Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations

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Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations by Tobias E. Carlisle

Deep Value – Description

The economic climate is ripe for another golden age of shareholder activismDeep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations is a must-read exploration of deep value investment strategy, describing the evolution of the theories of valuation and shareholder activism from Graham to Icahn and beyond. The book combines engaging anecdotes with industry research to illustrate the principles and methods of this complex strategy, and explains the reasoning behind seemingly incomprehensible activist maneuvers. Written by an active value investor, Deep Value provides an insider’s perspective on shareholder activist strategies in a format accessible to both professional investors and laypeople.The Deep Value investment philosophy as described by Graham initially identified targets by their discount to liquidation value. This approach was extremely effective, but those opportunities are few and far between in the modern market, forcing activists to adapt. Current activists assess value from a much broader palate, and exploit a much wider range of tools to achieve their goals. Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations enumerates and expands upon the resources and strategies available to value investors today, and describes how the economic climate is allowing value investing to re-emerge. Topics include:
  • Target identification, and determining the most advantageous ends
  • Strategies and tactics of effective activism
  • Unseating management and fomenting change
  • Eyeing conditions for the next M&A boom

Activist hedge funds have been quiet since the early 2000s, but economic conditions, shareholder sentiment, and available opportunities are creating a fertile environment for another golden age of activism. Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations provides the in-depth information investors need to get up to speed before getting left behind.

Deep Value – Reviews

Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations offers investors an authoritative exploration of the philosophy of deep value investment. Written by Tobias Carlisle—an active value investor and the well-known blogger at greenbackd.com—this important resource describes the evolution of the various theories of intrinsic value and activist investment from Benjamin Graham to Warren Buffett to Carl Icahn and beyond. Filled with engaging anecdotes and meticulous research, the book illustrates the principles and strategies of deep value investing and examines the counter-intuitive idea behind its extraordinary performance. Deep Value is a practical guide that reveals little-known valuation metrics that activist investors and other contrarians use to identify attractive, asymmetric investment opportunities with limited downside and enormous upside.

Tobias Carlisle presents an insider’s perspective on valuation and activism in a format that is accessible to both professional and general investors. The value investment philosophy as first described by Benjamin Graham initially identified targets by their discount to liquidation value. This approach has proven extremely effective; however, those opportunities have all but disappeared from the modern stock market. To succeed, today’s deep value investors have adapted Graham’s philosophy, embracing its spirit while pushing beyond its confines. In Deep Value, Carlisle examines Graham’s 80-year-old intellectual legacy using modern statistical techniques to offer a penetrating and highly original perspective: that losing stocks—those in crisis with apparently failing businesses and uncertain futures—offer unusually favorable investment prospects. As the author demonstrates, the evidence reveals an axiomatic truth about investing: investors aren’t rewarded for picking winners; they’re rewarded for uncovering mispricings.

Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations shows the place to look for mispricings—in calamity, among the unloved, the ignored, the neglected, the shunned, and the feared.

Praise for Deep Value

“I highly recommend Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations. It takes a lively look at a variety of value investing strategies starting with the father of security analysis, Ben Graham. It outlines how individual investors can vastly outperform simple index strategies. For these value strategies to work, investors must be patient and brave, as it requires looking at stocks that the herd ignores. It will be a useful addition to any value investor’s library.”
—Jim O’Shaughnessy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, LLC, and author, What Works on Wall Street

“Value investing is the most intuitive form of investing ever devised—the attempt to buy one dollar’s worth of assets for sixty cents. In his new book, Carlisle provides a thoroughly contemporary guide to the discipline, informed by killer anecdotes. Deep Value is part historical saga, part treasure map—a must-read for all investors.”

—Joshua M. Brown, author, The Reformed Broker blog and the bestselling book Backstage Wall Street; star of CNBC’s The Halftime Report; Chief Executive Officer, Ritholtz Wealth Management

Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations is a refreshing and highly entertaining work that makes a persuasive case for traditional value investment and a revival of Graham-style ‘ownership consciousness’. It is a compelling addition to the value investing canon.”
—Vitaliy Katsenelson, Chief Investment Officer, Investment Management Associates, Inc., and author of The Little Book of Sideways Markets

“From accounts of bold corporate raiders and behavioral psychology to hard quantitative research, Deep Value leaves no stone unturned in a passionate exploration of what makes value investing and activism work.”
—Christopher Cole, CFA, Founder and Managing Member, Artemis Capital Management, LLC

“In Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations, Carlisle provides a qualitative and quantitative view of why value investing has worked since the time of its conception. The book is a unique combination of careful descriptions of the value styles and players, backed up by data that supports the conclusions reached. I strongly recommend this book to the value aficionado.”
—Michael van Biema, Founder and Chief Investment Officer, van Biema Value Partners, and co-author, Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond

“Carlisle has written an engaging history of the market and its influence on the evolving theory of value investment. He has produced a valuable addition to any value investor’s library. I’m glad I read it.”
—John L. Schwartz, MD, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder, The Value Investing Congress

“Carlisle’s work succeeds on two levels: It is both a gripping account of some of the most notable episodes in the history of shareholder activism as well as an instructive guide to profiting from mean reversion and activist opportunities in today’s market. Highly recommended!”
—John Mihaljevic, CFA, Managing Editor, The Manual of Ideas

Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations is a smart, modern take on classic Benjamin Graham-style value investment. It’s half history book and half quant stock screen guidebook. Learn both the history of value investing as well as a practical way to put it to work.”
—Mebane Faber, Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager, Cambria Investment Management, LLC, and author, The Ivy Portfolio

“Carlisle weaves together a rich tapestry of multi-disciplinary academic research, investment theory, and historical anecdotes to produce the must-read investment book of 2014.”
—Jacob L. Taylor and Lonnie J. Rush, Managing Partners of Farnam Street Investments and Visiting Professors at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management

“Carlisle rigorously shows why value investing will continue to work. Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations is a MUST-READ for value investors.”
—Wesley R. Gray, PhD, Executive Managing Member, Alpha Architect, and co-author, Quantitative Value

“Carlisle has persuasively rendered a thought-provoking examination of a counterintuitive investment theory. The book is as engrossing as it is useful.”
—Allen Benello, Chief Executive Officer, White River Partners, LP

“Carlisle’s book provides a wonderful combination of entertaining case studies, synthesized with results from academic research and statistical backtesting, to arrive at sometimes surprising conclusions about what works in investing, and why.”
—Henry Patner, Director of Research, HEG Capital

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