Columbia Business School is out with the Spring 2014 issue of its Graham & Doddsville newsletter. In it, they interview Philippe Jabre of Jabre Capital as well as Arnold Van Den Berg and Jim Brilliant of Century Management. It also profiles H. Kevin Byun of Denali Investors and Eric Rosenfeld of Crescendo Partners.
Additionally, pitches from the Pershing Square Challenge are presented. MBA students presented longs of Allegion (ALLE), Carnival (CCL), Clean Harbors (CLH), Naspers (JSE:NPN) and a short of Cablevision (CVC).
The full issue is below, but here's some select quotes from Jabre's interview:
Jabre talks about starting his own firm and notes that,
"Before you start a hedge fund you have to follow the right steps. I always tell people it's the same as if you are a doctor, architect, or lawyer opening a practice. I first joined a bank, then after ten years I joined Lehman Brothers. Then, with a group of four partners, we spun off from Lehman Brothers and created GLG. And then after that, I created my own fund. You follow the steps so people will follow you. I remember after business school I wanted to create my own fund at age 25. My father told me if you want to lose money, go lose money at other people's expense. You can't become a fund manager unless you’ve lost a lot of money and survived. So JabCap was a normal evolution when I started it seven years ago. A lot of clients followed because I had a very good track record at my prior funds over the previous fifteen years and that made it easier. But you need a track record and you need to have clients. The barriers to entry are very high today and what people look for is a track record and the experience of managing money unsupervised. And that's a very difficult concept that you learn with time."
Jabre on opportunities: "So the key thing is to find things that have done nothing for ages and suddenly there is an event that you need to be the first to understand or appreciate. And this is where you have a huge opportunity to outperform."
Embedded below is the Spring 2014 issue of CBS' Graham & Doddsville newsletter:
For more from Columbia Business School, be sure to check out their interview with Maverick Capital's Lee Ainslie in a previous issue as well as their interview with Li Lu.