Clay Kirkland Reveals His Top Picks as Portfolio Manager at Intrepid Capital

November 13, 2018

Clay Kirkland, CFA, is a Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Intrepid Capital. He is the Lead Portfolio Manager of the Intrepid Disciplined Value Fund and the separately managed Intrepid Disciplined Value portfolio. He is also the Co-Lead Portfolio Manager of the Intrepid Select Fund and the separately managed Intrepid Select portfolio.

Mr. Kirkland focuses on research and valuation of mid- and large-cap equity securities. A CFA charterholder, he earned an MBA from Columbia Business School and received a B.S./B.A. degree, cum laude, in economics from Auburn University.

His top picks are detailed in this exclusive 2,845 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript.

“The Disciplined Value Fund is really an all-cap strategy, but little bit more of a focus, I would say, on midcap names right now. The median market cap for the portfolio is about $9 billion. We have the flexibility to go up as large as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and down to some very small or microcap names.”

The cash portion of their portfolio is a great indicator of their current view on valuations:

“One thing in particular to point out is, we are very valuation-sensitive. As valuations get very elevated or extreme, we will hold more cash. Therefore, in a bull market, late in a cycle, we tend to hold much more cash than the typical fund or our peers. We do this for a few reasons. One being, we don’t want to overpay for a security, and first and foremost, we want to protect capital on the downside. ”

Their in-depth research leads to specific stocks priced below intrinsic value:

“We’re not even assuming that Family Dollar gets close to the margins of Dollar General, which is the best comparison for the banner. Even if they improve to half the margin or if they bridge the gap halfway between current Family Dollar margins and Dollar General margins, you’d see a drastic improvement overall in the financials for the enterprise of Dollar Tree. So right now, as I mentioned earlier, the market is assigning about $2 per share worth of value to the Family Dollar banner, we think it’s worth significantly more.”

Get the complete detail on all these picks and more by reading the entire 2,845 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript.