Graham & Doddsville
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Graham & Doddsville An investment newsletter from the students of Columbia Business School Inside this issue: Issue XVII Winter 2013 Graham & Dodd Breakfast P. 3 JANA Partners — Collaboratively Frank Martin JANA Partners P. 4 Unlocking Value — Daniel Krueger P. 14 Winning by Not Losing Frank Martin P. 28 Frank Martin Russell Glass P. 42 Frank Martin is the founder and owner of Martin Capital Management, an investment partnership based out of Elkhart, Jon Friedland P. 50 Indiana. He is the author of two books on investing, Speculative Contagion (2005) and A Decade of Delusions (2011). (Continued on page 28) Barry Rosenstein Scott Ostfeld Founded in 2001, JANA Part- ners is a value-oriented in- Editors vestment advisor specializing Russell Glass Jay Hedstrom, CFA in event-driven investing. G&D sat down with two of — MBA 2013 the firm’s partners, Barry Arbitrageur of Jake Lubel Rosenstein and Scott Ostfeld ’02. Barry Rosenstein is the Value MBA 2013 founder and Managing Part- ner of JANA Partners. Prior Russell Glass Sachee Trivedi (Continued on page 4) Russell Glass is founder and managing partner of RDG Capital MBA 2013 Management, a New York-based investment management firm that specializes in activist investing. Prior to RDG Richard Hunt Capital, Mr. Glass served as President of Icahn Associates, the MBA 2014 Daniel Krueger investment firm of Carl Icahn. A passionate sports fan, Mr. (Continued on page 42) Stephen Lieu — “Uncertainty MBA 2014 is our friend” Visit us at: Jon Friedland — www.grahamanddodd.com Searching for www.csima.org International Battleships Jon Friedland Daniel Krueger Jon Friedland ’97 is the Director of International Research at Daniel Krueger ’02 is a Man- Amici Capital (formerly named Porter Orlin). He is aging Director and Partner responsible for sourcing and analyzing the firm’s international at Owl Creek Asset Manage- long and short ideas. Prior to joining Amici in 2001, he ment, a hedge fund in New worked at Zweig-Dimenna Associates, a New York-based (Continued on page 14) (Continued on page 50) Page 2 Welcome to Graham & Doddsville We are proud to bring you the very attractive risk-return sce- the coming years. latest installment of Graham & narios, as well as how he en- Doddsville. This is the 17th edi- courages his team, in their Jon Friedland ’97 from tion of Columbia Business early work on a company, to Amici Capital shared with us School’s student-led investment zero in on the key questions the factors that make a com- newsletter, co-sponsored by the that need to be answered. pany a ‘battleship’ company. Heilbrunn Center for Graham & He then conveyed the attrac- Dodd Investing and the Colum- Frank Martin from Martin tiveness of searching for these Pictured: Professor Bruce bia Student Investment Manage- Capital Management de- companies in emerging mar- Greenwald. The Heilbrunn ment Association. scribed how he picks compa- kets. Center sponsors the Ap- nies on a bottom-up basis, yet plied Value Investing pro- We were very fortunate to sit spends much of his time thor- This issue also contains pic- gram, a rigorous academic down with six well-respected oughly studying the macroeco- tures from the 22nd Annual curriculum for particularly and successful investors that nomic environment. He also Graham & Dodd Breakfast, committed students that is span the value investing spec- explained his reasoning for which took place on October 5 taught by some of the in- trum – they prove the old ad- having a conservatively posi- at the Pierre Hotel in New dustry’s best practitioners. age, ‘there is more than one way tioned portfolio today. Mr. York. Investing luminaries to skin a cat.’ Martin goes into detail about Tom Russo, Bill Ackman, Mario the behavioral aspects of in- Gabelli, William von Mueffling, Barry Rosenstein and Scott vesting and what he does to and others were on hand to Ostfeld ’02 from JANA Part- avoid traps to which many mingle and listen to keynote ners explained their process for investors fall prey. speaker Meryl Witmer from constructively engaging manage- Eagle Capital Partners. ment in activist situations. They Activist Russell Glass from also talked about how their RDG Capital made us very We thank our featured inves- entrepreneurial backgrounds envious when he shared his tors for sharing their time and have helped shape their careers unique business school and insights with our readers. and the way they look at compa- early career experiences. Mr. Please feel free to contact us if nies. Glass thoroughly shared how you have comments or ideas his firm has been able to profit about the newsletter as we Distressed expert Dan handsomely by actively advo- continue to refine this publica- Pictured: Heilbrunn Center Krueger ’02 from Owl Creek cating for the sale of underval- tion for future editions. We Director Louisa Serene Asset Management shared ued companies. He also illumi- hope you enjoy reading this Schneider. Louisa skillfully the intricacies of distressed debt nated for us how the large issue of Graham & Doddsville leads the Heilbrunn Center, investing that make it his favor- amounts of cash in private and find the interviews as infor- cultivating strong relation- ite hunting ground for ideas. He equity and corporate hands mative and thought-provoking ships with some of the also explained how the econom- could lead to a robust mergers in written form as we found world’s most experienced ics of averaging down create and acquisitions environment in them to be in person. value investors and creating numerous learning oppor- tunities for students inter- ested in value investing. CSIMA Scholarship The classes sponsored by the Heilbrunn Center are among the most heavily The Columbia Student Investment Management Association (CSIMA) will be demanded and highly rated awarding its inaugural scholarship this spring with the proceeds from today’s classes at Columbia Busi- conference. Through this program, we will award a $10,000 scholarship to ness School. an incoming Columbia Business School student that exhibits an outstanding aptitude and commitment to investment management. All incoming MBA students in the Class of 2015 are eligible to apply and the recipient will be chosen by a panel of CSIMA students. We are excited to initiate this scholarship and look forward to making this an annual tradition. IssueVolume XVII I, Issue 2 Page 3 22nd Annual Graham & Dodd Breakfast, Oct 5, 2012 at Pierre Hotel Keynote Speaker – Meryl Witmer Bill Ackman Mario Gabelli with William von Mueffling Tom Russo in deep conversation with Sid and Helaine Lerner Dean Hubbard thanks Ms. Witmer Prof. Greenwald makes a point Engaged audience “Bring a sharp pencil and leave your emotions at home!” – Meryl Witmer Page 4 JANA Partners (Continued from page 1) out of business school. The answered the phone. I to founding JANA Part- interviews didn't go that started talking as fast as I ners, Mr. Rosenstein was the founder and Managing well for me, and there could and he finally said, Partner of Sagaponack weren't big banking pro- "Well, come on in." This Partners, a private equity grams like there are today. led to me becoming Edel- fund. Mr. Rosenstein re- What did lead to a job was man’s co-head of takeovers, ceived his MBA from cold-calling. The trick I a job for which I really was- Wharton and his B.S. from used to get jobs coming out n’t qualified. Lehigh University. Scott of business school was to Ostfeld is a partner of call people after 5:00 p.m., G&D: Can you tell us the JANA Partners and is re- when their secretaries had story of how you actually sponsible for special situa- tions investments, includ- left, so that the person I got the job offer from Asher ing active shareholder en- really wanted to speak to Edelman? gagement. Prior to joining would likely pick up the Barry Rosenstein JANA Partners, Mr. Ostfeld phone themselves. In the BR: Asher was the corpo- was with GSC Partners in case of my first job oppor- rate raider back then, and I its distressed debt private tunity, I cold-called a Whar- was a nobody associate at equity group. Mr. Ostfeld ton alumnus at a boutique Merrill Lynch; no one there received his MBA from firm called Warburg, even knew who I was. He Columbia Business School, Becker, Paribas. Unfortu- started by telling me that his J.D. from Columbia Law School, and a B.A. from nately, the first week on the he'd been talking to the Columbia University. job, the firm was sold to heads of the M&A depart- Merrill Lynch and I was ments at various investment G&D: Can you tell us again without a job. That banks about coming to about your background and was the start of my career. work for him to co-head his how you became interested Fortunately, Merrill called takeover business. I didn’t in investing? me about a week later and understand why he was tell- told me I could interview ing me this as it had nothing Barry Rosenstein (BR): I for a job with them and, to do with me. After about wasn't one of these people apparently, they needed 15 minutes, he turned to me who invested when I was bodies so they hired me. I and said, "I think you and I nine years old. I was good worked in banking for about are going to do a deal here." at math and I was interested two and a half years but I I had no idea what he in business. Frankly, I didn't frankly didn't like it that meant.