Keynote Speakers

 

John M. Bader
 Thomas A. Russo James Grant

 

Panelists

   
Steven BregmanLeon CoopermanMiguel FidalgoBrian M. Gillott Jason Karp John Andrew Levin

 

    
  Edwin SchlossA. Michael Lipper
Paul J. Lountzis
 David PoppeJohn D. Spears
Seth Turkeltaub

 

Moderators and Organizers




Michael O. Weinberg

Elliot Trexler
Vishal Mishra

Organizer

 

Thomas Brigandi

 

Biographies

John M. Bader is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halcyon Capital Management, LLC, a global asset management firm. Mr. Bader joined the firm in the latter half of 1990, when the firm had approximately $100mm in assets under management. Seeking above all to devise attractive risk-adjusted returns in the context of devising solutions that meet the needs of the firm?s clients, Mr. Bader has recruited and developed internal talent to develop a broad panoply of investment strategies to effectuate that mission. Under his tenure, Halcyon?s assets under management have grown to approximately $10 billion. An industry thought leader, Mr. Bader has been a frequent speaker at forums on investing, including ones sponsored by NMS Management, Institutional Investor, The Borsa Italiana (Italian Stock Exchange), the World Presidents” Organization, and Skybridge Capital (SALT). He has participated in the Barron”s Roundtable, and has been featured in the Financial Times, Pensions & Investments, and Bloomberg, among other publications. He has appeared on CNBC and Bloomberg TV. Mr. Bader is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, has served as a member of the Research Council of The Greenwich Roundtable, and has lectured at Columbia Business School. A recipient of numerous academic prizes, Mr. Bader received his A.B. from Harvard University, Class of 1984.

Steven Bregman is the President and a Senior Portfolio Manager of Horizon Kinetics LLC, a Firm he co-founded in 1994 dedicated to long-horizon, creative approaches to investing, away from mass-market, asset allocation driven orthodoxy.  He is a senior member of the Firm?s research team and supervises all research reports produced by the Firm.  As one of the largest independent research firms, Horizon focuses on structurally inefficient market sectors, including domestic spin-offs, global spin-offs (The Spin-Off Report and (Global Spin-Off Report), distressed debt (Contrarian Fixed Income) and short sale candidates (Devil?s Advocate), among others.  Horizon Kinetics has also taken part in creating functionally improved indexes, such as the Spin-Off Indexes and the Wealth Indexes (which incorporate the owner-operator return variable). Mr. Bregman is also the President and CFO of FRMO Corp., a publicly traded company with interests in Horizon Kinetics.  He received a BA from Hunter College, and a CFA in 1989. Mr. Bregman has authored a variety of reports, notably ?Spin-offs Revisited: A Review of a Structural Pricing Anomaly? (1996) and ?Equity Strategies and Inflation? (2012).

Adam Barth serves as Director of Equity Research. He joined Gotham in 2005 to conduct fundamental research alongside Messrs. Greenblatt and Goldstein, and in 2006 he assumed responsibility for expanding Gotham Capital?s research efforts and building the analyst team. He currently manages all fundamental research and data collection to support Gotham?s proprietary global database of company financial information. Mr. Barth holds a BA (1992) from the University of Pennsylvania and earned a JD(2004) from the Duke University School of Law.

Leon Cooperman retired from Goldman Sachs & Co. after 25 years of service as a General Partner of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management in order to organize a private investment partnership, under the direction of Omega Advisors, Inc. A designated Chartered Financial Analyst, Lee is a senior member and past President of the CFA Society New York. Lee is Chairman Emeritus of the Saint Barnabas Development Foundation, a member of the Board of Overseers of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, a member of the Board of Directors of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Investment Committee of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Board Chairman of Green Spaces. Lee received his MBA from Columbia University and his undergraduate degree from Hunter College. He is a recipient of Roger Williams University?s Honorary Doctor of Finance and a recipient of Hunter College?s Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, was inducted to Hunter College?s Hall of Fame, is a recipient of the 2003 American Jewish Committee Humanitarian Award, the 2006 Seton Hall Humanitarian of the Year Award, the 2009 Boys & Girls Clubs of Newark Award for Caring, and the 2009 UJA-Federation of New York?s Wall Street and Financial Services Division Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted into the Horatio Alger Association in April 2015.

Miguel Fidalgo is the Founder and Portfolio Manager of Triarii Capital. Prior to founding Triarii Capital in 2015, Mr. Fidalgo was a Managing Director at Baupost, where he worked for seven years. While at Baupost, Mr. Fidalgo spearheaded Baupost?s investments in the Icelandic banks, SwissAir, Greece, and Argentina, amongst others. From 2004 through 2008, Mr. Fidalgo was an Investment Professional at Farallon Capital Management, LLC and its affiliate Noonday Asset Management, L.P. Prior to Farallon/Noonday, Mr. Fidalgo worked at Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Financial Institutions Group from 2002 through 2004. Mr. Fidalgo received a B.A. in Economics and Computer Science from Macalester College.

Brian M. Gillott is a Managing Director and Opportunistic Equity Portfolio Manager at Jennison Associates, an institutional investment management firm with over $100 billion in equity assets under management. He joined Jennison in September 1998 from the hedge fund industry. Prior to Jennison, he was an equity analyst at Soros Fund Management, following a variety of industries for the company”s global hedge fund, seeking both long and short opportunities. Prior to Soros Fund, Brian was an analyst at Goldman Sachs in the private client asset management group. He worked at Trinity Investment Management as a financial analyst for four years during college. He received a BS with Honors from Penn State University. Barron”s magazine named Brian one of the top 100 mutual fund managers in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 (the last year of the award).

James Grant, financial journalist and historian, is the founder and editor of Grant?s Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly journal of the investment markets. His new book, The Forgotten Depression, 1921: the Crash that Cured Itself, a history of America?s last governmentally unmedicated business-cycle downturn, won the 2015 Hayek Prize of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.Among his other books on finance and financial history are Bernard M. Baruch: The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend (Simon & Schuster, 1983), Money of the Mind (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992), Minding Mr. Market (Farrar, Straus, 1993), The Trouble with Prosperity (Times Books, 1996), and Mr. Market Miscalculates (Axios Press, 2008).He is, in addition, the author of a pair of political biographies: John Adams: Party of One, a life of the second president of the United States (Farrar, Straus, 2005) and Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed, the Man Who Broke the Filibuster (Simon & Schuster, 2011).Mr. Grant?s television appearances include ?60 Minutes,? ?The Charlie Rose Show,? ?CBS Evening News,? and a 10-year stint on ?Wall Street Week?. His journalism has appeared in a variety of periodicals, including the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affair. He contributed an essay to the Sixth Edition of Graham and Dodd?s Security Analysis (McGraw-Hill, 2009).Mr. Grant, a former Navy gunner?s mate, is a Phi Beta Kappa alumnus of Indiana University. He earned a master?s degree in international relations from Columbia University and began his career in journalism in 1972, at the Baltimore Sun. He joined the staff of Barron?s in 1975 where he originated the ?Current Yield? column. He is a trustee of the New York Historical Society. He and his wife, Patricia Kavanagh M.D., live in Brooklyn. They are the parents of four grown children.

Jason Karp is Founder and CIO of Tourbillon Capital Partners, which manages approximately $4 billion in a global, low net exposure long/short equity fund and a long alpha fund. He has 17 years of investment experience and was previously co-CIO of Carlson Capital, Portfolio Manager at SAC Capital and a Partner and Portfolio Manager at George Weiss Associates. Mr. Karp graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Economics and concentration in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was Academic All-American and Academic All-Ivy as a Varsity Squash player. He is Chairman of the investment committee overseeing Loomis Chaffee?s endowment, and he has endowed scholarships in his parents? names for low-income students at both Loomis Chaffee and University of Pennsylvania?s Wharton School.

John Andrew Levin serves as the Chief Executive Officer, Portfolio Manager, and Chairman at Levin Capital Strategies, L.P. Mr. Levin served as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman at Levin Management Co., Inc. and John A. Levin & Co., Inc., from June 1996 to September 28, 2005. He served as the Chief Executive Officer and President from 1996 to September 28, 2005 at BKF Asset Management, Inc. and served as its Chairman from February 2000 to September 28, 2005. Mr. Levin was a Partner at Steinhardt Partners, serves as Chairman Emeritus of BKF Capital Group Inc. and served as its Director from 1996 to September 28, 2005. Mr. Levin serves as the Member of Board of Advisors at The Yale School of Management.

A. Michael Lipperon the passing of Donald Calvin became the Chairman of International Stock Exchange Executives Emeriti, a global group of former Stock Exchange Officials. Mr. Lipper is the founder and president of Lipper Advisory Services, Inc., an SEC registered investment advisor providing counsel and management of accounts investing in mutual funds, and separate accounts.  He is also the managing member of LSF Partners, LP, a private financial services fund.  In addition, he continues to accept a limited number of consulting assignments dealing with funds and brokerage firms through Lipper Consulting Services, Inc. Mr. Lipper has been an investor in equities for 50 years, and an analyst of funds for over 40 years.  Many of the large investment organizations of the world have consulted with him on various investment issues.  He has been a regular source of comment to the global press. He is the author of Money Wise (2008) and he maintains a weekly blog: www.mikelipper.blogspot.com. In 1973, Mr. Lipper founded Lipper Analytical Services, Inc., an investment firm dedicated to the analysis of funds and brokerage firms.  In 1998 he sold the operating assets of the firm to Reuters Group, PLC. Reuters has transformed the firm into what is now known as Lipper Inc. Mr. Lipper has been active in various industry associations.  He has served on the board of the CFA Society New York (CFANY) in some part during each of the last four decades, including as President during the 1993-1994 term. For many years, he was also the Chairman of CFANY?s Investment Strategy Forum/Portfolio Management Committee.  Mr. Lipper has also been a Regional Director of the Financial Analysts Federation and a founding member and Director of the International Society of Financial Analysts.  He is a Past Chairman of the Specialty Firms Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange. After graduating from Columbia College in 1957, Mr. Lipper joined the U.S. Marine Corps as an officer and is a Founding Member of The National Museum of the Marine Corps.  Mr. Lipper?s ?pro bono? activity  includes serving as a Trustee of the California Institute of Technology and he sits on its Investment, Business & Finance and the Audit & Compliance Committees. He currently serves on Columbia University Medical Center?s Board of Advisors. Mr. Lipper is also a former Board  Member  of the Museum of American Finance and is currently a Trustee of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.In numerous ways Mr. Lipper  has received distinguished recognition for his work: the ?No Load Mutual Fund Association Achievement Award? (1987), a member of the Barron?s All Century Team (2000), The Chambers Award from the NJPAC for service to the community and the Arts (along with his wife Ruth Lipper, 2005), named one of the ?Visionaries of the Mutual Fund Industry? by Strategic Insight (2011), the Lifetime Achievement Award from Thomson Reuter?s Lipper Inc. (2013), and the Benjamin Graham Distinguished Service Award from the CFANY (2013).

Paul J. Lountzis serves as President of Lountzis Asset Management, LLC, which he founded in 2000 and is based in Wyomissing, PA. He has more than twenty-five years, experience in the investment industry, beginning his career with Royce & Associates, a New York City-based investment advisory firm managing the Royce Mutual funds. Paul spent nine years, including five years as a partner at Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, an investment advisory firm managing more than $9 billion, including the Sequoia Mutual Fund. At Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, Inc., Bill Ruane assigned him to conduct a number of specific research projects for the consideration of Warren E. Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

David Poppe is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, Inc., and manager of the firm?s flagship Sequoia Fund. Mr. Poppe joined the firm in 1999 as an analyst following retail and leisure stocks. He joined the Sequoia Fund board of directors in 2003 and became president of the firm and co-manager of Sequoia in 2006. He became CEO in March. Mr. Poppe began his career in journalism. A graduate of Columbia University, he is married with one son.

Thomas A. Russo joined Gardner Russo & Gardner LLC as a partner in 1989. In 2014 he became the Managing Member of the firm. Mr. Russo manages individual separate accounts and serves as the Managing Member of the General Partner to Semper Vic partnerships. Mr. Russo oversees more than $9 billion through separately managed accounts and Semper Vic partnerships. Gardner Russo & Gardner LLC is a registered investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and is not associated with any bank, security dealer or other third party. Mr. Russo looks for companies with strong cash-flow characteristics, where large amounts of ?free? cash flow are generated. (These industries typically have included food, beverage, tobacco, and advertising-supported media.) Portfolio companies tend to have strong balance sheets and a history of producing high rates of return on their assets. The challenge comes in finding these obviously desirable situations at reasonable or bargain prices. Mr. Russo commits capital to leading global consumer products companies whose brands enjoy growing market shares in parts of the world undergoing economic growth and enjoying increasing political stability. He prefers companies with sufficient cash flows from existing operations, combined with balance-sheet strength, to allow investments to activate emerging markets. He backs rare management teams willing to invest to secure robust future returns even when such investments burden current reported profits. Mr. Russo believes that family-controlled companies are often uniquely well positioned to bear burdens on reported profits in pursuit of long-term gains. Accordingly, he often invests in public companies where founding families still retain control and significant investment exposure, to reduce management agency costs and to align owner interests. Mr. Russo?s goal is one of an absolute return rather than a relative return, and he continues his long-term investment objective of compounding assets between 10 and 20 percent per year without great turnover, thereby realizing a minimum amount of realized gains and net investment income. Thomas Russo is the Managing Member of the General Partner of Semper Vic Partners, L.P., and Semper Vic Partners (QP), L.P., limited partnerships whose combined investments are roughly $3 billion, along with overseeing substantially more funds through separate accounts for individuals, trusts, and endowments. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College (BA, 1977), and Stanford Business and Law Schools (JD/MBA, 1984). Memberships include Dean?s Advisory Council for Stanford Law School, Dartmouth College?s President?s Leadership Council, and California Bar Association. Mr. Russo is a charter member of the Advisory Board for the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing at Columbia Business School. He serves on the boards of the Winston Churchill Foundation of the U.S., Facing History and Ourselves, and Storm King Art Center.

Edwin Schloss is a native New Yorker. He received his B.F.A. from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where he majored  in playwriting, so, naturally, he became a money manager. He studied security analysis at the New York Institute of Finance, and had the privilege of working with his father, the famed investor, Walter Schloss, for over twenty five years at the firm of Walter & Edwin Schloss Associates. He is currently  on the Board of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation. For three years running, he was a member of  the Broadway League as a Tony Voter, where he attended over forty-five plays a year.  In 2010, Edwin received a Tony Award for best revival of a musical  for ?La Cage aux Folles.?  He resides in Darien, Connecticut with his wife, Maureen. They are blessed to have two wonderful daughters, Katie and Emily.

John D. Spears has been with Tweedy, Browne Company LLC since 1974 and is a member of the firm”s Management Committee and Investment Committee. He is also Vice President of Tweedy, Browne Fund Inc., a mutual fund group. Founded in 1920, and having served originally as a broker to Benjamin Graham and other highly noted value investors, Tweedy, Browne began managing money for clients in 1968, utilizing a value-oriented investment process derived from the work of Benjamin Graham. The Firm is considered to be one of the purer modern day practitioners of Graham?s intrinsic value-based investment methodology and today manages approximately $17.5B in value portfolios for individuals, family groups and institutions. Before joining Tweedy, Browne, Mr. Spears had been in the investment business for five years with Berger, Kent Associates; Davic Associates; and Hornblower & Weeks-Hemphill, Noyes & Co. He studied at the Babson Institute of Business Administration, Drexel Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania ? The Wharton School. Mr. Spears brings over 40 years of experience to bear in the investment management business. He has spoken from time-to-time on the topics of value investing, investment theory and behavioral finance, as well as co-authored a number of Tweedy, Browne studies/white papers, including What Has Worked In Investing; 10 Ways To Beat An Index; The Road To Wealth; Investing For Higher After-Tax Returns: Lessons for Tax-paying Investors from Warren Buffett, Index Funds, the Best Performing Stocks over 18-Year Period, and Our Own Experience; Great 10-Year Record = Great Future, Right?; and How Hedging Can Substantially Reduce Foreign Stock Currency Risk. As of March 31, 2016, the current Managing Directors and retired principals and their families, as well as employees of Tweedy, Browne had more than $1.0 billion in portfolios combined with or similar to client portfolios.

Seth Turkeltaub, CFA, manages one of the largest fundamental long short groups at Millennium Management LLC / Catapult Capital Management (2008-2016).  Prior to Millennium/Catapult, he was a co-founder and co-portfolio manager of Searock Capital/SR Capital, a long short equity hedge fund (2002-2007).  He was also a co-portfolio manager at SAC Capital Management (2001) and an analyst at Boston Partners Asset Management (1998-2000).  Mr. Turkeltaub earned a BA from The Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Columbia University.  He is a CFA charterholder. Additionally, Mr. Turkeltaub has been voted into the Society of TopGuns, voted on by his peers as a thought leader in the industry.

Michael Oliver Weinberg, CFA, for more than two decades has invested directly at the security level and indirectly as an asset allocator in traditional and alternative asset classes. He is Chief Investment Strategist at Protege Partners, where he is a Senior Managing Director, and on the investment, risk and management committees. Michael is also an adjunct Associate Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia Business School, where he teaches Institutional Investing: Alternatives in Pension Plans, an advanced MBA course that he created. He spent nine years at FRM, a multi-strategy fund of fund where he headed the equity business and was on the investment, asset allocation and management committees. Prior to that, Michael was a portfolio manager at Soros, the macro fund and family office, and at Credit Suisse First Boston. Before that he was a Real Estate analyst at Dean Witter. Michael is a member of The Economic Club of New York, CFA Institute, CFA Society New York, The Credit Suisse Alumni Network and the Yale, Princeton and NYU Family Office Councils. He is an advisory board member for the NYU Stern Investment Management and Research Society, a volunteer at the Columbia Business School Hermes Society and a mentor and events committee member for YJP, a not for profit young professional organization. Michael is a member of AIMA”s Research and Communications Committees and participant in Peter Peterson”s Fiscal Summit. Michael is a published author, having written articles for The New York Times, Institutional Investor and CAIA. He has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CNBC, Bloomberg and Reuters. Michael is a frequent panelist, moderator and lecturer for investment banks, institutional and family office organizations and business schools including Institutional Investor, Pensions & Investments, Harvard and The London School of Economics. He has a BS from New York University, an MBA from Columbia Business School and is a CFA.

Elliot Trexler brings 15 years of investment analysis experience to his role as President and Chief Investment Officer of Global Return Asset Management, LLC. Global Return is a fundamental value investment management company focused is risk management. The firm does not use leverage, employs multiple hedging strategies and invests in U.S. common stocks. Elliot currently serves as Vice-Chairman of the Value Investing Group at the CFA Society New York. He regularly hosts educational events that feature industry-leading value investors; past participants have included Howard Marks, Founder of Oaktree Capital and Bruce Berkowitz, Founder and CIO of Fairholme Capital Management. Elliot also hosts the CFANY Author SeriesTM during which he interviews best-selling authors of business and investing books. Prior to Global Return, Elliot was a proprietary trader for nearly four years at T3 Capital Management. At T3, he was promoted to Senior Trader where he trained and managed eight traders. Before switching to public markets, Elliot worked for the nation?s largest real estate investment brokerage company where he created data analytics and custom research reports for institutional investors. He began his career as an investment analyst for an Indiana-based real estate investment firm. Nonprofit and social causes have always been important to Elliot. He has been active in politics and received three political appointments. Elliot has also served on numerous nonprofit boards, including a $550 million dollar foundation. He was the youngest member ever on the board of directors for United Way of Central Indiana and was a finalist for the ?Governor?s Award for Tomorrow?s Leaders.? He is a graduate of Indiana University with double majors in Political Science and Philosophy and attended the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

Thomas Brigandi is an associate analyst in the Global Project and Infrastructure Finance Group at Moody”s, where he covers public power, power generation projects, toll-roads, airports, ports, project finance and public-private partnerships, across the Americas. Brigandi also serves on Moody”s public pension task force. In the past, Brigandi worked at the US$150 BN NYC Pension Fund, where he focused on the energy and natural resources sectors and reported directly to the chief investment officer. Brigandi, the CFA Society New York (CFANY) 2015 Volunteer of the Year and 2013 Young Investment Professional Award recipient, has organized over 25 CFANY conferences that were attended by over 4,000 investment professionals. Additionally, while serving as the Vice President and Director of Global Volunteers of the American Foundation for African Children”s Education, Brigandi was the lead organizer of the NASDAQ Closing Bell Ceremony on Sept 23, 2011, hosted for the President of Sierra Leone, Dr. Ernest Koroma. Brigandi has cultivated personal relationships with thousands of asset owner, buy-side & sell-side investment professionals globally and maintains over 6,500 connections on LinkedIn.

Vishal Mishra is a value and special situation investor and manages a private value-investing partnership. He organizes the Special Situations Ideas Forum at CFANY and 10-K club meetings, which is a group of value and special situation investors. In 2014, he worked on a start-up website trying to connect value investors and generate a library of long-term investing ideas. Prior to that he was in a Specialty lending role at Citigroup providing financing against collateral like hedge fund shares, LP interests, defaulted debt, bankruptcy claims, fund management fees, catastrophe bonds, tax liens etc. He led the trading team of fund linked investment and financing products business of Citigroup and helped grow the revenues from ~$20 million to ~$150 million. He has an MBA from Tulane University, Bachelors in Engineering from REC, India and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder.