Bill Ackman is the managing member and portfolio manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., a concentrated research-intensive fundamental value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public markets with assets under management of approximately $6 billion. Pershing Square has played an active role in creating value at companies including Wendy's International, McDonald's, Ceridian Corporation, and Sears Canada.

Prior to forming Pershing Square, Mr. Ackman co-founded Gotham Partners, L.P., a public and private equity investment partnership. Prior to Gotham Partners, Mr. Ackman began his career in real estate investment banking at Ackman Brothers & Singer, Inc.

Mr. Ackman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College magna cum laude and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Born in Poitiers, France in 1940, Mr. Eveillard is a graduate of Ecoles des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, an esteemed French graduate school for economic studies. He started his career in 1962 with Societe Generale, one of France's largest banks, until relocating to the United States in 1968. Two years later, Mr. Eveillard began as an analyst with the SoGen International Fund. In 1979, he was appointed as the portfolio manager of the SoGen International Fund, later named the First Eagle Global Fund. He then went on to manage the First Eagle Overseas and First Eagle Gold Funds at their inception in 1993 as well as the First Eagle U.S. Value Fund, which began in September 2001. Mr. Eveillard left his portfolio management duties on December 31, 2004 but continued to serve as Senior Vice President and Senior Adviser to the funds. Mr. Eveillard was named Morningstar's International Manager of the Year in 2001, and in 2003 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Morningstar for building one of the most successful long-term records in the investment business.

Alan Fournier established Pennant Capital Management, L.L.C. in 2001. He started his investment career at Sanford C. Bernstein in 1988, and became a partner in 1990. Three years later, he started and managed the Institutional Middle Market research sales group for Bernstein, which focused on servicing hedge funds and institutions with less than $1 billion in assets under management. Pennant is a long/short equity hedge fund with $2.3 billion in assets under management. Prior to founding Pennant, Fournier was the partner responsible for global equity investments for Appaloosa Management, a $7 billion distressed and event-driven hedge fund managed by David Tepper. He has also been a portfolio manager at Hagler, Mastrovita and Hewitt, and at Pzena Investment Management. Before entering the investment management industry, Fournier spent five years in technology system sales for Digital Equipment, where he was a National Account Manager. A 1983 honors graduate of Wentworth Institute of Technology, Fournier holds a degree in engineering.

Bruce currently serves as the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management and the Director of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. He presently teaches Value Investing, Economics of Strategic Behavior, Seminar in Strategy and Industry Analysis, Globalization of Markets, and Strategic Management of Media. He has also taught Corporate Finance and Managerial Economics.

Previously, Bruce taught at Harvard Business School and Wesleyan University. Early in his career, he was a research economist at Bell Laboratories and, for a one-year period beginning in 1987, was the staff economist for the Presidential Task Force on Market Mechanisms (the Brady Task Force).

Bruce has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards including the Columbia University Presidential Teaching Award (1999-2000), the Margaret Chandler Memorial Award for Commitment to Excellence in Teaching (1997 & 2003), the Singhvi Prize (1991-1992, 2002-2003, 2003-2004), and the Dean's prize for course development in the core curriculum.

Bruce is the author or editor of several books including Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy (with Judd Kahn, Putnam Penguin 2005), Economics for an Imperfect World: Essays in Honor of Joseph E. Stiglitz (editor with Richard Arnott, et al, MIT Press, 2003), Towards a new Paradigm in Monetary Economics (with Joseph Stiglitz, Cambridge Press, 2003), Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond (with Judd Kahn, et al, Wiley, 2001), and Adverse Selection in the Labor Market (Garland Press, 1980).

Bruce has written numerous papers published in journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Rand Journal of Economics, Oxford Economic Papers, Journal of Finance and Accounting, Quarterly Journal of Economics and Journal of Industrial and Corporate Change.

Bruce has received a B.S. and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an M.P.A. and MS from Princeton University.

Lisa W. Hess is the Chief Investment Officer for Loews Corporation, where she is responsible for managing $50 billion in assets. Prior to assuming that position in 2002, Ms. Hess was a founding partner of Zesiger Capital Group, an absolute return money management firm. Ms. Hess began her career at Goldman Sachs in the fixed income division, and worked at Odyssey Partners and First Boston. Ms. Hess is a former member of the U.S. Treasury Debt Management Advisory Committee. She is a trustee of the WT Grant Foundation, a trustee of the Chapin School, and a trustee of the Pomfret School. Additionally, Lisa is a former Vice-Chairman of the Browning School, a member of the Harvard University Library Visiting Committee, and the Harvard University Major Gifts Committee. She is a graduate of Harvard College and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.

She has served on the Board of Directors of several start-up companies, including Trans-Elect, founded to privatize the U.S. electric transmission grid, and Vanteq, an innovative financial services company. Lisa is a regular columnist for Forbes magazine.

Professor Hubbard is a specialist in public finance, managerial information and incentive problems in corporate finance, and financial markets and institutions. He has written more than 90 articles and books on corporate finance, investment decisions, banking, energy economics and public policy, including two textbooks, and has co-authored Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System. In a recent book, Tax Policy and Multinational Corporations, he argues that U.S. tax policy significantly affects financing and investment decisions of multinational corporations. Hubbard has applied his research interests in business (as a consultant on taxation and corporate finance to many corporations), in government (as deputy assistant of the U.S. Treasury Department and as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and many government agencies) and in academia (in faculty collaboration or visiting appointments at Columbia, University of Chicago and Harvard).

Professor Johannes’s research analyzes the empirical content of fixed-income and derivative securities pricing models. He is particularly interested in developing econometric methods to investigate models with jumps and stochastic volatility. Johannes teaches the elective Capital Markets and Investments.
 
 
 
 
 

Mr. Lee has seven years of investing experience and has been with Owl Creek Asset Management since September 2003. He is responsible for Owl Creek’s investments in Asia, which amount to approximately $1.5 billion, including investments in a dedicated Asia fund launched in July 2007. Mr. Lee has also covered investments in distressed debt, steel, media, telecom, cable, and gaming in US and Latin America for Owl Creek. Previously, Mr. Lee spent three years at GSC Partners investing in distressed debt and private equity. He started his career as a corporate finance analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston’s Technology Group in Palo Alto. Mr. Lee earned an A.B. in Business Economics and A.B. in International Relations from Brown University.

Daniel S. Loeb is the CEO of Third Point LLC, which he founded in 1995. The fund is event-driven and invests opportunistically, searching out catalysts to unlock value across the capital structure. Before founding Third Point, Mr. Loeb was Vice President of High Yield sales at Citigroup, a Senior Vice President in the distressed debt department at Jefferies & Co., and he began his career as an Associate in private equity at Warburg Pincus. He is a Trustee of Prep for Prep, a non-profit organization, and is active in the New York City anti-poverty group Robin Hood. Mr. Loeb graduated with an A.B. in Economics from Columbia University.

In addition to Professor Mayer’s work at Columbia Business School, he is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, on the Board of Editors of Real Estate Economics and Journal of Urban Economics and a Fellow of the Homer Hoyt Institute. Mayer also works as part-time research director and member of the Board of Directors of Oak Hill REIT Management, a REIT hedge fund. Mayer previously held positions at The Wharton School, the University of Michigan, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Mayer’s research explores a variety of topics in real estate, including real estate cycles, capital markets, housing, public and private real estate values, and debt securitization. He has also written on the market for reverse mortgages, the link between local government activities and housing values, and the economics of airline congestion. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Government of Canada, and the Real Estate Research Institute, among others. He has authored more than thirty scholarly articles on these subjects and is frequently quoted in the national media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, CBS TV, CBS’s Sunday Morning, ABC (Nightly News, 20/20, Nightline) and National Public Radio. Mayer frequently comments on real estate for CNBC and Bloomberg Television as well.

Bill Miller is one of today's most renowned professional money managers. He is Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Legg Mason Capital Management, Inc.

Bill Miller currently manages the Legg Mason Value Trust and Legg Mason Opportunity Trust mutual funds. Legg Mason Value Trust is the only mutual fund to outperform the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive calendar years, period ending 01/01/061. Over the years, Bill Miller and his team have received numerous accolades for their management record and distinct style, which focuses on a detailed understanding of businesses and their intrinsic value.

His unique investment management philosophy and approach to undervalued stocks has also made him the subject of profiles in numerous books as well as publications, including The New York Times, Barron's, Business Week , Kiplinger's , Money , The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and SmartMoney.

He was ranked among the top 30 most influential people in investing when he was named a member of the "Power 30" by SmartMoney. He was also named by Money magazine as "The Greatest Money Manager of the 1990's" and named Morningstar's 1998 "Domestic Equity Manager of the Year." In 1999, he was selected as the "Fund Manager of the Decade" by Morningstar.com. Also in 1999, Barron's named him to its All-Century Investment Team and BusinessWeek called him one of the "Heroes of Value Investing."

Bill assumed overall responsibility for Legg Mason's equity funds management group in late 1990. Prior to this, he co-managed the Legg Mason Value Trust with Ernie Kiehne since its inception in 1982. He was the Director of Research of Legg Mason from October 1981 through June 1985. He earned his economics degree from Washington and Lee University where he graduated with honors in 1972. Subsequent to graduation, he served as a Military Intelligence Officer overseas and then pursued graduate studies in philosophy in the Ph.D. program at The Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining Legg Mason in 1981, he served as Treasurer of the J.E. Baker Company, a major manufacturer of products for the steel and cement industries. Bill received his CFA designation in 1986.

Bill currently serves as Chairman on the Board of Trustees of the Santa Fe Institute, one of the world's leading scientific research laboratories, which conducts multi-disciplinary research in complex systems theory.

Mr. Pzena is Chairperson of PIM's 4-person Executive Committee. The Executive Committee is responsible for the business, strategic, operational, personnel and financial decisions of the firm. Mr. Pzena also is head of the firm's 18-person team that makes investment decisions for client accounts. PIM's investment decision making process is driven by data gathered by the analyst responsible for the fundamental research on each particular security, and then debated on by Mr. Pzena, John Goetz, that analyst, and the portfolio manager for the product strategy for which the security is being evaluated. Rich, John, and the designated portfolio manager have joint decision-making responsibility and "veto authority" over the final investment decisions for each of PIM's products.

Thomas A. Russo joined Gardner Russo & Gardner as a partner in 1989. Together, Thomas Russo, Eugene Gardner and Eugene Gardner, Jr., oversee more than $2.5 billion in discretionary, individually managed client accounts. Each partner manages individual separate accounts and share similar investment approaches and strategies. Gardner Russo & Gardner is a registered investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and is not associated with any bank, security dealer or other third party.

Mr. Russo's investment philosophy emphasizes return on invested capital, principally through equity investments. His approach to stock selection stresses two main points: value and price. While these would seem to be obvious key considerations in any manager's approach, it is equally obvious that all too often they are either misjudged or, perhaps more frequently, simply not viewed together.

Mr. Russo looks for companies with strong cash-flow characteristics, where large amounts of free cash flow are generated. Portfolio companies tend to have strong balance sheets and a history of producing high rates of return on their assets. The challenge comes in finding these obviously desirable situations at reasonable or bargain prices. Mr. Russo's investment approach is focused on a small number of industries in which companies have historically proven to be able to generate sustainable amounts of net free cash flow. (These industries typically have included food, beverage, tobacco, and broadcasting/media.) This fairly narrow approach reflects his training and discipline at the Sequoia Fund in New York, where he worked from 1984 to 1988. Mr. Russo tries to limit risk by not paying too large a multiple of a company's net free cash flow in light of prevailing interest rates. He attempts to broaden this otherwise narrow universe by including companies with smaller market capitalizations and companies in similar industries based abroad.

Thomas A. Russo is General Partner of Semper Vic Partners, L.P., and Semper Vic Partners (Q.P.), L.P., limited partnerships whose investments are in excess of $600 million, along with overseeing substantially more funds through separate accounts for individuals, trusts, and endowments. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College (B.A., 1977), and Stanford Business and Law Schools (JD/MBA, 1984). Memberships include California Bar Association and Board of Visitors for Stanford Law School. Mr. Russo is a charter member of the Advisory Board for the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing at Columbia Business School.

Mr. Russo's goal is one of an absolute return rather than a relative return, and he continues his long-term investment objective of compounding assets between 10 and 20 percent per year without great turnover, thereby realizing a minimum amount of realized gains and net investment income.

Adam Weiss founded Scout Capital with James Crichton in August 1999. Prior to founding Scout, Mr. Weiss worked as a research analyst at Third Point Advisors, an event-driven investment partnership. Before he joined Third Point, Mr. Weiss was an associate in the Merchant Banking group at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette ("DLJ"). The Merchant Banking group managed DLJ's $2 billion leveraged buy-out fund, which specialized in financially driven purchases of control stakes in middle-market companies.

Mr. Weiss holds an AB in Fine Arts from Harvard College where he was selected to Phi Beta Kappa and where he was named a John Harvard Scholar, in recognition of highest academic achievement. Mr. Weiss also holds a joint law degree and MBA from Columbia University. At Columbia Law School, Mr. Weiss was selected as a Kent Scholar, the law school's highest academic distinction. Additionally, at Columbia Business School, Mr. Weiss was selected to Beta Gamma Sigma.

David Winters is CEO of Wintergreen Advisers, LLC, and is portfolio manager of Wintergreen Fund, Inc., a no-load global value mutual fund (WGRNX).

He has a truly global approach to his unique style of value investing. He follows companies in a wide variety of industries as well as bankruptcies, financial distress, reorganizations, liquidations and private transactions. Mr. Winters has been, and will continue to be, a shareholder activist at Wintergreen.

He has been a global value investor for over 20 years. Before forming Wintergreen Advisers in May 2005, he held various positions at Franklin Mutual Advisers, the most recent of which was Chief Investment Officer, and as Portfolio Manager of Franklin Mutual Discovery Fund.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Cornell University, Arts and Sciences and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.