This week, we speak with Ricky Sandler, the chief investment officer and the founder of Eminence Capital. Today, Eminence is a $7B global investment management organization. Sandler came to prominence as a savvy long/short investor and Eminence continues to successfully run several different Long/Short portfolios. Prior to launching Eminence, Ricky was co-founder and co-general partner of Fusion Capital Management, LLC. He currently advises the University of Wisconsin Foundation and is a member of its development committee, investment committee, and traditional asset subcommittee. Ricky Sandler is also a Chartered Financial Analyst and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts.
Sandler has successfully shorted many of the favorite meme stocks, from Gamestop to AMC. The run-up during the pandemic boomlet led the firm to create a variety of hedges that limited short losses during squeezes but allowed them to capture gains when the reddit stock bubble burst. He complemented Chewy founder Ryan Cohen for re-capitalizing the firm when the stock rose, but believes the underlying business model is out of date and broken.
We discuss how the market structure has changed — his analysis differs from his friend David Einhorn in that Sandler points to the behavior of the active side. In addition to a lot of closet indexing, the way active managers do fundamental research has changed a great deal — more quantitative, thematic, and trend as opposed to classic Graham & Dodd research.
A list of his favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here on Tuesday.
You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Heather Brilliant, CEO since 2019 of publicly traded Diamond Hill (DHIL). The firm manages $26B in client assets via a bottoms-up stock selection. Previously, she was CEO at First State Investments.
Favorite Books
