Heard Capital Winner

The foundation of Heard Capital’s concentrated, long-term investment strategy is using key sector debates to identify potential investment opportunities, rather than using a typical screening methodology. Founded in 2010 by William Heard (then in his 20s and a former analyst at Stark Investments and other places), the firm focuses on the questions the market is wrestling with across the technology, media, communications, financial services, and industrial sectors. Then it uses its dauntless research capabilities to identify the companies that provide the best long-term solutions for each debate. This approach helps lead Heard Capital to companies that may be overlooked by others (its active share is between 95% and 98%), avoiding the biases that come with traditional screening, including those that require a prevailing factor regime to generate excess returns.  

The alpha generation has been meaningful and consistent: The Heard High Conviction Long Only Fund has generated approximately 300 basis points (bps) of excess return annually since its founding in 2011. Year to date through October, the fund has generated approximately 700 bps of excess return with no prevailing factor bias, no FAANG [Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, or Google] exposure, and no energy or private company allocations.

Finalists

• Banner Asset Management

• Balyasny Asset Management (BAM)

• Lone Peak Partners Management

• PAAMCO Prisma

• Stable Asset Management

• Standard General

• Starboard Capital Partners