James Pelrin has served as inTEST Corporation’s President and Chief Executive Officer since January of 2018. Prior to his appointment as CEO, Mr. Pelrin was the company’s Chief Operating Officer and director since May of 2017 and Executive Vice President since November 2015. Mr. Pelrin served inTEST for the past 16 years, as Vice President since August 2006 and as General Manager – Thermal Products Segment since November 2004. In addition, Mr. Pelrin has served as President of the company’s subsidiary, Temptronic Corporation, since December 2008. Prior to that, Mr. Pelrin served as the General Manager of Temptronic Corporation since joining inTEST in October 2001. In this exclusive 2,492 word interview, James Perlin describes the growth drivers and the specific business tactics he is using to unlock new markets for inTest:
“…We’re very heavily involved in the semiconductor industry, and IoT in turn is very heavily dependent upon semiconductor products and semiconductor devices. IoT is still very much an emerging market whose potential is only just beginning to be unlocked. It’s really visible everywhere from things that talk to each other, like the voice-controlled assistant Alexa products and compatible devices, to connected smart cars and vehicles, which has been the most visible and familiar example of IoT technology. There’s just a whole host of applications, and it’s only going to get further and further expanded into our daily lives.”
The inTEST Corporation President and CEO is very specific about his development strategy:
“…The linchpin of our strategy for growth is through acquisition. Over the last 20 years, inTEST has made six acquisitions. In fact, last year, those six acquisitions accounted for 81% of our revenue. So we have a proven track record of being able to acquire businesses, assimilate them and to grow.”
Get the full detail on the markets and sectors where inTEST believes its acquisition strategy will create enormous growth potential in the exclusive 2,492 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript.
Mark D. Morelli is President and Chief Executive Office of Columbus McKinnon Corporation. He joined the Columbus McKinnon executive team in February 2017. Mr. Morelli served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Brooks Automation from 2012 to 2016. Previous to his role at Brooks Automation, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Energy Conversion Devices, an alternative energy company. Prior to that, Mr. Morelli was with United Technologies from 1993 to 2007, where he progressed through product management, marketing, strategy and increasing responsibilities of general management. His last assignment was as President of Carrier Commercial Refrigeration. Mr. Morelli began his career as a U.S. Army officer and helicopter pilot, serving as a company commander of an attack helicopter unit.
In this 2,218 word interview, exclusive to the Wall Street Transcript, Mark Morelli details the Columbus McKinnon success story.
“We sell into the construction industry, which has evolved a lot over the last couple of years. New construction markets, whether it would be commercial or related to roads and bridges, have all expanded quite significantly, as companies have been willing to spend more and there have been greater investments in infrastructure. We also sell into the mining industry, which has gone through 10-plus years of being somewhat depressed but has started to improve, buoyed by improved commodity prices. We sell as well into oil and gas, which has been through quite a recovery the last couple of years. This is a market in which we sell much of our explosion-protected products…We sell into the power utilities markets, where the utility infrastructure is expanding and power generation is being refurbished. We sell into the transportation industries, such as aerospace and automotive. Those markets have been fairly robust over the last couple of years. And we also serve the general heavy equipment manufacturing markets, where capex expansion has served that industry quite favorably, and our products are favored there as well…Another key vertical we sell into is the entertainment industry, where our products are used for their high reliability and safety to serve demanding applications, such as hanging speakers, lights and other equipment over a crowd.”
Get the complete detail on the prospects for this interesting industrial company in the 2,218 word interview at the Transcript.
Tracy D. Pagliara is President and CEO of Williams Industrial Services Group Inc. Mr. Pagliara joined Global Power in April 2010 as General Counsel, Secretary and Vice President of Business Development and progressively advanced to his most recent position of President and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Pagliara was with Gardner Denver, Inc., for eight years, where he served as Chief Legal Officer and Secretary and also assumed additional leadership responsibility for the compliance, human resources, environmental, health and safety, and insurance functions. In this exclusive 2,336 word interview with the Wall Street Transcript, Tracy Pagliara describes how he managed the turnaround:
“With the disposition of Koontz-Wagner, our last noncore business in July, we completed a two-year period in which the company divested several other noncore assets, including TOG, Hetsco, Braden and CFI, and our U.S. and foreign owned real estate. This initiative raised more than $80 million to fund our business and pay down debt. We are now a much leaner company…”
The last 2 years have been transformative for Williams:
“Beginning in 2016, we began to divest all of our businesses other than Williams. We were trying to sell Koontz-Wagner, and that business unfortunately had a very bad year in 2017. After nine months on the market, we were not able to sell that business and did not have financing to turn it around. Therefore, our only realistic choice was to put it into bankruptcy in July…As a result, we’ve now divested all former Global Power operating businesses other than Williams and renamed the parent company from Global Power Equipment Group Inc. to Williams Industrial Services Group Inc. Our business is all Williams at this point. To reiterate, we are closing our corporate headquarters in Dallas and will reduce the number of corporate employees from 36 to approximately five to 10. In fact, I’ve already moved to Tucker, Georgia. My office is now there.”
Get the complete detail on this remarkable business story in the Wall Street Transcript with this 2,336 word interview with Tacy Pagliara.
Bradley H. Feldmann has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Cubic Corporation since July 2014. Overseeing the operations of Cubic’s three business divisions, Cubic Transportation Systems, Cubic Global Defense and Cubic Mission Solutions, Mr. Feldmann implements management and operation processes as well as overall strategic vision for the corporation. He was appointed to the board of directors in May 2014 and was elected as Chairman of the board in February 2018. As President and CEO, Mr. Feldmann has led several innovation initiatives, such as the implementation of IdeaSpark — an innovation social ecosystem enabling Cubic employees to solicit and share ideas across the organization. These ideas include the development of new products, improvements to current products or developing solutions to address customer needs. Under Mr. Feldmann’s leadership, Cubic took important steps to transform the company’s global IT infrastructure into a scalable, efficient and effective system through the rollout of the Global Enterprise Management — GEM — initiative. Prior to assuming his role as President and CEO, Mr. Feldmann served as the President and Chief Operating Officer as well as the President of the holding companies comprising the Cubic Defense Systems. Mr. Feldmann is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Institute and holds a Master of Business Administration with honors from San Diego State University. He is also a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and a top graduate of the USAF Squadron Officer School.
In his 3,156 word interview with the Wall Street Transcript, Bradley Feldmann details the near term growth initiatives that will drive his company to the next level. Overall, the President and CEO of Cubic Corporation sees a very positive near term economy as a benefit: “…We are doing work in some 40 countries today. We’ve been training fighter pilots in the United States and its allies since the 1970s. Our transport business is in many major metropolitan cities. In fact, it’s quite exciting in the United Kingdom, North America and Australia. We actually touch 70% of all the people who use mass transit. We have a very strong international business. In fact, about half of our revenue comes from outside the United States.”
To get the complete detail on these exciting developments at Cubic Corporation, read the entire 3,156 word interview with Bradley H. Feldmann, President and Chief Executive Officer, in the Wall Street Transcript.
Stuart Paynter is Chief Financial Officer of Oxford BioMedica plc. Mr. Paynter joined Oxford BioMedica and the board in August 2017. He has 16 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical and health care sectors. He qualified as a chartered accountant with Haines Watts before moving to EDS. He subsequently joined Steris and worked in a variety of roles within the health care and life sciences divisions, prior to becoming the European Finance Director. He then moved to Shire pharmaceuticals where he became the senior director of finance business partnering for all business outside of the U.S. He then moved to a corporate finance role before becoming the global head of internal audit. Prior to joining Oxford BioMedica, he was head of finance business partnering at De La Rue plc. In this exclusive 3,519 word interview with the Wall Street Transcript, he describes the high growth strategy of Oxford BioMedica, a leader in the new gene therapy platform sector.
“Oxford BioMedica is one of the world’s leading gene and cell therapy companies that has a lentivirus-based platform. In the world of gene and cell therapy, there really are two vector approaches: the AAV — adeno-associated virus — approach and the lenti family-based approach that includes both lentivectors and gamma-retro vectors. We deal exclusively on the lenti side. This focus enabled us to partner with companies like Novartis, our lead partner on the launched product in the U.S. called Kymriah, which is an ex vivo therapy…We take a dual approach for use of the lentivector platform. We license it out to our partners, and we also have a product development team in-house.”
The company has a complete lock on this important gene therapy system:
“In terms of our uniqueness, we have safety patents on the lentivector platform out to 2023 and some manufacturing patents that go out to the end of the 2020s and into the 2030s. At the moment, we are the only launched lentivecto…We also have very significant know-how in terms of how to make lenti without destroying most of it. It is a complex process. We have gone the furthest along in characterizing it. Like I say, we are the only commercially and FDA-approved manufacturer of lenti in the world, so we have a proven solution.”
Read the complete 3,519 word interview with Stuart Paynter, Chief Financial Officer of Oxford BioMedica in the Wall Street Transcript to get the full picture of this exciting high growth company.
Matthew Watson is Assistant Vice President at James Investment Research, Inc. He graduated from Wright State University in 2007 and 2008, where he received degrees in accounting and finance and received his Master of Accountancy degree, respectively. He has also earned Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Public Accountant designations. In this exclusive 2,959 word interview with the Wall Street Transcript, Matthew Watson details his firm’s investment philosophy and top picks.
“We were founded in 1972 by Dr. Frank James, who is still the Chairman of James Investment Research. Dr. James was the pioneer of relative strength, or what we commonly know as momentum today. This is something that we still use in our stock selection methodology today. In the beginning, he started managing money for friends and family, and over time, we’ve grown into a firm that manages approximately $4 billion in assets… it starts with preservation of capital as the key to long-term wealth creation. The way that the math works out, if you don’t have large drawdowns in your portfolio, it’s easier to catch up in market recoveries. From there, we do have a top-down macro approach to the economy.”
One of their most interesting picks is an out-of-favor car manufacturer:
“One of the stocks that we think could do well in the future and could actually benefit from some of the negative sentiment that has come out recently is actually General Motors (NYSE:GM). It’s very cheap today, selling for a p/e of around 6, has a very high shareholder yield, meaning dividends and buybacks today are somewhere approximately around 10%. Their sales are mostly in North America. So they’re not hurt as bad by a rising U.S. dollar…”
To get all the top picks and the deliberate investment analysis that leads to them, read the entire 2,959 word interview with Matthew Watson of James Investment Research in the Wall Street Transcript.
McGavock Dunbar, CFA, is Principal, Equity Analyst at Vulcan Value Partners. Mr. Dunbar joined Vulcan Value Partners in 2010. Prior to joining Vulcan Value Partners, he interned at New Capital Partners, a private equity firm headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, while working toward his MBA at the Darden School at the University of Virginia. Before attending graduate school, Mr. Dunbar worked as an Associate in the investment banking department at Susquehanna International Group. In his time there, he trained as an Assistant Trader in Susquehanna International Group’s options market making program, then moved on to help build and launch the investment banking department. After the launch, he executed public equity offerings and merger and acquisition transactions for companies in a number of different industries including alternative energy, health care, business services, and Asian technology and consumer sectors.
In his exclusive 2,562 word interview with the Wall Street Transcript, McGavock Dunbar details his firm’s investment philosophy and top picks.
“We continue to be a privately held, majority employee-owned business. We still operate five strategies with the same basic investment philosophy. The strategies are large cap, small cap and all cap, which are more diversified strategies with 20 to 40 positions. Lastly, we have two concentrated strategies: Focus and Focus Plus, which hold between seven and 14 positions…In every strategy, we have the same investment philosophy of investing in really high-quality businesses when they’re trading at a discount to fair value.”
McGavock Dunbar is not shy about exiting from portfolio positions once they have become fully valued:
“For the most part, we have been trimming positions that are close to fair value. There is nothing wrong with the businesses; we are just recycling capital in the way that I described before. So companies like InterContinental Hotels (NYSE:IHG), SS&C Technologies (NASDAQ:SSNC), CBRE (NYSE:CBRE), O’Reilly (NASDAQ:ORLY) and Sabre (NASDAQ:SABR) are all companies that we’ve exited among large caps. But we will continue to follow these businesses.”
To see the most recent buy list from Vulcan Value Partners, read the entire 2,562 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript.
Joseph W. Garner is Director of Research and a member of the Small Cap Growth Portfolio Management team at Emerald Advisers LLC, and he is also a Portfolio Manager of the Emerald Growth Fund. Mr. Garner’s research is focused on small and midsize firms in the business services, capital goods, consumer, financial services and technology sectors. In 1997, he was named as a “Home-Run Hitter” byInstitutional Investor magazine.
Stacey L. Sears is Senior Vice President and a member of the Small Cap Portfolio Management team since 2002 at Emerald Advisers LLC. Ms. Sears has been employed by Emerald since 1992 and maintains research coverage of the retail, apparel, consumer goods and consumer technology companies and is primarily responsible for Emerald’s portfolio-management-related client communications.
These two award winning portfolio managers discuss their top picks in this 5,132 word exclusive interview in the Wall Street Transcript.
Stacey Sears describes the firm’s investment focus this way: “The firm was founded in 1991 under the basic premise that earnings growth drives stock prices and that the best way to assess revenue and earnings opportunities is by being out in the field and meeting with management, and understand the market by meeting with customers, competitors, suppliers and vendors. That’s really the cornerstone of our research process. So we are truly fundamental bottom-up.”
One of Joseph Garner’s top picks is an example of this in-depth analysis: “…in late 2016, an individual by the name of Billy Cyr became the CEO of Freshpet (NASDAQ:FRPT), coming to them from Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), where for several years he led their juices division, Sunny Delight to be specific…Over 70% of the individuals who bought it once would buy it again, which is very high by industry standards, yet the household awareness and penetration levels were very low, particularly compared to its peers in the pet food industry…So the strategy was, we’ve got a great product, we’ve got the distribution channel, we’ve got the manufacturing capacity in place, we need to make more people aware of this product. So they increased their media spend by over 60% in 2017, have done it again in 2018 and have seen a significant lift in the retail sales of the product…”
To get more top picks from this award winning portfolio management team, read the entire 5,132 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript.
Michelle Stevens, CFA, is Senior Portfolio Manager and Managing Director at Baird Equity Asset Management. Ms. Stevens has 22 years of investment industry experience, having managed mutual funds, subadvised funds and institutional separate accounts in the small, small/mid — smid — and all-cap value equity disciplines. In this exclusive 3,358 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript, Michelle Stevens details her investing philosophy and current top picks for investors.
“Our process, just to go a little bit further, is to identify good companies mispriced by the market. We like businesses that have high returns on equity and a solid earnings growth profile. We believe that companies with high returns through the market cycle indicate that they have some sort of competitive advantage or high barriers to entry. So we like those types of businesses, but we’re very true to our value discipline. In that regard, we’re not willing to pay a premium for those businesses based upon their growth rates. So to do that, we’re always seeking companies where we believe there is what we call a predictable surprise — that is, a catalyst for earnings surprise — and then ultimately p/e multiple expansion.”
Ms. Stevens goes into detail on several of her current top portfolio picks:
“Just to give you an example, one of the names in the portfolio is a company called Cypress Semiconductor (NASDAQ:CY). This is a business that’s really been transformed over the last three years. They completed three large transactions that changed the business from more commodity-related semiconductor chips to a focus on much higher growth areas of the market with better margins. They’re now number one in a lot of auto categories where we’re seeing double-digit growth…They’re also number one in things related to the connected car, like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and touch screen.”
Read the entire 3,358 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript to get the full detail and more top picks from Michelle Stevens of Baird Equity Asset Management.
Art Amador, CFP, is the COO and Co-Founder of EquBot. Mr. Amador brings more than a decade of experience in the investment management industry. Most recently, he spent eight years serving as a vice president at Fidelity Investments, where he was responsible for over $1.3 billion in assets. In 2012, Mr. Amador was recognized as Fidelity’s number-one consultant in the U.S. In this exclusive 3,157 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript, Art Amador describes in detail the development and deployment of a radical new investment innovation.
“In both of the ETFs that we are part of, the AI system typically makes recommendations to buy and sell on a daily basis. Passively managed funds by design can be quite rigid, as they are predominantly rules-based and rebalance on a rigid schedule. Our actively managed approach provides us with more flexibility as the investment data environments and system capabilities continue to grow and shift.”
The technology enables the common investor to participate in high level financial engineering:
“The high-level concept is that the EquBot AI technology mimics the investment process of an army of equity research analysts, traders and portfolio managers who are working around the clock. The system utilizes publicly available financial data, such as 10-Ks and 10-Qs, and current market data to build predictive models on over 15,000 global companies. The system also analyzes over 1 million regulatory filings, quarterly releases and news articles as well as social media postings every day. It looks at company management teams, market sentiments and analyzes global market event impact on our investment universe…The system looks at a variety of trading indicators and what is affecting security prices and when these securities should be traded. In the background, the system is actually running thousands of hypothetical portfolios and testing both the decisions that the system is making and the decisions that the system did not make. We want to ensure that the investment strategy is better tomorrow than it is today.”
Read the detail on this fascinating development in equity investing in the full 3,157 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript.
