Opportunities in Structurally Inefficient Asset Classes: U.S. Small Caps – Balter Liquid Alternatives – 10.18.17

Summary:

Now On Demand.

While there has been clear trend towards passive and away from active management in recent years, we believe active management has the greatest chance of success focusing on inefficient areas of the market. Along with rising dispersion where there is a clear definition of good and bad companies, long/short equity investment strategies allow investors to exploit inefficiencies wherever they may exist, providing the opportunity to profit on both over and underpriced securities. Utilizing this framework to focus on structurally inefficient, capacity constrained asset classes such as U.S. small caps we believe there is an opportunity to generate alpha in varying market environments on both the long and short side.

Speakers:

Ben began his investment career in 1998 and has experience in both mutual fund and hedge fund investing. At Balter Liquid Alternatives (BLA), Ben is responsible for managing the firm’s mutual fund products and is a portfolio manager of each BLA Fund. Ben has experience working for hedge fund allocators as well as directly within a hedge fund, which provides him a differentiated perspective of seeing hedge funds from both sides of the business. Prior to joining Balter Capital Management (BCM) in 2012, Ben was a Managing Director at Sabretooth Capital Management, LLC, a global multi-strategy hedge fund affiliated with Tiger Management. Prior to Ben’s time at Sabretooth he spent 10 years at Federal Street Advisors, a Boston based wealth management firm, leading their alternative investment research. At Federal Street, Ben was the portfolio manager for Federal Street’s Saltbox Partners, LP, an internal long/short equity hedge fund of funds. Prior to Federal Street Ben was an Analyst at Principal Financial Group and NQP Administration Services. He is a graduate of Bentley University with a B.S. and M.S. in Finance. Ben has earned the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst designation.

David began his career in 1988 and has nearly 25 years of experience investing in companies in both the public and private equity markets. David has been an investor in value-oriented small-cap public companies since 2001. David serves as Portfolio Manager for Midwood Capital, which he founded in 2003 and is responsible for all aspects of the firm’s portfolio management and operations. Prior to founding Midwood, David was a Managing Director at Igoe Capital Partners, LLC (ICP), a hybrid public/private equity investment firm, where he co-managed all aspects of the fund with a primary emphasis on identifying investment opportunities and directing the firm’s research activities. Prior to joining ICP, David was a Vice President at GCC Investments, LLC, the private equity investment subsidiary of GC Companies, Inc. from 1997 to 2000. At GCC Investments, David was responsible for identifying, evaluating and executing later-stage growth equity investments and served on the board of directors of several portfolio companies. Prior to GCC, David worked as a Principal at The Parthenon Group, a strategy consulting firm in Boston, as a Summer Associate for McKinsey & Company, and as an Associate at Berkshire Partners, a leading private equity investment firm in Boston whose funds have totaled $16 billion under management. Before joining Berkshire, David worked as a Corporate Analyst in the Mergers & Acquisitions Department at Lehman Brothers. David received his MBA with High Distinction from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College where he was a Tuck Scholar. He holds a BA, summa cum laude, from Yale University and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Portfolio Manager William l. Kitchel III co-founded Millrace Asset Group, Inc. in October 2001 with Co-Portfolio Manager Whitney M. Maroney. Although Mr. Kitchel and Mr. Maroney became professionally acquainted while working in the asset management division at Alex Brown & Sons, they have known each other for over 20 years growing up in Wilmington, Delaware. At Alex Brown, Mr. Maroney began as an assistant analyst in the asset management division in Baltimore, while Mr. Kitchel managed portfolios for HNW investors in Wilmington before becoming one of two analysts on the firm’s Emerging Growth mutual fund. From 1997 until 2001, Mr. Kitchel joined Mr. Maroney as a research analyst/PM at small cap manager, Greenville Capital Management in Wilmington, Delaware, where they worked together for 5 years. The two managed approximately $250 million of the fund’s assets. Prior to Alex Brown and Greenville Capital, Mr. Kitchel was an analyst for Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS) and served as an M&A analyst at Blyth Eastman Paine Webber. Mr. Kitchel earned his B.A. at the University of Virginia and his M.B.A. at Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business.