By Andrew Bary

Noted value investor Chris Davis tore into the private-equity industry this week for going after retail investors.

"I think trying to get retail investors into this high-fee, high-leverage, low-liquidity space is a terrible disservice," he said on Barron's Live, a weekly call with Barron's readers . "And if you just look at the results in aggregate, recognizing that there's a huge dispersion of returns and there's some that are very good, I think it's scandalous."

Davis, chairman of Davis Advisors, which has $31 billion of assets under management, pointed out that many public pension funds with sizable private equity exposure have underperformed a 60/40 mix of stocks and bonds. He said liquidity is underappreciated by investors who favor alternative assets like private equity that lock up holders.

"The ability to change your mind when the world is volatile is hugely valuable," he said. "And the idea that people were giving that up willy-nilly in their pension plans, in their endowments, in their sovereign wealth funds at a time of so much uncertainty, I think they're really going to regret that."

Davis, 60, is a third-generation value investor whose grandfather Shelby Cullom Davis made a name for himself in insurance stocks such as Markel Group and Japan's Tokio Marine. Chris Davis, highly regarded on Wall Street, is a board member of Berkshire Hathaway and Coca-Cola.

On Barron's Live, also available as a podcast, Davis made the case for three of his firm's top holdings: Capital One Financial, Chubb, and Tyson Foods. In general, he favors companies with strong competitive advantages and below-market price/earnings multiples.

Capital One is one of the country's largest credit-card lenders. It purchased Discover Financial in 2025 in a move that will make it a stronger rival to American Express, Visa, and Mastercard, thanks to the Discover payments network.

Capital One stock, at around $188, is down over 20% this year and now trades for 10 times projected 2026 earnings, versus more than 20 for the S&P 500. Davis is a fan of Richard Fairbank, the 75-year-old founder and CEO. "There are very few founder-led banks of any scale. You have an extraordinary culture," he said.

Davis called Capital One a standout in technology among big financials. "It's been a fintech company from the beginning. It's run by data scientists," he said.

In Tyson, Davis sees a leader in the meat business that trades at an attractive valuation of around 15 times forward earnings. "Tyson is the best of both worlds--a reasonable valuation and it's under-earning" due to losses at its U.S. beef business. The beef operations should be profitable over time, resulting in higher profits for Tyson.

Davis lauded Evan Greenberg, 70, the Chubb CEO and son of famed insurance executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, 100, who was the longtime CEO of American International Group.

"Evan Greenberg is one of the great leaders in all of financial services, " Davis said. "What he has done at Chubb is simply astounding."

Chubb shares, at around $325, trade for about 12 times forward earnings.

Davis also offered some insights into Berkshire, where Greg Abel recently succeeded Warren Buffett as CEO. He predicted that Berkshire's culture will remain intact--a culture of "incredible trustworthiness, the ability to execute without bureaucracy, the ability to get quick decisions made and to honor their words, to have an absolute fortress balance sheet, to be a resource to the country, especially in times of chaos. Those core attributes are sort of sacred. And I think any director of a company like that would have to have as their top priority protecting those attributes."

Borrowing a phrase from author Nassim Taleb, Davis said Berkshire is an "anti-fragile" company. That is, its extraordinary balance sheet with $373 billion of cash and its durable earnings make it more valuable in times of stress or chaos, since it can deploy capital when others are constrained.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com

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March 25, 2026 11:46 ET (15:46 GMT)

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