Mr. Roepers: I started Atlantic Investment in 1988 after seven years working for two industrial diversified conglomerates, Dover Corp. and Thyssen-Bornemisza, where I did corporate development work. I learned a lot about analyzing and valuing companies, but I also learned to dislike the premium one has to pay to buy outright control of a company and the length of time it takes to sell a company that's outright controlled. I decided to set up Atlantic to be in the public markets in order to have the ability to buy into high-quality industrial products and services companies at very attractive valuation multiples, and to avoid paying the associated premiums when you buy outright control. I also wanted the ability to trade and get out of investments in a reasonable period of time.
I started with that concept. I also wanted to concentrate on the highest conviction ideas, so we typically concentrate our investors' capital on five to six core long positions and augment that with five to 10 smaller positions. We also have a short book, but the five to six core positions are really the engine room for our funds. Today we have five funds - long/short U.S. and non-U.S. in developed markets, and long-only U.S., Europe and Japan.
Currently, we have 1.5 billion under management and 27 on the team, of which 13 are highly experienced equity analysts, three are traders providing 24-hour coverage, and the rest is finance, admin and client relations. I have been the Portfolio Manager since inception. Our main office is in New York and we have a research office in Tokyo. The Tokyo office is focused on our Japanese investments, and we have several analysts doing research in India and China, primarily because it's so important to understand what's going on there for a lot of the companies in our portfolio, whether they are European, U.S. or Japanese.
Tickers included in this excerpt: ACS, GR, OI, PCP, SJM, TMO, XRX
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does not make stock recommendations.