• Are IRAs offered by The Weitz Funds?
• Are the Funds offered for sale in all states?
• What is the minimum initial investment?
• Are there plans to close any of the Funds?
• Do you manage separate accounts?
• What are the differences among the stock funds?

We offer Traditional, SEP, and Roth IRAs (IRAs are not permitted in the Nebraska Tax-Free Income Fund). We do not offer Educational IRAs or 403B plans.

Each of the Funds with the exception of Nebraska Tax-Free Income Fund is available for sale in all states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Nebraska Tax-Free Income is available for sale in Nebraska and other select states. Contact a Weitz Funds Client Services representative at (800) 304-9745 for further information.

The minimum initial investment required to open an account is $2,500. There are currently no subsequent minimum investment requirements for any of the Funds.

The Hickory Fund, which was closed to new investors in 1998, was reopened on January 5, 2004. We have no present intent to close any of the other Funds.

If you are an institutional investor and are interested in separate account management, please contact Yana Morgan at (800) 304-9745 or via our secure contact form.

There are five different Weitz equity funds—the Balanced Fund, the Value Fund, the Partners Value Fund, the Hickory Fund, and the Partners III Opportunity Fund. We follow one investment philosophy in selecting stocks for these funds, but the portfolios are constructed differently based on the objectives and the investment restrictions of each fund. Each Fund's prospectus allows it considerable flexibility but the following general characterizations of each Fund might be helpful. "Conservative" is a relative term, but in our opinion, the list progresses roughly from most conservative to least.

The Balanced Fund is really a combination of a stock fund and a bond fund. Its portfolio must include at least 25% stocks and 25% bonds, and the remaining 50% will be a changing mix of stocks and bonds, depending on their relative attractiveness. We would expect that the stock portion of the Balanced Fund would be somewhat more diversified and less concentrated than the others.

The Value and Partners Value Funds have very similar portfolio profiles from the point of view of diversification, industry concentration and tolerance for investment risk. They are currently much larger than the other Funds and so, as a practical matter, less likely to be invested in smaller capitalization stocks. However, investors should understand that we do not specifically target market cap size for any of our Funds.

The main difference between the two is that Value is designed for retirement plans which are not subject to taxes while Partners Value is meant for tax paying investors. This means that we may over-weight stocks that pay high taxable dividends in Value (relative to Partners Value) and we may be slower to recognize capital gains in Partners Value, especially short-term gains. Nevertheless, the effective differences between the two have not been significant.

The Hickory Fund is meant to have a more concentrated portfolio (fewer positions and larger average position size) than those listed above. It is a much smaller fund than Value and Partners, and thus has the flexibility to invest in smaller capitalization stocks. It may also invest in some more speculative issues, and generally, might be more volatile. The Hickory Fund is a more aggressive application of our investment philosophy.

The Partners III Opportunity Fund is the successor to one of our original private partnerships, Weitz Partners-III. (Many of the Value Fund's investors were originally investors in Partners I. Partners II was converted into the Partners Value Fund in 1994.) Partners III Opportunity, like Hickory, is a smaller, more flexible and more aggressively managed portfolio.

However, P-III has two more important differences from Hickory and the other stock funds. It is allowed to borrow money to leverage its investment and it regularly sells short. The use of borrowed money magnifies both gains and losses and so adds an element of risk to the portfolio. None of the other Funds currently uses borrowed money.

As for short sales, the other Funds occasionally use short sales in the case of a merger to "lock in" a takeover premium, but historically P-III is the only fund that routinely sells short both individual stocks and groups of stocks such as exchange traded index funds (ETF's). Short sales may be used defensively as hedges against certain risks in the "long" portfolio or aggressively to try to profit from a decline in a stock or group of stocks. Short sales add another layer of risk to an investment in this Fund.

All five of these Funds are managed by the same group of investment professionals and will inevitably contain overlapping positions. We are happy to try to help potential investors determine which Fund may be most appropriate for them.