By: Margin of Safety Equity Research.
Mario Gabelli: Investor Profile
Mario Gabelli is the founder, Chairman and CEO of Gabelli Asset Management Company Investors (GAMCO Investors), a $30 billion dollar NYSE listed firm (NYSE: GBL) headquartered in Rye, New York. Along with investing in funds and maintaining client portfolios, the firm provides wealth management, investment advisory, institutional research, brokerage, dealer, underwriting and distribution services to its clients. Mr. Gabelli’s current net worth is estimated to be at $1 billion and he is ranked at #346 on the Forbes 2011 list of wealthiest Americans.
Investment Strategy:
A leading proponent of the Graham–Dodd school of security analysis, Gabelli applies the principles of Graham and Dodd’s to analyze domestic, cash generating, franchise companies in a very wide range of industries. He pioneered the use of proprietary Private Market Value methodology in the value-based investing industry. At GAMCO, the bottom-up stock picking approach conducted by an in-house research team is used to invest in several value and growth stocks of small cap, mid cap, and large cap companies.
Fund Profile:
The Gabelli fund family consists of twenty-six open ended funds, ten closed end funds, one money market fund along with ten preferred shared holdings. The fund family excluding the money market assets consists of $12 billion in assets yielding a five year trailing return of 6.88% and one year return of 3.7% across the funds (as of Feb 2011). The stock holdings are mostly made up of industrials (26.9%), consumer cyclicals (22.3%), consumer defensive (16.4%), Financials (7.8%), Utilities (6.5%) and basic material (5%) stocks. From a long-term standpoint, some of most notable stocks among the top 20 US stock holdings include Directv (DTV) Viacom, Inc (VIA) , Halliburton Company (HAL), News Corp Cl (NWSA) and American Express Company (AXP).
In the Gabelli fund family, Mario Gabelli is the portfolio manager of The Gabelli Asset Fund, The Gabelli Small Cap Growth Fund, The Gabelli ABC Fund, The Gabelli Equity Income Fund and GAMCO Westwood Mighty Mites Fund among others.
Mr. Gabelli is also a Chairman & CEO of Lynch Interactive and serves as a member of The Board of Overseers of Columbia University Graduate School of Business, The Board of Trustees of Boston College, The Board of Trustees of Roger Williams University; as a Board member at The National Italian American Foundation, The American-Italian Cancer Foundation; as a member of the Board of Advisors of Caymus, Van Biema Value Fund, LP, Eastside Partner, Health Point Capital Partners; as a Trustee of The Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States, which encourages scientific and technological talent by providing scholarships and fellowships to outstanding graduate students and professors to study and do research at Churchill College, Cambridge, England, among others. He is a recipient of several awards in financial and social spheres. Mr. Gabelli is a frequent commentator on CNBC and CNN and has contributed articles to investment publications such as the Financial Analysts Handbook.
Mr Gabelli’s recent buying and selling activity, along with his top 10 holding are presented below.
