Value Investing with Legends

Navigating the investment world is an enormous task, especially when looking at company numbers and the people running them. That's why we're thrilled to have Sheldon Stone on the show. Sheldon was the first in his family to go to college, attending the highly respected Bowdoin College. He was part of a remarkable class of 225 students, an experience that shaped his unique perspective on life and...

Navigating the complex world of wealth creation and financial history can be daunting. That's why our guest, Ray Dalio, places a strong emphasis on understanding the evolution of wealth, the current economic landscape, and the patterns that govern financial markets.   As an iconic investor and author, Ray offers a wealth of knowledge backed by years of experience in the finance industry. He has wr...

Today's conversation is a special one. I'm delighted to share my fireside chat with Markel Corporation's Tom Gayner from our 26th Annual CSIMA Conference. With decades of industry experience, Tom joined us to share insights into how Markel has differentiated itself from others in the insurance industry and the investment approach and philosophies that facilitate its continued growth.   Thomas "Tom...

When evaluating a company, getting a clear picture of all the relevant factors can be challenging. That's why today's guest, Scott Hendrickson, heavily emphasizes management quality and companies where diligence can provide a high level of conviction.   As a Columbia Business School graduate and adjunct professor, Scott is both a practitioner and a teacher. He has been an integral part of the inve...

With the constant evolution of the asset management industry, investors need to stay a step ahead to justify earning an active management fee. With over 40 years of experience in the industry, this is a lesson that today's guest, Bill Nygren of Harris Associates, instills in the younger analysts he mentors.   Bill is a true legend of value investing and an investor you can turn to whenever the mar...

One of the most exciting things in our industry is finding young investment managers who are incredibly bright, hard-working, and well-trained in the investment process. Our guest today, Angela Aldrich, fits that bill perfectly.   Angela is the co-founder of Bayberry Capital Partners, a hedge fund with a half-billion dollars in assets based in New York. Before starting Bayberry Capital Partners, s...

Over the past several decades, asset management has transformed from a small industry with a few experts competing against a majority of amateurs in the market to a market saturated with well-equipped and highly resourced experts competing against each other.   When I think about my pantheon of all-time great investment thinkers and writers, our guest today stands out as one of the industry's lege...

Success comes from value creation.    For a strategic initiative to create value, it must increase willingness to pay or decrease willingness to sell. Otherwise, the resources expended will not flow into profitability.   Today's discussion is one I was looking forward to because we're focusing on value-based strategy frameworks and using strategic analysis to understand whether a company has a com...

To be a good value investor, you must be a good credit analyst.   Over the years, I learned so much from the many investors I've met through Heilbrunn. I've shamelessly incorporated these ideas and insights into my lecture notes and the curriculum. Today's guest is one such person.   Mitch Julis has had a disproportionately large impact on both my thinking and the program design. Now he joins me f...

"Right next to the really cheap junk, there are some really cheap gems."   Welcome to a new season of the Value Investing with Legends podcast!   We're delighted to welcome our first guests for the season, Andrew Wellington and Dan Kaskawits from Lyrical Asset Management. In 2008, Andrew started the firm with three core pillars of investing: value, quality, and analyzability. That approach leads t...

"We look for exceptional small and mid cap companies with the wherewithal to become exceptional large companies."   This is at the core of the investment philosophy of today's guest, Columbia Business School alum Amy Zhang. Amy is Executive Vice President and Portfolio Manager of the Alger Small Cap Focus, Alger Mid Cap Focus, Alger Mid Cap 40, and Alger Small Cap Growth Strategies. She joined Alg...

How do you create a portfolio strategy that takes into account both safety and the pursuit of your aspirational goals?   That's what today's guest, Ashvin Chhabra, set out to answer with the Wealth Allocation Framework. Ashvin is President and Chief Investment Officer of Euclidean Capital, a New York-based family office for James H. Simons & Marilyn H. Simons. The Simons Foundation is dedicated to...

"The data is the data, and that's it."   As a model user, it's easy to get hyperfocused on quantitative data but reality requires a broader approach.   In the current market environment with uncertainty at every turn, it's an advantage to be able to blend quantitative and qualitative analysis with years of experience observing the interaction between the economy at large and financial markets.   T...

Welcome back to Season 7!   From the move to Manhattanville to the new curriculum for the value investing program at The Heilbrunn Center, there have been many changes since we wrapped our last season at the end of 2021.   Outside of that, a lot has happened in the markets. We've seen significant drawdowns in some growth stocks, conversations are centered around inflation and stagflation, and the...

Time arbitrage is one of the biggest behavioral advantages an investor can have.   Joining us today to talk about what it means to be an engaged, long-term shareholder is Munib Islam. Munib is someone who has experienced investing from many different angles, from a traditional long-short hedge fund to sitting on corporate boards and seeing the process of approving corporate performance from the in...

Activist investing is the new frontier for value investors, allowing them to be the agents of their own returns.   Today we're continuing our examination of the activist style of investing by exploring the intersection of two important trends in the money management industry: activism and environmental, social, and governance investing.   Impactive Capital's Lauren Taylor Wolfe joins us to share h...

In a world of plentiful capital and compressed yields, activism and being the agent of one's returns is a way forward.   Transformational activism in particular is centered around a deep commitment and trusting relationship between the investor and the company. This multi-dimensional approach forgoes short-term solutions like financial engineering and instead focuses on working with great leaders...

Not satisfied with the lack of value most student-run investment clubs offered to students, Tom Russo designed a better way.   Through the 5x5x5 Russo Student Investment Fund, he set out to prove the teaching value of a long-term fund rather than the conventional short-term activity that the existing systems favored.   Each year, students submit their ideas for new investments with five ideas ulti...

A year and a half into the pandemic, a lot has changed in the investment landscape.   Individual investors have been empowered, economies reacted in unpredictable ways, and we still have no clear idea of what is to come. At the same time, when we take a retrospective look, we can find parallels between the trends, behaviors, and reactions of today and events in the past. Today we're joined by one...

Since our first podcast in the spring of 2019, we've built a wonderful audience around the world, and now have a terrific collection of interviews with remarkable investors.   I have loved the opportunity to host these interviews myself but from the very beginning, I felt that you would benefit from having another voice to challenge the guests and bring a different point of view to the podcast. Th...

Listeners of this podcast will know that I believe one of the most dynamic areas of investing is that of activism. In the true spirit of value investing, there's a crop of activist investors who are now embracing their role in engaging management in various ways, whether to improve operational performance, address governance issues, or simply to encourage better capital allocation and distribution...

One of our goals with this podcast is to get to know new markets, new situations, and new investors who bring dynamism to all markets. A great example of this is the new generation of activist investors in Europe. Students of mine have heard me say for some time that Europe has been ripe for activism. I believe that with structural changes in European capital markets, combined with the state of gl...

The value investing in legends class is one of the highlights of the Heilbrunn year. It's filled with special moments, including the annual visit from our guest today, Elizabeth Lilly. Beth embodies the principles and practices of value investing like very few people do. She makes investing look easy and her lecture always captures the pure essence of value investing. Elizabeth Lilly is Chief Inve...

Any sound investment strategy must include both a tactical and a structural component. The tactical side requires close attention to the firm's financials and prospects, while the structural side puts that analysis in the specific context of the industry as well as the economy at large. Our guest, Anna Nikolayevsky, is here today to share her approach and how her investment strategy has evolved.  ...

Over the last few years, the opportunities for global value investing have improved significantly. Yields are incredibly low across the board, putting pressure on improving operational performance to generate returns. In such an environment, Europe is fertile ground for the value investor. With room for operational improvement in many sectors and a robust institutional environment, it's an ideal m...