Piet Viljoen - the ultimate value investor: Darkest before dawn?

The Value Investor's value investor Piet Viljoen has taken a big hit with the decision by Nedbank to move the billions in its Managed unit trust away from the company. Like other authentic value managers, few of whom remain, Re:CM's performance has been poor over the past couple of years as its strategy of buying the cheapest assets on the stock market - commodity-based businesses - has pushed it ever lower in the tables. Viljoen says lessons have been learnt, but he refuses to be swayed from the firm's approach ("it's in our DNA") although he has returned to personally manage the company's four open ended unit trusts. In this in depth interview he talks to Biznews.com's Alec Hogg about what happened and the way ahead.