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Krause, D’Souza and Gunderson
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Students in the AIM program were treated to a presentation
by veteran money managers Kurt Gunderson and Trevor D’Souza.
Mr. Gunderson is an Associate Portfolio Manager of the Wells Capital
PMV team. He came to Wells Capital Management from Strong Capital Management
where he was an analyst. Kurt joined Strong in 2001 as director of information
technology in retirement plan services. Prior to this, he was a program manager
with Ameritech. He holds a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University
of California, Los Angeles. He also holds a master’s degree in business
administration–finance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Trevor D’Souza, a
senior portfolio specialist for the PMV Equity team at Wells Capital Management,
also attended Mr. Gunderson’s presentation. He joined WellsCap in 2014 from
Great Lakes Ventures, where he served as managing director. He was responsible
for strategic advisory, consulting, and transaction services to high growth
technology companies as well as portfolio management for investors in private
companies. Earlier in his career, he served as managing director and co-founder
of Mason Wells Venture Capital Funds.
The PMV Equity team has used the same time-tested
decision-making process for more than 20 years. The team believes that a
company is just a stream of future cash flows—a company's worth is determined
by its competitive position and the ability of its management to fully exploit
the business model, resulting in a sustainable cash-flow stream. This is the
company's private market valuation (PMV) philosophy:
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| Kurt Gunderson |
- It
is important to identify trends as potential headwinds or tailwinds to
individual company performance. Specifically, we examine secular,
cyclical, and/or internal trends.
- Due
to the inherent efficiency of the markets, value and growth are not viewed
as opposing strategies but rather are used in combination to uncover
relative mispricing opportunities. Performance is further enhanced by
effectively leveraging market emotion.
- An
inherent lack of fully disclosed information dictates that public market
securities typically trade in a range between 50% and 80% of their
PMV—this discount exists due to the lack of transparency in the public
markets.
Mr. Gunderson discussed the philosophy, strategy, and
process behind their fund and provided valuable valuation and analysis insights
– and he and Trevor engaged the AIM students in investment-related discussions
during and after class.
