Mr. Alexander: Gilford Securities has a number of industry-specific analysts, but in my almost 14 years here, I have been what's known as a Special Situations Analyst, which means that I can cover any company in any industry as long as I feel I've identified a unique investment opportunity. Over the course of the last decade, I've developed a specialty in the golf club equipment industry alongside of being a Special Situations Analyst. So in effect, I'm basically a rifle shooter, not a shotgun shooter, in that I'm looking for very specialized ideas that I think present unique investment opportunities.
TWST: Let's start with the golf space. Why the golf space? What was the intrigue?
Mr. Alexander: I have been a top amateur golfer and a tournament golfer since I was teenager. What happened was back in 1996, I picked up a company using my screening techniques. That was a company named Aldila, which was one of the leading graphite shaft manufacturers. And I thought this might be interesting to cover because it had very little coverage and it had a lot of insider buying, which is one of my primary screens. So I picked up Aldila with a buy rating at $4 a share, and over the course of the next year or so, it moved up to $8 a share. If I had downgraded Aldila at that time, all would have been well and good. Instead I thought Aldila was going to go to $12 a share, and instead it went to $1. Because Aldila serviced all of the original equipment manufacturers in the golf business, it seemed that I was going to have to learn what all of Aldila's customers did if I was ever going to work my way out of this position in Aldila after it had fallen to $1 a share. So I became somewhat of an expert in the golf club original equipment manufacturers, and then the media found me and started asking me questions about it. And it turned out to be expedient for me to continue to cover this group because it was very good for Gilford Securities' profile on Wall Street.
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