ValueAct’s New CEO Mason Morfit Shows Hedge Fund Succession Can Work

当Mason Morfit于2000年在对冲基金公司估值的第一个投资分析师发现时，发布后不久，那时24岁的孩子们缺乏商业学院的缺乏。“该公司在管理层下没有资产，因此它是一个很好的合适，”他于2019年6月24日争取在斯坦福董事学院演讲。

的确是。

Morfit has been with the firm ever since — and now fully heads up ValueAct after founder Jeff Ubben retired last June. It is shaping up to be a successful transition from the founder, a rarity in the hedge fund world.

ValueAct currently manages more than $13 billion in assets after posting a 12.5 percent gain in 2020. This is despite dropping more than 25 percent in the first quarter amid the market’s pandemic-induced sell off, according to several firm documents obtained by亚博赞助欧冠.

根据投资者，今年该基金今年上午增长了14％以上。

Last year’s performance turnaround came amid a major transition period for ValueAct, marked by a flurry of organizational and structural changes that were set in motion at the end of 2019.

莫尔特被晋升为首席执行官和布兰登布泽向总统晋升，而Ubben在几个月后完全留下了坚定的公司之前向主席转向主席。

The changes “set us up to be much more decisive,” the firm said in its fourth quarter letter, which detailed other executive and administrative changes that were designed to create “much clearer lines of responsibility for the firm’s management committee.”

Ubben had been the public face of ValueAct since its inception in 2000. One of the earliest activist hedge funds, the firm ultimately became one of the most successful, at one point managing as much as $20 billion.

沿途，威廉省的团队举办了50多名公共公司董事会席位，并在包括微软，Adobe，21世纪福克斯，CBRE集团，奥林巴斯和摩托罗拉解决方案等公司的转型中发挥了重要作用。

去年的领导转型在议案中被设定为2007年，当时加入管理委员会时，被禁止成为Ubben的官方继任者。他于2013年被任命为总统，并于2017年推动到首席投资官员和威廉克特硕士基金的投资总监。

拥有该公司16年的Boze加入了2018年的管理委员会。

[IIDeep Dive:ValueAct’s Founder Steps Down From CEO Role]

在去年第一季度超过25％的估价率下降超过25％后，莫斯特和他的团队忙碌着。

The firm told investors in the fourth quarter letter that it bought about $2 billion in stocks and sold about $2 billion.

最重要的是，它在劳斯莱斯汇集了它的股权，它开始销售2019年，当贵族的首席运营官Brad Singer离开了汽车制造商董事会时，它开始销售。

该公司使用该公司在两家日本公司建立核心职位 - 任天堂和JSR公司 - 并持有其其余核心职位。“决定持有的是作为购买或出售的决定，必须与类似的严谨相似，”该公司在这封信中表示。

The two Japanese purchases were a continuation of an internal plan to expand ValueAct’s presence in Asia — and specifically Japan. It’s a plan that started in 2018 when the firm took a position in Japan’s Olympus, which Morfit called a “test case” for the Japanese strategy.

Olympus subsequently added ValueAct partner Rob Hale to its board — marking the first time an investment manager has served on a board at a Nikkei 225 company — and got out of its well-known camera business to instead focus on making medical devices.

根据第四季度信，威廉省的日本职位现在超过资本的20％。

As the hedge fund’s investment leader, Morfit preaches what he calls engagement and “transformational activism,” based on the idea that when positive transformation happens at a company, investors will benefit from both a change in fundamentals and a change in perception, which is tied to valuation.

This approach contrasts with the more transactional model embraced by many activists.

“If transactional ideas can be imagined outside-in, transformational ideas can only be done from the inside, with deep engagement and only if you’ve built trusting relationships,” Morfit told the Stanford audience in 2019. “Relationships where you learn and teach — I think we are one of the few that can do this.”

About ten years ago, Morfit and the rest of the team built what they call the ValueAct toolkit, a creation that he liberally references in letters, speeches, and discussions with investors. It’s what Morfit believes separates ValueAct from other firms that observers call activists.

该工具包是一项明确的和系统的解决方案，标准和批判性的核查表，用于与对冲基金与其举办董事会席位的50多家公司的经验。该工具源于估值的经验与微软首席执行官连续或摩托罗拉解决方案的预算过程中的东西。

非规定框架包括九个工具，用于解决补偿设计管理的问题;财务规划与分析;战略和并购;税务和企业结构;资本配置和资本结构;环境，社会和治理因素;管理选择;危机管理;和投资者关系。并非所有的工具都是适用于每个公司的。

“我们通过书面形式收集了所有这些学习并记录了他们，”莫瑞特在他的2019年讲话中解释道。“我们将它们从我们所有的投资组合公司中爆发并使它们随着时间的推移而变得更好。我们总是在学习。事实上，我偷了一条来自[Microsoft CEO] Satya Nadella那是“学习 - 它 - 所有人总是胜过知识 - 全部。”

如今，据投资者介绍，威廉省的130亿美元的投资组合是分为三种不同的类别：未被发现的增长平台，资产价值和经营公司和转变。

Undiscovered growth platforms are described by the hedge fund firm as investments where returns come from unlocking hidden growth. Portfolio examples include KKR & Co., Seagate Technology, CBRE, JSR, Flutter, and Nintendo.

据说来自资产价值和运营公司的退货来自闭合私人和公共市场价值之间的差距。金融巨头花旗，摩根士丹利，萨利·湄群岛是鼎盛的例子。

Meanwhile, returns from turnarounds come from boosting profit margins and/or simplifying the business, according to the presentation. Examples of these investments include LKQ Corp., Olympus, and Bausch Health.

Currently, ValueAct is actively working with Citigroup. The bank had announced last fall that Jane Fraser would take over as chief executive officer on March 1.

Last month, when Fraser announced plans to form a new global operating team to build accountability among Citi’s top leaders, she cited holding business leaders accountable was a key element of the company’s “transformation work,” according to Reuters — coincidentally or not using one of Morfit’s favorite words.

“This year we demonstrated that our investment model works, in Japan, repeatedly, and at scale,” ValueAct said in its fourth quarter letter. “Issues of strategy, financial planning, compensation, talent, investor relations, and ESG are universal.”