We are pleased to bring you the 38th edition of Graham & Doddsville. This student-led investment publication of Columbia Business School (CBS) is co-sponsored by the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing and the Columbia Student Investment Management Association (CSIMA). Since our Fall 2019 issue, the Heilbrunn Center hosted the 28th Annual Graham & Doddsville Breakfast in October 2019 and the 5th Annual CSIMA Stock Pitch Competition in November 2019.
We first interviewed Paul B. Kazarian ’81, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Japonica Partners. Mr. Kazarian shared with us his extensive experience, starting as corporate white knight in the 1980s and Fortune 500 CEO in the 1990s, before becoming - with $4bn - one of the largest owner of Greek Sovereign Debt during the Eurozone crisis in the 2010s. He explained why he does not believe in the standard risk/return framework and how Japonica built a 30-year track record of investment displaying high return with low risk, and how the firm finds and addresses systematic misconceptions in the market.
Mr. Kazarian also discussed how treacherous he thinks the sovereign bond market is, and shared invest in sovereigns.
We also sat down with the President of the Heron Foundation, Dana Bezerra, along with recent CBS alumni Preeti Bhattacharji ’14, VP Integrated Markets, and Nisha Prasad ’17, Senior Associate Integrated Markets. They discussed the evolution of impact investing over the past several decades, Heron’s mission to invest 100% of its capital in socially responsible investments, their unique investment process for analyzing socially impactful companies, and what the future holds for impact investing and how this will affect the entire investing landscape.
We continue to bring you stock pitches from current CBS students. In this issue, James Shen ’20 shares his long idea on Nuance Communications (NUAN, Financial), Bruce Kim ’20 presents his short thesis on Peloton Interactive (PTON, Financial), Alvaro Pasquin ’20 presents a long thesis on Rolls-Royce Holdings (LSE:RR., Financial), and Mingming Wu 20, Kyle Campbell ’21 and K.Y. Wong ’20 recommended buying Etsy (ETSY, Financial).
Lastly, you can find more interviews on the Value Investing with Legends podcast, hosted by Professor Tano Santos. Recent guests include Leon Cooperman (Trades, Portfolio), Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio), and Bruce Greenwald.
We thank our interviewees for contributing their time and insights not only to us, but to the whole investing community.
G&Dsville Editors
