Founder of Patient Capital Management — she worked with legendary investor Bill Miller for 20 years and succeeded him on the Opportunity Trust.
Life story
Samantha McLemore grew up in Vermont in a family of modest means and started working at 12, babysitting to pay for clothes and car payments. Her father introduced her to stocks: in the mid-1990s he put an unexpected insurance payout into Dell, so she watched market cycles first-hand as the tech bubble burst.
She graduated magna cum laude from Washington & Lee University in business administration and accounting. Her year of birth is not widely published.
How they got started
When Bill Miller visited Washington & Lee in September 2001, McLemore asked whether she could send him her résumé. After interviewing with the whole team she was hired straight out of college in July 2002, at the bottom of the tech bust. Miller had made history by beating the S&P 500 for 15 straight years (1991–2005) with the Legg Mason Value Trust.
In August 2008, just before the financial crisis, she became assistant portfolio manager of the Miller Opportunity Trust and later co-managed it with Miller. When Miller retired at the end of 2022 she became sole manager, and from 2023 the strategy moved to her own firm, Patient Capital Management.
Investment style
McLemore believes the investor's biggest edge is behavioural: opportunities appear when fear and pessimism lead the market to misprice assets. She applies valuation discipline across the whole portfolio, including growth companies.
She judges success over rolling three-to-five-year periods rather than against the index in the short run — a patience that sometimes means sitting through painful years.
Best decisions
Amazon
Miller's team bought Amazon when most analysts were sceptical and held it for decades; McLemore analysed it through long-term free cash flow per share.
Bitcoin (2020)
Initially sceptical, she added bitcoin exposure in 2020 on a "digital gold" thesis and its supply-demand dynamics.
Biggest mistakes
The 2008 crisis
Weeks after she became assistant manager the financial crisis hit, and Miller's funds suffered heavy losses (including on Bear Stearns). She has said the period nearly drove her out of the industry and taught her to measure success over the long run.
Today
Since 2023 McLemore has run the Opportunity Trust and related strategies independently at Patient Capital Management. Bill Miller retired from fund management at the end of 2022.
What to learn from following the portfolio
- McLemore prefers to buy during market panics — a new or increased stake in a beaten-down stock may be her key signal.
- The portfolio can be volatile, mixing growth companies and unconventional assets. Study her reasoning rather than copying it.
- Alongside technology and consumer names, the portfolio may hold financials, which are usually not halal. Check each position's halal status in the Portfolio tab.
- 13F is 45 days delayed and shows only long US-listed positions; bitcoin exposure, for example, may not appear directly.
An introduction based on public sources — not investment advice. Spotted an error? Let us know.