Mr. Morrissey: Firemark is a research, advisory and fund management organization that specializes in the insurance industry. Our clients are primarily insurance companies and other financial services organizations that use part of their investment portfolio to gain some additional competitive intelligence on their industry by making specialized investments through us. We invest in both US and non-US insurance companies and insurance-related issues. There are currently about 200 publicly quoted insurance stocks in the US, and about 400 in the rest of the world outside the US, They are split almost 50/50 market capitalization wise. The 200 plus US insurance stocks account for 700 billion of market value, and the roughly 400 international insurance stocks account for about 600 billion of market value. This constitutes our research universe.
TWST: What do the funds focus on?
Mr. Morrissey: We believe that to maximize investment returns and
provide our clients with additional insights into developments and
trends in their industry, we can't be dogmatic as to style. For
instance, a mutual fund manager or a pension fund investor might
categorize himself as a value investor or a growth investor, and if you
have all 200-odd industry groups available to you, that's fine. But if
you have just one industry to invest in, you have to be flexible and
opportunistic. One has to be alert to companies that might be described
as value investments or companies that might be thought of as growth
companies or ones that are undergoing significant change, such as a new
CEO, an acquisition, a turnaround or an estate matter, litigation, a
cycle turn or a privatization of a former government company. If you're
a one-industry investor you really have to be alert to all these
opportunities.
Tickers included in this excerpt: AFL, AIG, AJG, C, HBG, HRH, MCY, MET, MFC, MMC, PGR, PRU, SAFC, SLF, TAP.A, WSH
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