메리츠자산운용 주니어 펀드 레터

Dear investors First of all, I’d like to thank you (and your parents) for your decision to take a long journey of becoming a capitalist with us. As can be seen from the chart below, more babies, children and teenagers are joining the path to financial freedom, and I’m very grateful to be given an opportunity to help your money to grow with the power of compouding. Secondly, with Children’s Day coming up soon, I’d like you to celebrate Children’s Day for who you are, and in this letter, as a mother of a 7 year old child, I wanted to tell you something that your parents or teachers may not have spoken to you about. The chart is not necessarily relavant to the fund’s perfomance. [Source : Meritz Asset Management, as of March 31st, 2022] When I was pregnant with my daughter, just like other first time moms, I navigated a lot of pregnancy-related blogs, SNS, etc to make sure my pregnancy symptoms were normal. But then, someone told me “Every pregnancy is different. Just enjoy and don’t worry too much.” I believe that applies to all of you – Just like every pregnancy is different, every one of you is DIFFERENT. That difference makes you unique and special. Unfortunately, Korean education system, that forces you to agree on same answers and conclusions, has been and is defining difference as wrong. But, all of your seamingly ‘wrong’ answers by Korean standards probably have your own beautiful thought process behind, and that’s what’s called CREATIVITY. Remember that being different is a blessing. One of common characteristics of greater innovators in the world is ‘being different’. LOREM IPSUM AMENT LOREM IPSUM AMENT 3 When my daughter was 6 months old, I was traveling abroad one week and was told that she fell hard from the bed at home. As the first-time mom, I was panicked, but then someone (different from one above!) told me “Don’t worry. Kids are strong. Otherwise, human beings would not have survived.” Simple wisdom (although, back then, I was like ‘what are you talking about?!’). But that quote has remained with me since then as I watch my daughter grow up. Children are RESILIENT. You NEVER GIVE UP. If you fail on one thing, you try different things and find your way to achieve something that makes yourself proud. And you become stronger with high self-esteem. Unfortunately, Korean education system (again!) doesn’t help you to maintain or further strengthen that resilience because the current education system does not provide you with a diverse set of opportunities and hence you don’t get to try out your possible options. One of the first sentences you used (or are using or will be using) as you turn 5-6 years old is “I CAN DO IT BY MYSELF.” Trust me - naturally built-in confidence that you all have is truly amazing. You LOVE TO TAKE A RISK. You are NOT AFRAID OF FAILURE. But once again (!), unfortunately, Korean education system doesn’t want you to fail, which may have lowered your confidence. It’s quite sad that Korean high school students do not really raise their hands to speak up their opnions or to ask questons (whereas at kindergartens kids all raise hands to speak – oftentimes so creative that teachers don’t even know answers!) . So, here we are. I do believe that the most important elements that make you who you are – resilience, creativity, confidence and positive mindset – are commonly shared by great businesses and their leaders. My colleagues and I are not professional educators. But as a specialist in investing, we think investing in companies and learning from their ‘growth mindset’ will further strengthen your unique differences, and will help you to lead a fun and fearless life. Let me share some quotes from extraordinary leaders in a corporate world that I have introduced to you in quarterly reports. If you haven’t done so, I highly encourage you to read them together with your families and friends. Lisa Su AMD “The best piece of advice I got when I was a young engineer was to run toward problems. Many people tend to shy away from problems. To advance in your career, you need to be smart and capable, but you also need to be lucky. And you can make your luck. The way you do that is to do a great job on something that’s really, really hard. Don’t be afraid to take that risk. Some of my best work was done under an enormous amount of stress, but it brings out the best in you. So I tell people, “Look for those hardest problems and volunteer to help solve them.” CEO’s Quote LOREM IPSUM AMENT LOREM IPSUM AMENT 4 Jeff Bezos Amazon “ Keep inventing, and don’t despair when at first the idea looks crazy. Remember to wander. Let curiosity be your compass. It remains Day 1.” Beom soo Kim Kakao “ A ship is the safest at a harbor, but that’s not what it is made for” Marc Randolph Netflix “ You have to learn to love the problem, not the solution.” Satya Nadella Microsoft “ While we have seen great success, we are hungry to do more. Our industry does not respect tradition – it only respects innovation.” LOREM IPSUM AMENT LOREM IPSUM AMENT 5 LOREM IPSUM AMENT LOREM IPSUM AMENT 6 As someone who went through a Korean education system and was lucky enough to have work experiences outside Korea, I can assure you that test scores do not define you. If your test scores are high : That’s great. But again, that doesn’t necessarily make you a better person than others. Always remember that it’s a very small part of you. Focus on what makes you unique and less replaceable. If your test scores are not high : Well, I think that’s even better! Because you now know what you are not good at, therefore you can get closer to what you are really good at, and most importantly, what you really love to do. On this year’s Children’s Day, I suggest you doing the following : Ask your parents what they were so amazed by you and what they were so proud of you when you were 1, 2, 3 or 4 years old. You started to crawl, stand up, walk, eat, speak, draw – ALL BY YOURSELF. You kept falling but ended up standing up and walking, your parents had to do so many laundries as you were not able to eat neatly but you eventually did, you couldn’t speak a full sentence but you figured it out – again, ALL BY YOURSEL.F. Yes, perhaps there was a little bit of help and that was just all you needed. A little bit of help. I hope that Junior Fund’s consistent communications about investing philosophy and disciplines provide you with that little help. YOU ARE THE AUTHOR OF YOUR OWN LIFE – neither your parents nor your teachers. Politely tell your parents and teachers that you are strong, resilient and confident. You just need some time to figure out what you like and to plan your own journey. Isn’t it interesting that such patience both you and your parents need to have is the exactly same patience that investors must learn when investing in companies? Jungim Park Lead Portfiloio Manager, Meritz Junior Fun