Fairpointe Capital LLC

Fairpointe Capital LLC is an investment management company based out of Chicago. The company was founded in 2011 and is currently headed by co-CEOs Thyra Emmy Zerhusen and Mary L. Pierson, both of whom were with the company from its inception. The company is owned in a controlling majority by Thyra Emmy, who currently acts as both the company’s CEO and CIO, with the remaining ownership split amongst Robert Samuel Burnstine, Marie Louise Lorden, Mary Louise Pierson, and other key executives, in order of decreasing ownership. Fairpointe Capital conducts its research internally, utilizing a fundamental analysis and a bottom up investment approach to make its investment decisions. The company invests in a variety of public equity and fixed income markets on a global scale, focusing on companies that have a market capitalization of over $1 billion. Fairpointe Capital invests most heavily in the information technology sector, which alone makes up over a quarter of its total asset allocations, and the firm also invests in the consumer discretionary, industrials, materials, finance, health care, and energy sectors, among others to a lesser degree, in order of decreasing allocation. Fairpointe Capital currently has 15 employees with six of them being investment professionals. The company holds over $7.7 billion in total assets under management spread across 103 accounts with all of the accounts being discretionary accounts except for two. Although its total number of accounts has decreased significantly from over 350 accounts four years ago, its total assets under management has increased significantly since its inception, growing from just over $4 billion at its inception to almost twice that amount today. Fairpointe Capital caters mainly to high net worth individuals, which alone makes up over half of its client base, and also provides to investment companies, pension and profit sharing plans, charities, pooled investment vehicles, and others, in order of decreasing clientele. The company currently provides its Mid Cap Core and Focused Equity strategies and acts as a subadvisor to the Aston/Fairpointe Mid Cap Fund and the Parvest Equity USA Mid Cap Fund.