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from Outstanding Investor Digest's December 31, 1996 edition
MUTUAL SERIES FUNDS'
MICHAEL PRICE ET AL.
(continued from preceding
page)
[Editor's note:
Friedman informs us that
this was his "feeble attempt" at dry, British humor. He's actually their
only London representative - anywhere.]
Friedman:I moved to London in February.
About three years ago, we had just over $500 million invested in
Europe. Today, we have about $4-1/2 billion concentrated
in three or four different nations.
The first thing we do in a new country - shake the trees.
Friedman: ...When you go to a country, you visit the
brokers, visit the companies, [and] shake the trees. First,
you're going to see the big companies - to kind of get a
sense of the lay of the land. You shake the tree a little bit
- and suddenly you find three smaller companies. You
shake that tree a little more and find two other companies.
We're shaking the trees & finding enormous opportunities.
Friedman: Sweden is relatively small population-
wise, but has an inordinately high [stock] market
capitalization because they have huge industries that
they've developed over 100 years.
You go visit someone and say, "Who do you admire?"
And he can literally lean over, point out his window and
say, "You oughta go talk to that guy." So you go talk to
that guy and he gives you three more people.
And that's basically why I'm there.... We're out there
shaking the trees of these different countries and finding
enormous opportunities....
Our U.S investment techniques are working in Europe....
Altman: ...One of the things that we recently did was
to focus on some good bank/bad bank situations in Europe
- in Sweden primarily - where banks were stuck with a
bunch of real estate that was not properly valued on their
books. So they separated into public real estate companies.
We bought both the banks before they separated and
then the real estate companies afterwards. That situation
has worked out very well - with returns somewhere in the
30-40% range within 2-3 months of them separating. So
that's kind of an example of how we've found value and
how we've taken some of our bankruptcy and distressed
real estate investing and used it and extrapolated on it in
Europe and in other areas.
We're finding amazing situations in France.
Friedman: Europe is 350 million people - [which is]
larger than the United States - with margins in their
corporations [that are] maybe half of ours. It is an entire
continent begging to be restructured....
It's going to happen. It is happening. We put money
into France now. And we're finding amazing situations of
undervalued assets there....
WALLENBERGS ARE INCREDIBLY SMART.
AND WE'RE BUYING THEM AT A DISCOUNT.
Incredibly smart (and proven) people at a large discount.
Shareholder:
How are we involved with the Investor
people and the Wallenberg family?
Friedman: There are a number of Swedish holding
companies. They have a zero capital gains tax rate -
Page 12 of 28
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1996-2008 Outstanding Investor Digest, Inc. All rights reserved.
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