Karen L. Cooper

Provides investment management solutions

Osterweis takes a fundamental approach to investing. The firm's investment strategies focus on equity securities, fixed income securities, and various combinations thereof. They search for investments with acceptable downside risk and underappreciated growth potential. Osterweis combines top-down and bottom-up analysis with a search for opportunistic ideas to construct their portfolios.

PFR is a bottom-up value manager with two concentrated portfolios. Unconventional Value employs a discretionary, value equity strategy. 95+ Equity employs the same discretionary, value equity strategy as Unconventional Value, but remains fully invested (cash less than five percent). PFR practices a team approach to investing, assigning two investment professionals to analyze each company. One member is appointed as a 'devil's advocate' to challenge the assumptions and conclusions of the other member. Their research entails gathering industry and company information, visiting companies and meeting with management, talking with customers, competitors and suppliers and discussing key issues with experts in the field. They build computer-based models to calculate the intrinsic value of a company. PFC then compares a detailed discounted cash flow analysis to the price a rational private buyer would pay for a similar business. Intrinsic value is the lower of these two valuations. They then focus on a sensitivity analysis of the key risks inherent in the business to refine their estimate of intrinsic value. If they are unable to completely understand the business fundamentals, they avoid investing in the company. A portfolio manager is responsible for day-to-day administration of each account. Accounts are managed identically, subject to specific client requirements. Although the portfolio manager and client service representative are the primary client contacts, over time PFC introduces each client to all members of the investment staff.

Functions as a College/University