I am looking for a list of mid sized Texas hedge funds, in particular I am interested in value oriented funds. Any recommendations would be great!

CF Industries (CF)

Go.

Quick question - what approach would you guys take when looking into company fundamentals for your own personal investing assuming lack of access to Bloomberg / ER reports etc? For the big, diversified & global companies there is an insane amount of information and for the smaller ones it seems like you really need knowledge of management to be able to gain any kind of useful / up-to-date information.

Currently my process involves reading about the company, their most recent annual report, Google searching any relevant news articles and having a look over their financials to see if theres any flags (high debt, poor / volatile earnings, weak cash flow).

Any other tips / insights?

say, this segment of a company is expected to produce -100K cash flow till perpetuity
how do i discount it?
discounting negative value makes no sense eg,
if my cost of capital was 10% i would have a PV of -1M
if my cost of capital was 50% i would have a PV of -0.2M
clearly this does not make sense, if my cost of capital is higher, i would lose more since i need higher return to compensate for my higher cost of capital

New to this side of the forum, but I'm an undergrad junior studying Math & Economics at a west coast target. My GPA is ~ 3.65; I've interned at a middle market investment bank already and studied abroad at the London School of Economics.

My main career goal right now is to be an analyst at a value oriented hedge fund. I'm not very interested in IBD anymore, so I was wondering which AM firms I should look into for this summer that would be good preparation for a future career at a value fund?

I had a sidebar conversation with Betsy Massar and thought I'd repost the gist here for anyone who's interested. Basically I posed the question what is really the value of an MBA in the long run? As someone interested in working in Asia, I was curious as to what they perceive as being a top brand MBA and which schools had stronger networks. her response was:

quick answer: both Columbia business school and Wharton are fine in Asia. Chinese people will tell you Wharton, because they are more by-the-book about prestige. I personally don't think it makes that much of a difference because of your second comment. Which I believe is right on.

I want to eventually, one day, start a hedge fund that is a value fund. However, before that happens, I need to work somewhere where I can build a network and, hopefully, improve my investing skills.

This is why I am posting this question. Out of all the possible possibilities out of college (I say possible because it is not possible to just work for a fund right out of college in all likelihood), what is the best one to improve my knowledge of business, finance, and investing. Is I-Banking really the best thing?

Do traders add value to the economy?

How would you respond to the average person crying "traders just push money around to make more money, they don't add VALUE to the economy" etc.

Hi,

I was hoping to get some help in finding industry multiples for a comps valuation. I'm not in the PE industry, but I'm doing it as a project (and it has to be as real as possible).

Any help would be much appreciated!

T

Value investment shop that's very traditional - what are thoughts on working in an investment role there relative to a PE or hedge fund? Reputation (blue chip among value investors but not much publicity)?

Contrary to what many on this forum appear to recommend, it seems that many of the top hedge fund managers today didn't start their finance careers out of IB.

For example, Bruce Berkowitz started out in PWM, Seth Klarman started out as a research analyst at Mutual Series, Joel Greenblatt as an analyst at a special sit. hedge fund, David Tepper as a credit analyst, Steve Druckenmiller as a research analyst, and many more that I could list.

The only two that I could find who started out in IB are David Einhorn and Bill Ackman. (Not to detract from them, as they are both great managers with excellent track records).

(Granted, most of these managers specialize in a long/short, value approach, but I'm most interested in this space, so these are the managers I'm most familiar with).

What are they?

After closing three strong years of performance (2008 - 2.5%, 2009 - 36.5%, 2010 - 15.6%), Greenstone shares its outlook for 2011, as the year of "dividend chasing." 2010 was certainly a year of "credit chasing," where all funds searched for yield in high yield bonds, leveraged loans, and REITs. About 80% of the Greenstone portfolio is investing in traditional deep value securities, and 20% is invested in "special situations." The last bullet point in Greenstone's themes is that historically, "economies with the highest growth produce the lowest stock returns by an immense margin (yes, you read that right).

I have an interview coming up on monday for a FIG position.

And I got some open questions about valuation:

Obviously it is most appropriate to apply DDM or Equity Comps (such as PE, P/B) for a bank valuation. What is then the enterprise value of a bank? To my understanding the usage of equity oriented approaches is due to the fact that quantifying bank debt is difficult (this is at least what Damodaran says).
If so, applying the EV Formula wouldnt make sense at all.
Any ideas?

hey everyone

I read a wikipedia article regarding the 130/30 strategy which argued that it was more of a long strategy that had some short exposure and therefore could not really be compared to a traditional long/short equity hedge fund. Instead it should be more viewed in line with its long-only peers as a proper comparison. I was not thrilled with the explanation given as to why this is the case especially since they have a fair amount of short exposure. Such that, while they do lean long, I would expect the returns of a 130/30 portfolio to have a significantly smaller correlation to the broader market than a long only fund. Any thoughts?

Thanks

How to value an auto manufacturer? Think F, GM, Toyota.

Very cyclical, DCF might not be the best idea.

EV/EBITDA would standardize for tax differences between international comps, but I feel as if pension obligations should be thrown in there as well (maybe EV/EBITDARPO , D&A, rent, pension obligations?)

any thoughts?

Hey. Well, it seems like the 3 schools that are mentioned as having the best mba programs are harvard, wharton, and stanford. However, wouldn't going to Columbia instead of the aforementioned schools be of greater value to someone interested in starting/working at a value hedge fund? Or do the networking opportunities at the other schools outweigh whatever knowledge may be gained at Columbia, or another program that is known for value investing?

Hi everyone,

Newbie question, but indulge me please.

How does one go about calculating the carrying value/book value of a private equity fund?
Is it based on the expected return of the fund's companies at the exit? Or is it strictly how much money one has put in?

How does leverage play into the carrying value? Do I just subtract all the debt that the companies have incurred from the assets? For example

if a pe fund has

Company A:
Assets : 600m
Debt:400m (post LBO)
Equity: 200m

Company B:
Assets : 200m
Debt : 150m
Equity:50m

What would the carrying value be? Would this information be sufficient? or would I need the IRR, EBITDA, Exit Multiple Etc.?

Thank you!

Hi all,

I came across a few Excel lessons with "levels" at my school.

Now, I understand that Excel is a widely used program across Finance. I'm not too well versed in it (never really needed it), but knowing its importance, would you recommend that I take these Excel courses?

Do they bear weight on a resume? Or am I better off looking for more work experience?

Please advise.

Is is book as good as Warren Buffet claims? Is it getting better with age or has it lost most of its relevance in today's world?

Have people on this site read it?

Just wanted to gauge opinion

J x

What is the view on how competitive Booth graduates are in getting into long/short value funds? Is Kellogg competitive here? Booth clearly is strong in quant based strategies but how well do its graduates place (and how does it compare to Kellogg) into fundamentals based investing?

Many thanks.

I am wondering what the average compensation is for analysts/portfolio managers,etc. in value and special situations hedge funds (no quants). Obviously, an analyst doesn't make as much as a portfolio manager, but I am after what a typical pay progression looks like assuming one is successful. Do the largest hedge funds of these kind (AUM) hire, and do they let individuals with experience manage a decent chunk of money? I guess I am looking for a synopsis of what could be a possible series of job outcomes in this particular sector of the hedge fund market. Right now I am investing my own funds using a valuation methodology, and would really like to pursue this professionally: read SEC reports, give my advice, and eventually manage big bucks or assist in the endeavor. If anyone with relevant experience could comment, that would be great. Also assume that I am at a school in which landing this kind of job is a possibility.

http://bizinformation.org/us/www.wallstreetoasis.com

WSO cracking the million dollar valuation mark!

Check out the YoY unique visitors... damn. Impressive.