Thanks for that Adam. For the record, i never use data that i...

Thanks for that Adam. For the record, i never use data that i haven't extracted myself (usually from annual reports and company announcements), as a matter of policy. No disrespect intended, as i value your opinion.

Regarding IFM and BOL, yes this is like comparing apples with bananas. Or perhaps, as you suggest, lead with copper (i would never suggest gold, here). I wasn't suggesting otherwise. What i was suggesting was that there was some similarity in the investment opportunity (back when I purchased IFM over 2008 to 2011). At that time IFM looked like it was on the way out, and no one wanted to touch it. Even "value" aficionados such as The Intelligent Investor (subscription service) went off it. It looked, on the surface, like it had no future.

I recognise that the similarities end there. And at any rate, even if BOL does indeed have no future, there may still be an investment premise. The same cannot be, and could never have been, said about IFM.

Clearly IFM has a clearer competitve advantage, and vastly superior economics (for a whole host of reasons). However, I suspect holders of IFM give its moat more weight than it deserves. I was willing to hold it while there were directors on board that i felt had a deep understanding of the business and a passion for it. Now that it seems (to me) to be moving in the direction of a board of bureacrats, i give the moat very little credence, going forward. Wonderful economics, with no moat, is really not so wonderful at all.

Whatever moat IFM has today, is a consequence of leadership desicions taken yesterday.