Quorum by Convene, December 12 2023

Michael-Mauboussin

Michael Mauboussin

Counterpoint Global

Fireside Chat and Audience Q&A with Robert Hagstrom

Michael Mauboussin is Head of Consilient Research for Counterpoint Global. He joined Morgan Stanley in 2020 and has 37 years of investment experience. 

Prior to joining the firm, he was director of research at BlueMountain Capital Management, head of global financial strategies at Credit Suisse, and chief investment strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management. Additionally, Michael is an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School and chairman emeritus of the board of trustees at the Santa Fe Institute. Michael earned an A.B. in government from Georgetown University.

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Sarah Ketterer

Causeway

Value in Disguise: The Cash Flow Transformation

Ms. Ketterer is the chief executive officer at Causeway, fundamental portfolio manager, and is responsible for investment research across all sectors. Ms. Ketterer co-founded the firm in June 2001 and is a member of the operating committee.

From 1996 to 2001, Ms. Ketterer worked for the Hotchkis & Wiley division of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (HW-MLIM). At HW-MLIM, she was a managing director and co-head of the firm’s HW-MLIM International and Global Value team. From 1990 to 1996, Ms. Ketterer was a portfolio manager at Hotchkis & Wiley, where she founded the International Equity product.

Ms. Ketterer earned a BA in economics and political science from Stanford University and an MBA from the Tuck School, Dartmouth College. Ms. Ketterer serves on the Stanford University Board of Trustees, is a member of UT Southwestern President’s Advisory Board, is on the advisory board of Portal Schools, and is a supporter of Girls Who Invest. She previously served as a board member and chair of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and Town Hall and chair of the investment committee of the Music Center Foundation.

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Matthew McLennan

First Eagle Investments

Fireside Chat and Audience Q&A with Consuelo Mack - "Hard-landings, Stagflation, and World Wars? A Return to Graham’s Goal: Safety of Principal with an Adequate Return"

Matthew McLennan is co-head of the Global Value team and a portfolio manager of the Global Value, Global Equity, International Value, International Equity and US Value strategies.

Prior to joining First Eagle in September 2008, Matt worked for Goldman Sachs Asset Management in London, where he served as co-portfolio manager of Global Equity Partners, a group he co-founded in 2003 that ran a focused global equity portfolio for offshore private wealth clients. Earlier in his career, Matt was equity chief investment officer of the investment strategy group for Goldman Sachs’ private client business. He joined Goldman Sachs in Sydney in 1994. Matt started his career in 1991 in Brisbane, Australia, with the Queensland Investment Corporation and was ultimately responsible for the firm’s international equity exposure. He was born in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, and grew up in Queensland, Australia. He received his bachelor of commerce with first-class honors and master of international commercial law from the University of Queensland, and he holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. Matt is interested in the field of education, and he is a trustee (and former president of the Board of Trustees) of the Trinity School in New York City. He serves on the Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and as a board member of the University of Queensland in the United States of America. He also serves on the Advisory Council of the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge at the University of Chicago and is a board member of the Library of America.

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Ben Inker

GMO

How to Stop Worrying and Love Value Investing

Mr. Inker is co-head of GMO’s Asset Allocation team, a member of the GMO Board of Directors and a partner of the firm. He joined GMO in 1992 following the completion of his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Yale University. 

In his years at GMO, Mr. Inker has served as an analyst for the Quantitative Equity and Asset Allocation teams, as a portfolio manager of several equity and asset allocation portfolios, as co-head of International Quantitative Equities, and as CIO of Quantitative Developed Equities. He is a CFA charterholder.

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David Samra

Artisan Partners

Accelerating Value: Lessons from Resilient Companies

N. David Samra is a managing director of Artisan Partners and founding partner of the Artisan Partners International Value Team. He is lead portfolio manager of the Artisan International Value Fund, which he has managed since the portfolio’s inception in September 2002. 

Mr. Samra also was co-portfolio manager for the Global Value Fund from its inception in December 2007 through September 2018. Under Mr. Samra’s leadership, the team was nominated six times (in 2008, consecutively from 2011-2014 and again in 2016) for Morningstar, Inc.’s International-Stock Fund Manager of the Year award in the US and won the award in 2008 and 2013. The team was also named EAFE Equity Investment Manager of the Year in 2015 and 2016 by Institutional Investor. Investor’s Business Daily recognized the Artisan International Value Fund in 2021 and 2022 as one of the best international stock mutual funds for outperforming the MSCI EAFE index over the last one-, three-, five- and ten-year periods. In 2023, the team received three Lipper Fund Awards, recognizing it for consistently strong risk-adjusted performance over the three-, five- and ten-year time periods relative to Lipper’s International Large-Cap Value Funds category.

Prior to joining Artisan Partners in May 2002, Mr. Samra was a portfolio manager and a senior analyst in international equities at Harris Associates LP from August 1997 through May 2002. Earlier in his career, he was a portfolio manager with Montgomery Asset Management, Global Equities Division.

Mr. Samra holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Bentley College and a master’s degree in business administration from Columbia Business School.

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Jennifer De Sisto

Anchor Capital

The Value Of Beauty: Ulta Beauty

Jennifer DeSisto is currently the Chief Investment Officer at Anchor Capital, a $7.4 billion institutional asset manager based in Boston. Jennifer is also the lead portfolio manager for the firm’s All Cap, Balanced, Value Opportunities and Multi-Manager portfolios. 

 

Prior to Anchor, Jennifer was overseeing the investment process at Fiduciary Trust Company, which included managing a team to implement asset allocation and construct portfolios with internal stock and bond portfolios along with external managers. Before then, Jennifer was a portfolio manager on the global equity team at Batterymarch Financial Management, a subsidiary of Legg Mason. Earlier in her career, Jennifer worked at Bank of Boston working on leveraged buy-outs and distressed loans. Jennifer earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BS in industrial management and economics from Carnegie Mellon University. Jennifer is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a Chartered Alternatives Investment Analyst (CAIA).

Alex-Roepers

Alex Roepers

Atlantic Investment Management

Compelling Risk/Return Investment Opportunities in Mid-cap Value Stocks

Alex Roepers is the Chief Investment Officer of Atlantic Investment Management, a global equity value-investing firm he founded in 1988. Mr. Roepers applies a differentiated constructive shareholder activist (CSA) investment approach to unlock incremental value in high-quality, undervalued companies in the consumer, industrials, and businesses services sectors. 

Atlantic’s highly experienced investment team has successfully influenced change at many leading companies over the past 30+ years in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Mr. Roepers began his investing career in the operations and corporate development departments at multi-billion-dollar conglomerates Thyssen-Bornemisza Group (1984-88) and Dover Corporation (1980-82). Mr. Roepers has an MBA from Harvard Business School (1984) and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Nijenrode University, which is the Netherlands School of Business (1980).

James Wilson

Phoenix Asset Management Partners

Empirical Ideas

James joined Phoenix in 2013 and became a Partner shortly thereafter. James manages The Huginn Fund which is the “performance fee only” international strategy. James has also represented Phoenix on the board of Hornby PLC, Dignity PLC and Silverwood Brands PLC.

 Like all the members of the investment team at Phoenix, he will always be an analyst at heart, contributing to holdings across all the strategies. Outside of work, James used to have hobbies before he started a family.

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Henry Engelhardt

Admiral Group

Fireside Chat and Audience Q&A with Jonathan Mills - "The UK’s GEICO: Building a $3m Start-up into a $17bn Industry Leader using Human Capital"

Henry Engelhardt is a founder and CEO emeritus of Admiral Group plc. Henry was CEO from Admiral’s formation in 1991 until his semi-retirement in 2016. Admiral is the largest private car insurer in the UK, also offering home insurance and loans amongst other products. Admiral is headquartered in Cardiff and is Wales’ only FTSE 100 company. 

Admiral is known for market-leading results and for its award-winning culture.  (Admiral is the only company to be listed in the Sunday Times Best Companies To Work For list every year it’s been compiled.)  Admiral is guided by Henry’s simple philosophies like: ‘if people like what they do, they’ll do it better’, which has helped turn culture-energy into big profits.   

Henry is semi-retired, spending his time working as mentor, teacher and recruiter within Admiral.  He also does management lectures for companies and MBA programmes.  His book on management, Be A Better Boss, will be published in June.  

Henry has almost 50 years working experience, starting with Poochies at age 13. He earned a BA in journalism and radio-tv-film from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mi. and an MBA from Insead. Henry was awarded a CBE in 2008 and is a three-time winner of the Sunday Times Best Companies To Work For Best Leader award. He is happily married with four adult children and lives in Cardiff, Wales.

Henry’s book, Be A Better Boss, written to help leaders and managers in any organisation, was published in June 2023. 

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Mark Hiley

The Analyst

Shorts to Longs and the Greenwashing Trap

Founder (2011) of Analyst Alpha Generation, a fundamental independent equity research firm that finds alpha for clients by identifying stocks that could at least double or halve. The Analyst was early in identifying many of the high-profile frauds in Europe in the last decade. 

Prior to venturing into the sell-side, Mark started his career at Fidelity as a Research Associate (2001-2004), and learnt plenty of short-selling skills at Trafelet Delta Funds (2004-2008), a long/short European equity fund. He attended St. Anne’s College, Oxford University and is obsessed with cricket.

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David Schuster

Brown Advisory

Finding Value in Improving Businesses

David is the portfolio manager for the Small-Cap Fundamental Value strategy. Prior to joining Brown Advisory in 2008, he was a managing director for the financial institutions mergers and acquisition advisory group of Citigroup and a managing director in the M&A practice of Lazard Freres. 

After graduating from college, David served as an officer in the United States Army.

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Andrew Brenton

Turtle Creek Asset Management

A Better Kind of Private Equity

Andrew Brenton is the CEO and a co-founder of Turtle Creek. Previously, Mr. Brenton founded and was the CEO of the private equity subsidiary of The Bank of Nova Scotia where he invested in control positions of a dozen Canadian private companies. 

Turtle Creek Asset Management

Mr. Brenton was head of the high technology investment banking practice of Scotia Capital in the early 1990’s and prior to that, he was a founding member and Managing Director in the firm’s mergers and acquisitions practice. Mr. Brenton joined McLeod Young Weir (the predecessor to Scotia Capital) in 1984. Mr. Brenton received his MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business (University of Western Ontario) in 1984 and his B.Sc. from Mount Allison University in 1980.

Beini Zhou

Artisan Partners

Value Root Canal

Beini Zhou, CFA, is a co-portfolio manager for the Artisan International Explorer Strategy. In this role, he oversees the research process and conducts fundamental research as a generalist.

Prior to returning to Artisan Partners in September 2020, Mr. Zhou was a portfolio manager at Matthews Asia where he managed the Emerging Markets Equity and Asia Value Strategies and co-managed the Asia Small Companies Strategy. Before that, Mr. Zhou was an analyst for the Artisan International Value and Global Value strategies from 2005 to 2012. Earlier in his career, he was a product manager with Oracle, where he designed enterprise software. Mr. Zhou holds a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Harvard College and a master’s degree in computer science from University of California-Berkeley. He is fluent in Mandarin.

Anand Vasagiri

Artisan Partners

Value Root Canal

Anand Vasagiri is a co-portfolio manager for the Artisan International Explorer Strategy. In this role, he oversees the research process and conducts fundamental research as a generalist.

Prior to returning to Artisan Partners in September 2020, Mr. Vasagiri was co-head and portfolio manager for the Paradice Global Small Cap Strategy from 2010 to 2019. Before that, Mr. Vasagiri was an analyst for the Artisan International Value and Global Value strategies from 2007 to 2010. Earlier in his career, he was an investment analyst for the global emerging markets team at Pictet Asset Management. Mr. Vasagiri holds a bachelor’s degree of engineering in mechanical engineering from M.N. National Institute of Technology, India, a master’s degree in management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management (ASU) and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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Robert Hagstrom

EquityCompass Investment Management (Moderator)

Robert is Chief Investment Officer of EquityCompass Investment Management, LLC and Senior Portfolio Manager of the Global Leaders Portfolio. He joined EquityCompass in April 2014 and launched the Global Leaders Portfolio in July 2014. Robert was appointed Chief Investment Officer in March 2019.

Robert has more than 30 years of investment experience. Prior to joining EquityCompass, he was Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Investment Counsel, and before that, the Portfolio Manager of the Growth Equity Strategy at Legg Mason Capital Management for 14 years where he managed $7 billion in assets. Robert received “Honorable Mention” recognition in Morningstar’s Domestic-Stock Fund Manager of the Year in 2007 while with Legg Mason.*

Robert is the author of ten investment books including The New York Times Best Seller, The Warren Buffett Way, widely considered to be the definitive book on the investment approach and strategies of Warren Buffett. The book has sold over one million copies worldwide and is translated into 17 foreign languages. In addition, Robert wrote, Investing: The Last Liberal Art, a multidiscipline examination of investing and decision making. His latest book, published in 2021, is Warren Buffett: Inside the Ultimate Money Mind.

Robert earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s of Arts degrees from Villanova University. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a member of the CFA Institute, and the CFA Society of Philadelphia. Robert is also a member of the Global Interdependence Center.

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Paula Robinson

WTW (Moderator)

Paula heads the Focused Equity manager research team at Willis Towers Watson, leading the research efforts on concentrated, unconstrained active equity portfolios. Paula works with large institutional investors globally to construct and manage equity portfolios. 

Paula is part of the Equity Investment Committee responsible for managing WTW’s delegated equity assets which includes the Towers Watson Investment Management’s Global Equity Focus Fund. Prior to joining Willis Towers Watson in 2022, Paula was head of US Manager Research at Buck Consultants where she worked for 12 years in their London and New York offices. Paula has a bachelors degree in mathematics from Durham University and a masters in finance from Imperial College London Business School.

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Jonathan Mills

Metropolis Capital (Moderator)

Moderator: Fireside Chat and Audience Q&A hosted by Jonathan Mills from Metropolis Capital: “The UK’s GEICO: Building a $3m Start-up into a $17bn Industry Leader using Human Capital"

 Jonathan founded Metropolis Capital and has co-managed the Metropolis Global Equity strategy since its inception in 2008. Admiral Group PLC has been a holding in the strategy since 2012. Metropolis Capital currently manages $3.9bn on behalf of institutional investors worldwide.

Prior to this Jonathan worked for Bain & Company as a strategy consultant and then for Schroders in their M & A team before setting up Metropolis International, a media and software group which he built through over 30 acquisitions of private businesses, applying a Value investing approach to each transaction. Returns to seed investors in Metropolis International were 30%+ per annum under Jonathan’s tenure as CEO from 1994-2011. He graduated from Oxford University with a First Class Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

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Consuelo Mack

WealthTrack (Moderator)

Moderator: Fireside Chat and Audience Q&A with Matthew McLennan - "Hard-landings, Stagflation, and World Wars? A Return to Graham’s Goal: Safety of Principal with an Adequate Return"

Consuelo Mack has a long and distinguished career in business journalism. In 2005 she struck out on her own to launch her dream program, a weekly half-hour program on public television devoted to helping Americans build and protect their wealth over the long-term.  Now in its nineteenth season, Consuelo Mack WealthTrack is the only program on television devoted to long-term diversified investing. It has been dubbed the “Cramer Antidote” by the press and Money Magazine named Mack “The Best Money TV Host.” 

Before developing WealthTrack, Mack spent over a decade at The Wall Street Journal as the Anchor and Managing Editor of its weekly, syndicated business program, “The Wall Street Journal Report.”  During her tenure it won the Overseas Press Club award, the Gracie award and was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy award for excellence in background and analysis. Mack’s international experience includes being the Anchor and Editor of “The Asian Wall Street Journal Report,” a weekly business program syndicated throughout Asia.

Mack also played a critical role in CNBC’s strategic alliance with Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal. Anchor of a morning show, reporter for a daily “Strategy Session”, she also anchored “Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street” in its final months on both CNBC and PBS. 

She has received several honors including the first Lifetime Achievement Award for Women in Print and Electronic Financial Journalism from the Women’s Economic Roundtable and the Malcolm S. Forbes Public Awareness Award. In 2014 she was given the YMCA of Greater New York’s Dodge Award, a recognition presented to outstanding individuals who epitomize their tradition of humanitarian service.  

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of the Museum of American Finance, the YMCA of Greater New York Board Emeritus, and a former member of the Economic Club of New York and The Women’s Forum.  

It’s absolutely fantastic, the quality of speakers is genuinely world class. It’s very much the Rolls-Royce of the investor conference market.

Paul Scott, Stockopedia

Check out the agenda for VINY 2023