Mr. Dodge: Fox Asset Management was founded in 1985; it's followed a value-style strategy since that time. We buy securities that are out of favor or otherwise selling at a discount to the market overall. We are a little different in the sense that we aren't myopically focused on one value metric like price-to-earnings ratios. We will look at a number of metrics, including price-to-earnings ratios, price-to-book ratios, price to cash flow, and market value to EBITDA. The key is that we will only consider purchase of securities selling at 20% discount to the market or more. We tend to own securities for three to four years, and our turnover is relatively low.
We are not deep value managers, meaning we don't buy things that are the lowest of all valuations, and we also will occasionally hold securities beyond market multiples to premium valuations of 25% or 30%. I think the key elements of our process are screening and validation with fundamental research. Our fundamental research focus emphasizes cash flow, how it's generated, what it's used for and how management includes the shareholder in the process of cash flow usage, including dividends and share buybacks. Our heavy emphasis on fundamental research is coming to terms with cash flow generation - that's what gives us confidence. Another highlight of our firm is that we emphasize quality in terms of the balance sheet, income statement and management.
We manage about $2 billion in assets overall. There are nine investment professionals involved in research and portfolio management. If you are an investment professional at Fox, you do fundamental research, and that includes me as the President and CIO of the firm. I am also the lead Portfolio Manager on the Viking Fund. All of us are involved in fundamental bottom-up research. We manage value across small stocks, mid-size stocks and large stocks, all-cap value, large-cap value, mid-cap value and small-cap value. Research across the entire capitalization spectrum of the market gives us a unique perspective on competitive issues involving bigger and smaller companies.
We are located on the coast of New Jersey, in Monmouth County, about a 35-minute high-speed ferry ride to New York City. We are in close proximity to Wall Street research and corporate managements that are in the city and available for discussions with our analysts.
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