Let me introduce our research team. On the dais to my left is Rick Cunniff who, most of you know, is the co-founder of our firm. On my right is Greg Alexander and to Greg's right is Joe Quinones, who runs the operations of our firm as well as those of Sequoia. To my left are David Poppe, president of our firm and co-manager of Sequoia, Jon Brandt, and Greg Steinmetz.
Finally I'd like to introduce the rest of our team who are seated in the front of the room. In alphabetical order, they are Girish Bhakoo, John Harris, Jake Hennemuth, Arman Kline, Trevor Magyar, Will Pan, Terence Paré, Rory Priday, Chase Sheridan, and Stephan van der Mersch. I'd also like to introduce Jon Gross who is our director of client services. In the front row are the directors of Sequoia: Roger Lowenstein, Bill Neuhauser, Sharon Osberg, and Bob Swiggett.
We're going to follow the same format that we have in the last few years, which means that we're going to respond to your questions from now until 12:30. We have to vacate the room by one o'clock but we'll be around between 12:30 and 1:00 to meet you and respond to any questions that you might still have for us. With that we're ready for the first question.
Question: Can you present a case study on Valeant and how you discovered it and the key insights that you gained?
Rory Priday: Valeant is a specialty pharmaceutical company. If you want to do a case study on the way we found the company — we went through a lot of financial releases, news online, and blogs — we look anywhere we can find an idea. We came across a fund manager whom we knew and that person had talked about an extraordinary manager at Valeant Pharmaceuticals.
We don't buy everything that we see, obviously, but we went through the company's SEC filings and conference calls and we saw that the CEO, Mike Pearson, appeared to be pretty extraordinary. Fortunately, we were able to meet him about a week after we came across the company. What attracted us to him was that he was taking a different approach to the pharmaceutical industry.
For entire lengthy transcript: http://www.sequoiafund.com/Reports/Transcript11.pdf
Finally I'd like to introduce the rest of our team who are seated in the front of the room. In alphabetical order, they are Girish Bhakoo, John Harris, Jake Hennemuth, Arman Kline, Trevor Magyar, Will Pan, Terence Paré, Rory Priday, Chase Sheridan, and Stephan van der Mersch. I'd also like to introduce Jon Gross who is our director of client services. In the front row are the directors of Sequoia: Roger Lowenstein, Bill Neuhauser, Sharon Osberg, and Bob Swiggett.
We're going to follow the same format that we have in the last few years, which means that we're going to respond to your questions from now until 12:30. We have to vacate the room by one o'clock but we'll be around between 12:30 and 1:00 to meet you and respond to any questions that you might still have for us. With that we're ready for the first question.
Question: Can you present a case study on Valeant and how you discovered it and the key insights that you gained?
Rory Priday: Valeant is a specialty pharmaceutical company. If you want to do a case study on the way we found the company — we went through a lot of financial releases, news online, and blogs — we look anywhere we can find an idea. We came across a fund manager whom we knew and that person had talked about an extraordinary manager at Valeant Pharmaceuticals.
We don't buy everything that we see, obviously, but we went through the company's SEC filings and conference calls and we saw that the CEO, Mike Pearson, appeared to be pretty extraordinary. Fortunately, we were able to meet him about a week after we came across the company. What attracted us to him was that he was taking a different approach to the pharmaceutical industry.
For entire lengthy transcript: http://www.sequoiafund.com/Reports/Transcript11.pdf
