Malcolm Polley of Stewart Capital Advisors Finds Deep Value Winners for His Investors

December 5, 2017

Malcolm E. Polley is the President and Chief Investment Officer at Stewart Capital Advisors, LLC. He oversees the investment process and provides the philosophical underpinning for the firm’s research and asset management. Earlier, he has worked at S&T Wealth Management, Marquette Trust Company, Marquette Advisory Services and West Bank. He received a BBA in finance from Iowa State University and is a member and past President of the CFA Society of Pittsburgh.  In this exclusive interview with the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Polley gives detailed rationales for some of his top portfolio picks.

“We call ourselves business-perspective investors. What that means is that we really take the perspective of business owners, as that is what you are when you own a stock. You are a fractional owner in the business, and so we want to understand how the businesses generate cash, how that cash grows and the capital returns associated with that, and then, we discount that back to present, and we don’t like to pay full price.”

One of Mr. Polley’s picks is FMC:  “…there’s another company that we find very interesting. It’s FMC Corporation (NYSE:FMC). They are also going through a bit of restructuring, which is a positive. They are splitting into two pure plays. One will be an ag chemicals business; the other will be a lithium business, which will really give investors an opportunity, and we believe the only pure play lithium company in the marketplace. So it will give investors an opportunity to invest in a really exciting space. ”

An seeming arbitrage situation also is one of the picks for Mr. Polley in this interview:  “…a name that people might not be aware of, or you maybe because they’ve since sold their operating business, is a company now called Altaba (NASDAQ:AABA). Altaba used to be Yahoo. When Yahoo sold their operating business to Verizon (NYSE:VZ), it became a registered investment company, or a RIC, and so like most RICs, the company should trade, its stock price should trade relatively close to its net asset value. Well, it doesn’t, and Altaba is nice enough to list their net asset value on a daily basis on their website.”

To get all of Malcolm Polley’s picks, read the entire interview at the Wall Street Transcript.