Chilton Investment 13F (2026 Q1): A Quality Core, Retail Trimmed

A long tail of names, a quality core that does the work

Chilton Investment Company, the firm founded by Richard Chilton, has long pursued a high-quality growth approach: own well-run, financially strong businesses with durable franchises and let them compound. Its 2026Q1 13F lists about $4.26 billion across roughly 280 positions, but the breadth of that list is misleading. The top ten holdings account for more than half the reported value, and they share an unmistakable family resemblance, dominant, cash-generative companies with pricing power. The long tail of small positions matters far less than the concentrated quality core at the top.

That core is led by Microsoft at 8.27%, Costco at 7.87%, Sherwin-Williams at 7.40%, Republic Services at 6.43%, and Mastercard at 4.76%, followed by Home Depot, Amphenol, Amazon, Cintas, and IBM. It is a roster of compounders, software, warehouse retail, paint, waste collection, payments, drawn from the kind of stable, high-return businesses that quality investors prize for their predictability.

Concentration hiding inside a broad list

It is worth pausing on the structure, because a 280-name filing can look like an index fund at first glance. It is not. With the top ten above 50% of value and clear weighting toward a handful of franchises, Chilton is expressing real conviction at the top while using the long tail for smaller, more opportunistic positions. When you read a filing like this, the right move is to focus on where the weight actually sits rather than being distracted by the sheer number of tickers.

Trimming retail, leaning into Amazon

Reported value fell about 11% from the prior quarter, and the share-count moves show a manager actively reshaping the quality core rather than simply riding the market. On the sell side, Chilton trimmed two consumer-facing names: Costco by 15% of shares and Home Depot by 18%, with a smaller cut to Republic Services. On the buy side, the standout was Amazon, lifted by 57% of shares, alongside a 12% add to Cintas. The pattern reads as a rotation within the quality universe, taking profits in richly valued traditional retail and reinvesting toward Amazon's broader platform and Cintas's durable business-services franchise.

None of this disturbs the top of the book's character; Microsoft, Sherwin-Williams, Mastercard, Amphenol, and IBM were all held essentially flat. The activity is a tilt, not an overhaul, exactly what you would expect from a quality-growth manager fine-tuning rather than chasing.

How to read a quality manager with a long tail

The lesson from a filing like Chilton's is to weight what is weighted. A broad position count can mask a genuinely concentrated, high-conviction portfolio, and the meaningful signal lives in the top holdings and the share-count changes among them. This quarter, that signal is a measured rotation, out of expensive retail, into Amazon and business services, on top of an otherwise steady core of compounders. The asset decline reflects that trimming plus ordinary market movement rather than any abandonment of the strategy.

You can explore the full holdings, the position changes, and the multi-year history on the Chilton Investment filer page.