ohio Capital Ideas, which is a private investor, investment analyst, and writer from Ohio, according to a profile on Seeking Alpha....Ohio Capital Ideas posted that Daily Journal is trading for “30% to 40% less than the company’s worth which is worthwhile but not generational or anything like that.” Ohio Capital adjusted the marketable securities for deferred income taxes on the gains and a $25 million margin loan and came up with a value of around $400 million.

Roy Swisa on $DJCO, Yet Another Value Podcast, March 2026
https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/yet-another-value-...

This is the most in-depth piece of the three.

Roy Swisa talks about Daily Journal (DJCO) and the evolving thesis behind its valuation. Roy shares how independent research into Journal Technologies’ court case management systems led to consulting work with the company. They examine the sum-of-the-parts framework, the sizable equity portfolio, and incentives post-Charlie Munger. The discussion also explores vertical software durability, regulatory moats, primary research methods, expert networks, and AI’s impact on niche SaaS businesses. Roy outlines how compliance, proprietary data, and procurement dynamics shape competitive positioning in local government markets.

I just thought of another good link I should have posted. It's the video from one of the highlights of the Berkshire annual meeting weekend. It's the VALUExBRK conference, put on by investor Guy Spier on the day before the annual meeting. At more than 5 hours including a 1-hour lunch recess, it's lengthy but packed full of great speakers and topics (roughly 20 minutes apiece).

At the 00:03:45 mark, the first presenter is Daily Journal Chairman and CEO Steven Myhill-Jones, hand-picked by Charlie Munger to run the company. His presentation was titled, "How Charlie Munger Recruited Me to Daily Journal," and is described as, "The Daily Journal CEO on the lunch in LA, the phone call that began with "before you say no, I'm almost 98," and why public-sector complexity is a moat in the age of AI."

https://www.youtube.com/live/V3V7bqLGP9o

Here's the full rundown of the speakers and topics:

Guy Spier — Welcome and Winning Points Against the Grim Reaper
Opening remarks on storytelling, joy, and lessons from a difficult year — including reflections on the February letter and the GBM diagnosis.

Steven Myhill-Jones — How Charlie Munger Recruited Me to Daily Journal
The Daily Journal CEO on the lunch in LA, the phone call that began with "before you say no, I'm almost 98," and why public-sector complexity is a moat in the age of AI.

Adam Mead — 60 Years of Berkshire by the Numbers
The author of The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway on the data: more equity capital added in the last 5 years than in Berkshire's first 52, and the pivotal Gen Re deal at 3x book.

Bryan Lawrence — Meet Marvin and Vicki, Our AI Agents at Oakcliff
Two AI agents running on Mac minis. Bryan's takeaway: businesses with revenues denominated in human time but costs in tokens face a structural problem.

Bill Ackman — Creativity, Permanent Capital, and Howard Hughes
Why creativity in investing means doing things that haven't been done before, and how Howard Hughes is being built into a "mini-Berkshire."

Tom Gayner — Choosing Your Game, and Why I Read War and Peace Aloud
The Markel CEO on knowing your edge ("I'm not racing Usain Bolt") and the discipline of stick-to-itiveness across decades.

Eric Markowitz — Lessons from the World's Oldest Businesses
A preview of his forthcoming book, anchored on Hoshi Ryokan in Japan — founded in 718 AD, now run by the 47th-generation owner.

Gisela Baur — Thirty Years of Interviewing Warren Buffett
The German journalist on what she has learned: his memory, his trick of always asking rather than performing, and his willingness to give things up to make room for what matters.

Luca Dellanna — Why Habits Beat Incentives
Hungary spends nearly 5% of GDP on family-formation incentives without moving fertility. Why habits outperform incentives across business, sport, and life.

Thomas Russo — Brands, Luxury, and the Power of Patience
Weetabix as the gateway to brand investing, Nestlé's loss of self-criticism, and a case-by-case view of luxury.

Chris Bloomstran — Berkshire Could Fall 99.3% and Still Have Beaten the S&P
The Semper Augustus founder on Geico's deliberate 80% retreat in premiums starting in 1985, and why Greg Abel's real task is to deploy Berkshire's $270B war chest when the next crisis arrives.

Lauren Templeton — Why Fairfax Financial Looks Like Berkshire Circa 1997
The case for Fairfax as today's young Berkshire: $26B equity, $40.8B float, 18.7% book-value CAGR since 1985, and family control.

Brandon van der Kolk — How YouTube Became the Largest Video Platform on TV
The Investor Center founder on a platform that now takes more TV watch time than Netflix, and how he built a value-investing channel to over 100 million views.

Mohnish Pabrai — AI, India, Dakshana, and a Charlie Munger Story
On fear and greed as opportunity, the risk to India if it lacks foundational AI models, the Dakshana sewing-machine story, and the legendary Munger "tell him about the blonde" story.

Guy Spier — Closing
Thanks to the Aquamarine Team Bringing Chantal, Mariana, and David onstage — because the team, not the host, makes the day happen.

I follow it and own some. Valuing it is fairly easy - whether it is a good investment (at these prices) is in the eye of the beholder.

The Daily Journal has three components that one needs to value.

1) The Marketable Securities Portfolio:

There isn't a whole lot of activity in the portfolio these days - so you just have to know what they own and value it in real time. They own six stocks - the tricky part is that two are not disclosed in their 13F-HRs because they are either listed on a foreign exchange (1211.HK or BYD) or they are an ADR that the SEC does not mandate must be included in their 13Fs (TCEHY or TenCent). Note BABA is also an ADR but appears on the SEC list of investments that must be disclosed on 13Fs.

At yesterday's closing prices - I get a real-time value of the portfolio of $416m (million). Using the 10-Q that came out yesterday, I add the cash on hand of $16m, subtract the investment account margin loan of $20m and add something for the future tax liability on the unrealized capital gains. That's $72m - but because DJCO tends to be a long-term holder of their securities, I discount it using the 10-year Treasury yield (i.e, assume 10 year hold). That gets the present value of the tax liability to $47m.

Put it all together and the after-tax, net asset value of DJCO's marketable securities is $366m or $266 per DJCO share.

Of course, I can hear Jim in my ear saying that the market value of the securities is not the intrinsic value & the tax liability should be booked at its immediate disposition value. But this is how I do it, everyone is free to use their own methods.

2) The Legal Newspaper Business:

I tend to view this business as pretty moribund. It is currently running at a loss on a trailing twelve month basis. Over the last 5 years, it has averaged a net profit of $500K. Go back further, and it has probably averaged $200K of net income per year. It does sit on some valuable downtown LA real estate. DJCO is currently trying to sell one of its two buildings. Based on that listing and other recent sales in the area, one could put a conservative value on the real estate of $25m.

So I will value it as worth more dead than alive - and stick a value of $25m on the newspaper biz or $18 per DJCO share.

3) The Software Business:

Here comes the tricky part. Publicly-listed software businesses are somewhat in disfavor these days over market fears that AI is going to severely disrupt their businesses. I have no informed opinion about that but there are some folks who are pretty enthusiastic about DJCO's DJ Tech software business.

What I do is I reverse engineer it. Based on the current market value of DJCO's stock less the value calculated above of the first two components, the imputed market value of the software business is $262m or $190 per DJCO share.

On a trailing twelve month basis, the software business had $76m of revenues, $16m of pre-tax income, and $12m of net income. These numbers seem to be growing nicely. Revenues have doubled over the last five years - especially under the leadership of the new CEO who has a tech background. The business was a money-loser for a long time as Munger invested behind it to grow it, but it seems to have achieved minimum break-even scale and is now consistently profitable as it grows.

Is an EV/Revenues = 3.5x, EV/EBT = 16x, and EV/net income (P/E ratio) = 22x a good value based on the imputed EV? I don't honestly know.

TD Cowen recently published a table of valuations for current publicly-listed vertical market software (VMS) companies. They averaged an EV/Revenues = 3.9x, and a P/E = 27x. So it looks like the imputed value for DJ Tech sits in the valuation zone that the market currently places on VMS companies.

Of course, this is my method for valuing DJCO. Do your own due diligence and make your own decisions about price vs value.

Hope this helps.

Bill

Thanks Bill that helps a lot. Or looks like the market values it as a vertical market software company at least, so maybe it isn’t making a mistake there. I’ll keep an eye on it going forward in case AI and the maturing of tech throws all software companies down a valuation hole. I am a bit interested in the exposure to BYD though. I’ve seen and believe the hype of Chinese cars, and I think they’re poised to take leadership from the US like Japan did.

I have owned Daily Journal for a few years now and have tried to monitor progress. The information is really quite limited but the impression I get and how I think about it is like this. Not sure if I’m right. Written for the perspective of someone learning about the company for the first time, which may not be the case.

The Daily Journal Corporation was this quality little company that was completely disrupted when the internet came along. But it had and has a culture that is interesting and some very talented individuals past and present.

The culture included all kinds of important qualities that have been useful in its modern era. They are trying to do good things. They are proud of their purpose and they are focused on working hard at building products customers need and interacting with customers in ways that customers appreciate. They are working on difficult problems; operate in an area useful to society; and are looking to the long term. There is probably an element of permanent and patient capital in the shareholder base. There is zero interest in promoting the stock price, or trying to get one over any stakeholders. They are simply trying to build products that customers find useful and over time, perhaps if they are successful, provide shareholders with a return that they would not have got if it had not been for the team at Daily Journal that have pivoted so dramatically from a publishing company into an interesting configurable software system business, with a balance sheet created by a very unusual individual who took the profits from the newspaper business and famously created significant capital out of almost nothing. The extremely conservative accounting is another part of the culture that has passed from the previous managers to the current and is attractive to shareholders interested in the long term.

There are no guarantees how the company plays out over the next 20 years but it’s perhaps not completely delusional to consider that the culture is important and useful.

The capital is useful. It has helped sign up new clients: financial strength, longevity, the unusual practice of billing after go live! It provides investment income. Importantly, it provides shareholders with a backstop of capital that would be returned without being stolen by management, in the unlikely event that the Journal Technology venture turned out to be a complete bust. And now in the AI age, the company has the ability to acquire other companies if the CEO thought they had products that could not be developed in-house as well or quickly enough, that were useful to customers and the price made sense.

If you track the revenues of Journal Technology you can see clear and consistent progress with both recurring revenue growth and go live revenues continuing to show up.

People inside the company and customers would have a clearer view on the software position and trajectory but there isn’t much information for shareholders. It’s hugely important in considering how the company might look ten years from now. Management have talked about technical debt in the past. They have a mix of clients that demand on premises hosting and others that want cloud and have been migrated into that. Obviously there have been two major dynamics introduced in the last few years as AI tools change how they execute and how the new CEO drives the software business.

We know the customer base for Journal Technology have useful characteristics that shareholders might like. Complex and diverse requirements wrapped up in almost impenetrable bureaucracy that make the process of signing them for a digitisation journey challenging, helping to keep competitors away. The opposite end of the software spectrum to scale and standardisation. They also value cybersecurity, accuracy and data protection. That’s not to say that some future AI machine can’t completely eat their lunch but perhaps it less likely than some other software products and almost certainly would take longer.

The new CEO is in place for a couple of years now and it appears to be going very well, given the extraordinary external developments with AI and the legacy challenges he has inherited. One of the company’s traits under previous management was to control costs and try to make money. Not surprisingly for a publisher with Charlie Munger as chairman but Journal Technology needs a different approach and the new CEO appears to be correctly, I think, focused on improving the software offerings faster and growing the customer base. We can see that top line progress but FCF is currently low. The CEO has said that to make this work well you want to scale up as much as you safely can, to spread the development costs over a larger customer base. That makes sense and I support the idea of spending money today to build a higher margin business first the future. We know the CEO has built a successful software business before. He greatly admired Charlie Munger and Charlie would be proud but not surprised at what is being achieved and how it is being achieved.

Bringing it all together from an investment perspective. You have the buckets of value as described by Bill, who does a great job with reverse engineering the common stock positions. Journal Technology is only a portion of the company’s intrinsic value currently. The investments will each have their own journey over the next decade but they have been picked by a very thoughtful investor and it’s likely that, as a group, they will do well and the main energy of the company is of course going into Journal Technology. How will that play out we don’t know for sure. Lots of attractive dynamics including a new impressive leader and operator. It’s sticky and Charlie has said it’s a big market to go after. No guarantees and for an uninformed remote investor, the AI changes are probably an advantage (tools to move faster and at a lower cost) but are also a threat. It’s probably not an investment most people would consider attractive, as it could take quite a long time to develop. I like the culture, the management and am happy to watch patiently from a distance and be associated (in my mind only) with some high class people and see what happens.

I haven’t looked at the valuation recently but if I was looking at it now, I would look at the individual investments, their earnings and potential and would value Journal Technology on the basis of a future potential value based on a much larger turnover and a decent operating profit margin, that is fitting for a software business, once they move out a few years and are in the harvest period. That margin would reflect Munger’s comment that this is kind of a hybrid between consulting and software.

From a quick look at the results published on Friday. YoY Q1:
1. Licensing & maintenance fees up 13.7%
2. Other public service fees up 32%
3. Consulting fees up 84%
1 and 2 are recurring revenues and continue to show healthy system growth.
3 are the lumpy go live revenues that feed into 1 and 2.

Latest results and comments from CEO:

“Journal Technologies delivered strong revenue growth in the second quarter, with total JTI revenue increasing 32% year over year, reflecting continued expansion of e-filing and public service fees, higher recurring license and maintenance revenues, and increased consulting activity,” said Steven Myhill-Jones, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Daily Journal Corporation. “For the first half of fiscal 2026, JTI revenue grew 22% over the prior-year period. Income from operations improved significantly in both the quarter and the first half, reflecting the operating leverage in our technology business as it continues to scale.”

EVBIGMACMEAL

TYVM for the nice write up! I am not a DJCO shareholder but I did enjoy hearing from the DJCO CEO, Mr. Jones, at VALUEx BRK in Omaha. He speaks from 4:00 to 24:00.

I was impressed with the man, his mind, integrity and the content of his brief talk. Of course, we all loved hearing stories about dear Charlie during his final years. Link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3V7bqLGP9o

Thanks to you too Labadal, I just watched the VALUExBRK link. Thanks so much for that. I actually like Steven Myhill-Jones' quote: "I'm and entrepreneur, not an executive for hire". I also appreciated that one of his reservations about taking on the role was not wanting to run a public company because of the focus on short-term quarterly or yearly performance. He told Munger he didn't like the idea of a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit quarterly, because he has a 5 year time horizon. Munger replied "well, you don't have a fiduciary responsibility to be a total shit as you go through life."

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