Approach
Ownership, not a holding period.
DMJ is structured as a holding company because that is how we intend to behave. The legal form and the operating habit are the same sentence.
Most “holding companies” are funds. We declined the costume.
A fund raises, deploys, and distributes on a schedule that has nothing to do with the companies it owns. That schedule is a product for limited partners. It is a tax on operators.
Permanent capital lets a business be itself. We recapitalize when the work needs it, hire slowly, and leave a good manager alone. If a company is compounding, the correct move is often to do less, not to manufacture an exit.
Constraints
- 01
Permanent capital
There is no fund life. No LP clock. We buy companies to own them, and we measure the work in decades.
- 02
Operator’s diligence
We underwrite the work, not the story. If we cannot picture the Tuesday morning, we do not close.
- 03
Concentration
Five companies, known well. We would rather miss a deal than collect logos.
- 04
Local gravity
Ventura is headquarters, not a mailing address. Living here is the constraint that keeps the work honest.
What we buy
- Operating businesses with real cash generation, not a plan to find it later.
- Owners who want a careful handoff, not a process auction.
- Sectors we already understand: property, food, marine, hospitality, industrial.
- Situations where our capital can stay for a generation.
What we pass on
- Venture-style stories that need a new market to exist.
- Turnarounds that require a hero CEO we do not have.
- Deals whose return depends on selling to the next buyer.
- Anything we would be embarrassed to explain on California Street.