Scott Storkamp – Senior Portfolio Manager, joined Morgens, Waterfall, Vintiadis & Company, Inc. in June of 2007 covering consumer, media, semiconductors, and software. Previously, he was Vice President-Investments at UBS Private Wealth Management. He also managed individual portfolios for eight years at Merrill Lynch Private Client. He graduated from West Point as a distinguished Cadet (top 5%) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and received a Masters in Business Administration, with honors, from the Columbia Business School.
The Firm – Morgens, Waterfall, Vintiadis & Company, Inc. (“MWV” or the “Firm”) was founded in the 1960s by Ned Morgens and Bruce Waterfall. The Firm is one of the oldest hedge fund management companies still in existence. Over the past five years, the Firm has been transitioning to the next generation of leadership while preserving the principles of in-depth, company-by-company research. In late 2016, Ned realigned portfolio responsibilities while still maintaining a supervisory role. Scott Storkamp, Senior Portfolio Manager, has over 26 years of experience and has been with the Firm for more than 10 years. Beginning in 2017, Scott became responsible for managing the largest portion of the portfolio. The investment team also consists of Teresa Dereniak, Senior Analyst in Life Sciences and Healthcare, and John Raphael, Trader.
The Firm’s experienced investment team is supported by accounting, compliance and client services teams with a total staff of 11 located in Rockefeller Center. The Firm became SEC registered in 1997. MWV’s Prime Broker is Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC; its auditor KPMG LLP; and its legal counsel Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP. The Firm has both a domestic and offshore fund. The majority of the Assets Under Management are owned by the principal, the employees and their families. As of March 31, 2019, Assets Under Management were $135.6 million.
Our Approach to Investing – We identify and study the current trends in society and technology where rapid change is occurring and try to identify perception gaps.
Our Investment Process – We select investments with extreme care, using deep research which entails truly understanding industries and technologies. We travel extensively to meet and question the management teams of our companies multiple times per year.
Our Areas of Expertise – Our current areas of deep industry knowledge include technology with specialization in consumer, media, semiconductors, and software businesses. Our focus extends to life sciences, which includes companies as traditional as pharmaceuticals and insurance, but also includes emphasis on biotechnology, gene editing, and immunotherapy technologies.
Ownership Mentality – Our objective is to produce long-term capital gains. We tend to own growing, successful positions for long periods of time and seek to dispose of unsuccessful positions.
Short Selling – We seek to short companies with questionable managements, poor competitive positions, weak profit margins, and in declining economic sectors, not just to hedge our long positions. The portfolio is predominately long most of the time, represented by about twenty of the best companies we can find.
Risk Control – Generally, we don’t use leverage. Our longs rarely exceed one hundred percent of equity and the shorts usually bring net exposure below that. We limit concentration in any one position and have stop-loss disciplines to limit risk.