Mr. Seminetta: We have been in business for eight years. We manage approximately 400 million; principally in large cap growth equities, although we manage some fixed income as well. Recently, we have been acquiring both new accounts and hiring new employees. There is currently a rare employment opportunity to hire some very experienced individuals that we know, trust and respect. We are benefiting from the downsizing of the large financial institutions.
In terms of our clients we tend to be focused, working with significant families, individuals, ERISA accounts, and foundation and endowments.
TWST: And how would you describe your investment style?
Mr. Seminetta: We invest in high quality growth companies. We have a process that identifies companies with consistent, increasing revenues, bottom line growth, and managements that demonstrate strong execution as measured by high return on equity and low debt to total capitalization. We screen for those characteristics and develop a working universe. We then spend a lot of time doing good old-fashioned primary research. Nearly everyone in our firm is dedicated to research and portfolio management. If you were to spend a day in our office you would find people on conference calls, speaking with trading desks, analysts and competitors and suppliers. This is the hardest part of our process to describe, but it's clearly the most important. The focus is to identify companies that have a niche product or service that makes them a leader in their field. Our companies enjoy either a high barrier to entry and/or they have a significant competitive advantage in terms of new products. Finally, we overlay a technical strategy to ensure the demand for the stock exceeds the supply. We are fundamentally focused, but we think technical analysis has a way of being very objective and we can identify lower risk entry points or potential sell targets.
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