We invest like owners
"It takes a long time to build a reputation and only 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you will do things differently."
- Warren Buffett, in a memo to Salomon Brothers management, 1991
Our Core Values
01. Honesty
It all starts and ends with honesty. It is the bedrock of everything we do. We give it and we demand it from our partners. Trust and reputation take a lifetime to build and only a moment to destroy. We can not promise guaranteed investment results, but we can guarantee that our word is our bond.
02. Shrewdness
Understanding how and why things work has always been the most fascinating part of the job. Spending our time reading and talking to industry experts is what we love to do. Most importantly we are not “the smartest guys in the room” and stay firmly within our “circle of competence”.
03. Courage
We run concentrated portfolio of businesses we understand. Excellent opportunities are always rare by definition. As such one must be ready to act quickly, decisively and with size in order to be successful.
04. Patience
How much patience and perseverance do you need to educate and bring up a young child? Businesses are not much different. They don’t change fast and rarely go straight up. And yet watching them grow is the most fascinating journey in life.
About Us
What we do?
Founded in 2024 by Yanko Yanchev, Stratus Capital is a value-oriented investment firm built on the timeless principles of Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger. We operate with a singular focus: identifying and owning high-quality, publicly traded enterprises that possess enduring “economic moats” and trust-worthy people.
Originally established to manage our own, family and friends capital, we are carefully expanding to accommodate select third-party partners. Most of the capital we invest is our own so we fully share in both the successes and the risks of our operations.
Investment Philosophy
"Invert, always invert."
We are devout followers of this famous principle popularized by the great Charlie Munger. So our philosophy starts not with the things we know, but with the things we don’t know. For example we are very confident that we don’t know better than anybody else what the price of a commodity, stock, interest rates or the market will be tomorrow, in a week or even a year from now. Furthermore, there are a whole host of businesses (like biotech and others) that we simply lack the knowledge and capacity to understand. It is perfectly fitting to quote Mark Twain here “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
And yet, we see investing as a straight forward process – you give up money now, to get back more in the future. That’s all it is! Therefore, to us it makes perfect sense to judge the value of a business or an asset based on what it produces or is capable to produce, rather than what someone else is willing to pay for it. Digging deep to figure out and learn the economics of a business is both fascinating and the best part of the job. If you are right about the business and its prospects you don’t care if the Market recognizes it or not … you get paid anyway by what the business itself produces in time.
The most famous investor of all time Warren Buffett was asked why don’t more people do this? The answer was rather simple “Nobody wants to get rich slow.” This seems to be true today more than ever. Armed with patience and staying within our own “circle of competence” we survive and thrive in the markets. In the end it comes down to the old maxima that “many know the price of things, but few their value”. Rarely, we get a strong conviction that we know the true value of a business or an asset and if we can get that dollar of value for fifty cents we can be sure to profit well in the process.
If you are interested to learn more about our approach check out our “Books” section where we share those that have made the largest impact to our investment approach. We are always open for a lunch and a friendly conversation meeting quality people and exchanging ideas about investments, business and life in general.
Management
Yanko Yanchev
Yanko Yanchev is the founder of Stratus Capital, a value investment firm where he has been managing the principal fund since 2024. Born in Plovdiv in 1988, Yanko graduated the Mathematics High School and was part of the extended National Physics team, where he was awarded honors from the President of Bulgaria and participated in the international year of physics forum in Paris in 2005. Yanko attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh where he received his BA in Business Administration and Entrepreneurship from the Tepper School of Business in 2011.
15 years experience in senior executive positions in an international family business focused on custom engineering and large equipment CAPEX projects deliver vast real business insight. Traveled and visited over 90 countries globally through extensive sales team leadership and closed in excess of 250 mil EUR equipment sales with large independent, multinational and government Customers worldwide. In 2025 he received official “Investment Advisor” license from the Bulgarian Finance Commission achieving the top score in the exam. He was also presented a special award by the Bulgarian Stock Exchange for the outstanding result.
Philanthropic passions and activities mainly focused in the area of child education and especially natural sciences and physics.
Books & Articles
“The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham – the entire book is an excellent basis to start with, but specifically Chapter 8 and Chapter 20 include the most important concepts we employ – the “maniac” Mr. Market (#8) and “margin of safety” (#20) an idea derived from engineering sciences.
“The Little Book that Beats the Market” by Joel Greenblatt – a very easy to read and understand basics of “modern value investing”. He explains masterfully and in simple terms what it really means to buy great businesses at good prices.
“Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits” by Philip Fisher – a true classic by a person who achieved about 2000x return in his career by following one company – Motorola through the 1960s and 70s. He pioneered the “scuttlebutt method” that we diligently apply in our investment approach today.
“One Up on Wall Street” by Peter Lynch – fascinating insight in the proper way to think about investments as an ordinary person. He teaches the value of having a disciplined approach and using our own experiences as an edge against the “traditional big finance guys”.
“100 to 1 in the Stock Market” by Thomas Phelps – a truly fascinating study of companies that achieved more than 100x or “hundred bagger” status. Growth and Value as Warren Buffett puts it are joined at the hip as such it is crucial to understand, appreciate and look for profitable growth.
“The Dhandho Investor” by Mohnish Pabrai – excellent book from a contemporary investment genius with a very practical and down to Earth examples of successful investment approaches and ideas by regular folk around the world. Never underestimate the power of saving money, shrewd capital allocation and compounding over time.
“The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville” by Warren Buffett – first published in Columbia Business School magazine “Hermes” in 1984. It is an interesting study and discussion of the “value investing” approach that lead to the extraordinary results of a small group of investors who practiced it.
News & Publications
Contact
Address:
246 Vasil Levski Str.
Plovdiv 4003, Bulgaria
Phone:
+359 885 849883
Email:
Investor Relations: ir@stratus.bg
All Other Inquiries: info@stratus.bg