Ms. Barsketis: Fiduciary Management Associates, LLC (FMA) is a 100% employee-owned company based in Chicago. FMA was formed in 1980 and sold to United Asset Management in 1986, which was subsequently sold to Old Mutual in 2000. In December 2002, the employees of FMA bought the firm back, led by Robert (Tad) Carr and Kathryn Vorisek. In 2005, the firm is celebrating its 25th year in the business and has 1.2 billion under management. FMA has four products: small cap value, large cap value, large cap core and core fixed income. FMA also manages the FMA Small Company Portfolio, a small cap mutual fund. The lion's share of the firm's clients are institutional, with the bulk of our assets invested in our equity value products. In characterizing our equity value product offerings, our approach is oriented toward a relative value focus.
TWST: How do you define 'relative value' at this time?
Ms. Barsketis: As you know, most people like to bunch investment styles
into two very broad categories ' growth and value. Within each, there
are various subcategories ' deep value, momentum growth, etc. We
consider ourselves to be relative value style managers in that we look
for attractive relative valuations along with strong relative earnings
growth. We begin by looking at the market environment. From there we
concentrate on individual companies and sectors. Thus we are looking for
attractive relative valuations within the sectors and industries. What
we then do is try to find catalysts for change that would, in our
opinion, based on our investment research, produce a positive change in
earnings growth expectations. A catalyst for change could be a
management change, a new product development or a restructuring. The
next step is traditional investment research or, as we like to say,
'kicking the tires.' We have a group of eight very seasoned investment
research professionals that spends a lot of time analyzing information
from various sources. Our research can involve quantitative modeling and
screening, talking to company management, visiting with them, and
testing products. In addition, we use several analytical tools as well
as outside research from Wall Street. All of our research professionals
have strong academic and professional backgrounds. At the same time, we
are looking at macro issues ' the dollar, the economy, and interest
rates. Over the past several months, we have been paying a great deal of
attention to the energy markets. We are focused on what impact higher
energy costs to both consumers and businesses will have on our portfolio
holdings. As such, we incorporate both a top-down and bottom-up
investment approach in constructing our portfolios. Given the depth and
the experience of our research staff, we are all able to add value with
strong opinions on macro issues like the economy or interest rates. At
the same time, our analysts concentrate on particular investment sectors
and become experts on companies within their respective sectors.
Tickers included in this excerpt: ALL, FMA, GS, I, MCD, MER, MOT, ORCL, PFE, SEBL, STA, T, TXU, TYC
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