Third Avenue Funds

Martin J. Whitman, CFA
Chairman and Co-Portfolio Manager of Third Avenue Value Fund

Mr. Whitman famously distilled value investing into the mantra “safe and cheap” and has proven for more than 50 years that active, opportunistic investors can find under-priced securities in companies with strong balance sheets. He is also an adept control investor who has led the rehabilitations of Nabors Industries and Covanta Energy among others.

After serving in the Navy during World War II and then attending college on the G.I. bill, Mr. Whitman joined the ranks of Wall Street as an analyst at Shearson Hammill & Co.  The Street’s simplistic analysis and focus on short term earnings was not for him. When he encountered a timber company rich with assets but no visible earnings power he realized there was a better way. Later, while working at the family office of William Rosenwald, son of a founder of Sears Roebuck, he developed a risk aversion commensurate with the responsibility of managing another family’s legacy. His ability to find safety through the careful study of assets enabled him later to venture where other investors wouldn’t like the bankrupt Penn Central railroad or troubled utilities like Consumers Power Co. of Michigan and the Public Service Company of New Hampshire.

Mr. Whitman founded the predecessor to the Third Avenue Funds in 1986 and M.J. Whitman, a full service broker-dealer affiliated with Third Avenue in 1974. He has managed the flagship Third Avenue Value Fund since its inception in 1990 and was Third Avenue’s Chief Investment Officer from its founding through January 2010. A dedicated investment mentor, Mr. Whitman named Ian Lapey as his successor to manage the Value Fund in 2006 after mentoring him when he arrived at Third Avenue in 2001. He continues to work closely with all members of Third Avenue’s investment team.

For over 30 years, Mr. Whitman was a Distinguished Management Fellow at the Yale School of Management. He is also an honorary trustee at Syracuse University, his undergraduate alma mater and home to the Whitman School of Management. He is the author of The Aggressive Conservative Investor, Value Investing ­– A Balanced Approach and Distress Investing: Principles And Technique. He holds a masters degree in Economics from The New School For Social Research and is a magna cum laude Syracuse graduate. Mr. Whitman is a board member at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. He is a frequent speaker and commenter within the financial services community.

A CFA Charterholder, Mr. Whitman also serves as a director for Nabors Industries.

 

David Barse
President, Chief Executive Officer

During two decades under Mr. Barse’s leadership, Third Avenue has grown from a one fund boutique into a multi-platform asset manager with value-driven strategies devoted to global stocks, real estate, small caps and credit. Third Avenue offers alternative investment vehicles, separately managed accounts, subadvised portfolios, UCITS and mutual funds to private and institutional clients. Mr. Barse’s strategic business development plan fostered Third Avenue’s growth in assets under management to $16 billion (as of December 31, 2009).

Prior to joining Third Avenue in 1991, Mr. Barse had a distinguished career in bankruptcy and corporate law.  At the creditors’ rights firm of Zalkin Rodin & Goodman LLP he primarily represented commercial banks in the workouts of non-performing loans and the financing of companies in Chapter 11 through debtor-in-possession loans. Later at Robinson, Silverman, Pearce, Aronsohn & Berman LLP, he pioneered the development of the secondary market for distressed debt.

One of Mr. Barse’s clients was Third Avenue founder, Marty Whitman who managed money through his eponymous broker-dealer. Though Mr. Barse’s legal career was on a fast track Mr. Whitman’s enthusiasm for investing infected him and joined Mr. Whitman’s broker-dealer, making the switch from attorney to apprentice. He soon became a top producer as he and Mr. Whitman developed a plan to enter the asset management business through mutual funds and separately managed accounts. Mr. Barse became CEO soon after.

During the 1990s, Mr. Whitman and Mr. Barse worked on many successful distressed investments. However, starting in the late 1990s it became clear that passive investing in the common stocks of well-capitalized companies was a far more advantageous strategy as there was a dearth of distressed opportunities at that time.  Over the years, Mr. Whitman and Mr. Barse participated in numerous distressed investments, including Kmart, USG, Covanta Energy and Collins and Aikman. In each case, Third Avenue either controlled or had elements of control in the reorganization of the company. Mr. Barse currently serves on the board of Covanta Holdings Corporation, a market leader in energy from waste technology.

Mr. Barse has been a member of the World Economic Forum since 2008. He is frequently sought after by the financial media, including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business News, Forbes, Fortune, Business Week and Bloomberg where he has spoken about Third Avenue’s bottom-up value investing approach in the context of broad economic themes and current events as well as the re-emergence of distressed investment opportunities as a result of the economic crisis that emerged in 2008.

Mr. Barse received a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and a B.A. from George Washington University. He is a member of the Brooklyn Law School Board of Trustees and sits on the Board of Directors of the City Parks Foundation.

 

Curtis Jensen
Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager of Third Avenue Small Cap Value Fund

 

Mr. Jensen has been Third Avenue’s Chief Investment Officer since 2003, sharing the role with Martin J. Whitman through January 2010. As CIO he leads Third Avenue’s investment team and is a senior member of its Risk Committee. Mr. Jensen manages the Third Avenue Small-Cap Value Fund, several sub-advised portfolios, the Small-Cap Value UCITS and is co-manager of the Third Avenue Variable Series Trust.  He joined Third Avenue in 1995.

Previously, Mr. Jensen held various corporate finance positions with Manufacturer’s Hanover Trust Company and the investment bank Enright & Company. He briefly left finance to help a friend launch Ciao Bella Gelato, now a nationally known manufacturer and distributor of frozen desserts that was recently purchased by a private equity firm. Mr. Jensen holds an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management (where he studied under Marty Whitman) and a B.A. in Economics from Williams College.

Mr. Jensen serves on the nominating committee for the board of directors of Investor AB, Sweden’s largest industrial holding company with investments across Europe, the U.S. and Asia.

Mr. Jensen is a board member of Opportunities For A Better Tomorrow, a Brooklyn-based non-profit organization that provides job training, academic reinforcement, improved life skills, job placement, and support services to at-risk youth and adults.

Value

Yang Lie
Director of Research and Portfolio Manager

Ms. Lie is responsible for ensuring the integrity of Third Avenue’s global research process across asset classes and coordinating the research efforts of the team. She is a senior member of Third Avenue’s investment team and manages one of the firm’s largest subadvised accounts. She joined Third Avenue in 1996 and helped develop the firm’s high net worth and institutional separate accounts business. She became Director of Third Avenue’s growing research team in 2008.

Previously she was an equities analyst at Prudential Securities where she covered technology and imaging stocks. Ms. Lie began her career at Motorola where she managed a team of software engineers and developed both software and hardware components for encryption key management systems.

Ms Lie has an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Marquette University.

 

Ian Lapey
Portfolio Manager

Mr. Lapey is co-manager of the flagship Third Avenue Value Fund. A senior member of Third Avenue’s investment team, he also manages Third Avenue’s value and small-cap subadvised portfolios and the Third Avenue Value Fund UCITS for offshore investors. He joined Third Avenue in 2001.

Before he joined Third Avenue, Mr. Lapey analyzed housing and furniture stocks at Credit Suisse First Boston and Salomon Brothers.  Earlier in his career he was a financial analyst with Revlon and an accountant with Ernst & Young.

Mr. Lapey often works closely with the management teams of companies in which Third Avenue is invested. He served on the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Haynes International during its reorganization in 2004 and sat on the Board of Directors of Canfor, a Canadian forest products company, from 2007-2008.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Fleetwood Homes, a joint venture with Cavco Industries that purchased the manufactured housing business of Fleetwood Enterprises in a 363 bankruptcy auction in 2009.

Mr. Lapey holds an M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business, an M.S. in Accounting from Northeastern University’s Graduate School of Professional Accounting and a B.A. in Economics from Williams College

 

 

Michael Lehmann
Portfolio Manager

 

Mr. Lehmann helped to introduce and develop Third Avenue’s Value Equity Separate Accounts when he joined the firm in 1998.  He manages concentrated portfolios made up of the best stocks from Third Avenue’s value equity, small cap, real estate and international strategies.

Previously, Mr. Lehmann analyzed small-cap stocks and special situations for Robert M. Cohen & Co. a proprietary trading firm that also ran separate account and hedge fund portfolios.

As Vice President of Gabelli Funds, Mr. Lehmann managed separate accounts while also producing due diligence research into special situations for the entire fund group. He worked closely with Mario Gabelli on institutional private accounts.

Mr. Lehmann was a stand-out collegiate baseball player for the University of Southern California and then for Fordham University where he graduated with a B.S. in Finance.

Tom Gandolfo, CPA
Senior Research Analyst

A veteran financial services executive, Mr. Gandolfo analyzes bank, insurance, asset management companies and other industries for Third Avenue.

He joined the firm in 2008 after serving as Managing Director in the Capital Markets and Structured Credit Group at Ambac Financial Group. Prior to that, he was Ambac’s CFO where he led all aspects of the company’s capital management and financial reporting.  As CFO of a New York Stock Exchange listed public company he worked closely with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Earlier in his career, Mr. Gandolfo was a senior audit manager at PriceWaterhouseCoopers where he audited and consulted for some of the firm’s largest multinational clients.

In early 2008, Mr. Gandolfo followed news of Third Avenue’s investments in the securities of monoline insurance companies and felt that his experience in the industry would be useful.  Though about to accept an executive level position with another insurance company he contacted Third Avenue’s CEO David Barse and offered his services. Mr. Gandolfo declined the other offer for a chance to work with Marty Whitman and the Third Avenue team.

As the financial crisis peaked he helped the firm avoid investments in AIG and Lehman Brothers and has since turned his attention towards opportunities in the banking sector.

Mr. Gandolfo holds a B.A. in Accounting with honors from Bentley College and is a Certified Public Accountant.

 

Charles Page, CFA
Research Analyst

Mr. Page analyzes small-cap securities for Third Avenue and works directly with Curtis Jensen. He joined the firm in 2006.

Mr. Page was a small-cap value analyst with Citizens Advisers, a socially responsible investment firm where he covered a broad range of stocks with an emphasis on the financial, consumer, industrial and technology sectors. At Citizens, Mr. Page first read Marty Whitman’s books and adopted the creditor's perspective in his equity analysis.  Earlier in his career he helped cover technology companies at Robertson Stephens.

Mr. Page has an M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School of Management and a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University. He is also a CFA Charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts.

 

Kathleen Crawford
Research Analyst

Ms. Crawford analyzes equity and debt securities. She is co-portfolio manager for a subadvised account at Touchstone Investments and is assistant portfolio manager for Third Avenue’s value and small cap value subadvised accounts including AIC, MetLife and Aegon.

Previously, Ms. Crawford was an equity research associate for Alliance Capital Management where she analyzed the portfolio characteristics of the firm’s domestic and global portfolios and she worked with the senior media and entertainment analyst. Ms. Crawford also spent a summer while in business school researching the cable industry at Invesco.

Ms. Crawford studied value investing at Columbia Business School, where she became attracted to Third Avenue’s investment philosophy.  She joined Third Avenue in 2003, after she received her M.B.A. She has been a guest speaker at the school, participates in programs held by its Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing and is a mentor for Columbia Business School’s Value Investing Program.

Ms. Crawford also holds a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University.

 

 

 

Lindsay Matovich
Research Assistant

Ms. Matovich conducts initial research on potential investment ideas, builds and maintains screens for finding securities worthy of further analysis, and tests the assumptions of Third Avenue’s analysts by studying industries for comparable statistics to companies either in our portfolios or under consideration. She joined the Firm in 2008.

Previously, Ms. Matovich was a sales associate at equity research boutique Majestic Research. Prior to that, Ms. Matovich was an Economics and Business Communications assistant lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore. She also interned at Edens & Avant as a real estate analyst.

Ms. Matovich received a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University.

 

International

Amit Wadhwaney
Portfolio Manager

Mr. Wadhwaney has managed foreign stock portfolios since 1996. He has been particularly interested in emerging economies where he has long believed that market inefficiencies favor bottom-up value investors.

Mr. Wadhwaney is the founding manager of the Third Avenue International Value Fund, an open end mutual fund as well as the Third Avenue Global Value Fund and the Third Avenue Emerging Markets Fund. Mr. Wadhwaney also manages the Third Avenue International Value Fund UCITS for overseas investors as well as institutional separate accounts.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Wadhwaney was a securities analyst, and subsequently Director of Research, for M.J. Whitman, Third Avenue’s affiliated broker-dealer. Mr. Wadhwaney was also a paper and forest products analyst at Bunting Warburg, a Canadian brokerage firm. He began his career at Domtar, a Canadian forest products company.

During the mid-1990s Mr. Wadhwaney briefly left Third Avenue in order to establish his Global Value Fund as a limited partnership in association with some longtime partners of Marty Whitman. He rejoined Third Avenue after four years away, bringing his partnership with him and leading the launch of the firm’s first internationally focused mutual fund. He established and has fostered Third Avenue’s international research effort and his team has served all of the firm’s strategies where mandates allow for global investments.

He holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Chicago, a B.A. with honors and an M.A. in Economics from Concordia University in Montreal (where he also taught economics) and B.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Minnesota.  He speaks French, Spanish, Hindi, Sindhi, Gujarati and English.

 

Jakub Rehor, CFA
Senior Research Analyst

Mr. Rehor has analyzed foreign and emerging markets securities for 10 years, six of them at Third Avenue and four at Putnam Investments. He has worked in finance and investing for 15 years. He was a stock analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein between 1997 and 2000 and a business analyst for McKinsey & Co starting in 1995.
 
Mr. Rehor grew up in the Czech Republic and participated in the student resistance during the Velvet Revolution, building a nationwide computer network connecting student union cells around the country, and serving on President Václav Havel’s security detail during his inauguration in 1989.

He holds a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and is a CFA Charterholder and member of the New York Society of Security Analysis. He speaks Czech, Russian, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and English.

Matthew Fine, CFA
Senior Research Analyst

Mr. Fine joined Third Avenue 11 years ago and began working with Mr. Wadhwaney in an effort to identify investment opportunities in the wake of the Argentine crisis of 2001. Mr. Fine has conducted investment research on location in more than twenty countries across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

He joined Third Avenue's research and portfolio management team as a Research Assistant, the first position typically held by Third Avenue’s homegrown analysts. He became a Senior Research Analyst in 2008 and a principal of the firm in 2009.

Mr. Fine holds a B.A. in Economics from Hamilton College and is a CFA Charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Securities Analysts.

Anita Krishnamoorthy, CFA
Senior Research Analyst and CEO of Singapore Office

Anita Krishnamoorthy is a senior research analyst for Third Avenue Management focusing on foreign securities, and Head of the firm’s Singapore office. She joined the firm in 2008. Prior to joining Third Avenue, Ms. Krishnamoorthy was at First Eagle Funds, where she served as a Vice President of Equity Research since 2004, and was responsible for global coverage of various industries, as well as coverage of Asian securities.

Prior to joining First Eagle, Ms. Krishnamoorthy was an Investment Banking Analyst in Morgan Stanley Asia’s Hong Kong office.
Earlier in her career, she was a Business Analyst with Standard Chartered Bank, working out of the firm’s Singapore and London offices. She began her career as a Tax Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers, in Singapore.

Ms. Krishnamoorthy holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor in Accountancy from the Nanyang Business School in Singapore. She is a CFA Charterholder.

 

Real Estate

Michael Winer
Portfolio Manager Third Avenue Real Estate Value Fund

Mr. Winer has managed the Third Avenue Real Estate Value Fund since its inception in 1998. He is also the co-portfolio manager of the Third Avenue Real Estate Opportunities Fund LP and manages separate accounts for institutional investors.

As a real estate securities analyst for Third Avenue in the mid-1990s, Mr. Winer convinced his colleagues that real estate should be (and in fact always had been) an essential part of the firm's value investing arsenal.  This led to Third Avenue establishing its first sector fund -- a new concept for a firm whose generalist approach runs deep.  Since then, Mr. Winer has played crucial roles in several unique, landmark Third Avenue investments, including the firm's participation in reorganizing Kmart (which was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy), where Mr. Winer determined that Kmart's real estate assets provided a substantial margin of safety for Kmart's stakeholders.

Prior to joining Third Avenue in 1994, Mr. Winer was Vice President of the Asset Sales Group for Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. where he was responsible for evaluating and underwriting portfolios of distressed real estate loans.  He had previously been First Vice President of Society for Savings, a Connecticut savings bank, and Director of Asset Management for Pioneer Mortgage, a financial institution, where he directed the workout, collection and liquidation of distressed real estate loan and asset portfolios.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Winer was the Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of Winer-Greenwald Development, Inc., a California-based real estate development firm that specialized in the development, construction, ownership and management of commercial properties.  Mr. Winer previously held executive positions at Pacific Scene, Inc., and The Hahn Company, both California-based real estate development firms.  Mr. Winer began his career in public accounting with Deloitte & Touche (formerly Touche Ross & Co.) where he specialized in real estate development companies.

Mr. Winer holds a B.S. in Accounting from San Diego State University. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Tejon Ranch Co., a public company that owns the largest continuous expanse of private land in California, and Newhall Holding Company, a privately-held land development company – each represents significant holdings in various Third Avenue portfolios.

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Jason Wolf, CFA
Portfolio Manager and Senior Research Analyst

Mr. Wolf is a senior member of Third Avenue’s research team, focusing on global real estate. He assists Michael Winer on the Third Avenue Real Estate Value Fund and is co-manager of the Third Avenue Real Estate Value Fund UCITS and the Third Avenue Real Estate Opportunities Fund LP. He joined Third Avenue in 2004.

Mr. Wolf initiated Third Avenue’s foreign real estate coverage. He has since led the firm into Asia, Europe and other markets globally.  Among other investments, he is responsible for identifying Third Avenue's Hong Kong real estate holdings, which comprise a material portion of the firm's investments.

Previously, Mr. Wolf analyzed U.S. real estate equity securities for European Investors and U.S. debt securities with Moody’s Investor Service.  Before joining Moody’s he worked in direct real estate investment and management at Viceroy Investments and Trammel Crow Realty Advisors in Dallas.

Mr. Wolf has a B.B.A. in Finance and Real Estate from Southern Methodist University where he was a decorated wide receiver on the football team and named an Academic All-American in 1993. He is a CFA Charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts.

 

Ryan Dobratz, CFA
Research Analyst

Mr. Dobratz researches global real estate investments including equities, performing debt, restructurings and special situations. He joined Third Avenue in 2006.

He was previously a research analyst at Morningstar where he was the primary analyst on several North American Real Estate Investment Trusts, real estate holding companies and homebuilders, including some companies that had been long-held in Third Avenue portfolios. This led him to research Third Avenue’s “safe and cheap” approach to investing and to ultimately seek a job at the firm.

Mr. Dobratz is a CFA Charterholder and holds an M.B.A. with distinction and a B.S. with honors in Business Administration from the University of Missouri. He is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts and the New York Private Equity Network Real Estate Group.

Michael Campagna, CFA
Research Analyst

Mr. Campagna joined Third Avenue’s research team in 2007 and focuses on real estate securities, working closely with Mike Winer and Jason Wolf. He is a former Third Avenue research associate, considered an unofficial apprentice spot within the firm’s research team.

Previously he was an investment analyst for the JP Morgan Private Bank, where he selected money managers for use in high-net worth and institutional investment accounts. At JP Morgan, Mr. Campagna analyzed Third Avenue and kept it on a list of money managers that he wanted to work for, pursuing the opportunity as soon as he saw a research position open.

Mr. Campagna holds a B.S. in Finance and Information Systems from New York University. He is a CFA Charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts

Michael Fineman
Portfolio Manager

Mr. Fineman is portfolio manager of the Third Avenue Special Situations Fund, a private partnership that invests in distressed securities and corporate reorganizations. As head of Third Avenue’s distressed debt research team, Mr. Fineman helps all of Third Avenue’s managers identify appropriate opportunities throughout the capital structure. He joined the firm in 2006.

Mr. Fineman has approximately 20 years of experience in distressed, restructuring and related roles. Prior to Third Avenue, he was a distressed investing analyst for Sanno Point Capital Management, a credit-driven hedge fund. He had previously worked in the Investment Banking and Restructuring Advisory Services division of Ernst & Young (since acquired by Macquarie Group) where he led corporate restructurings and reorganizations for debtors and creditors. He has 10 years experience as a sell side research analyst for Goldman Sachs, Alex, Brown and Raymond James.

Mr. Fineman is Chairman of the Board for Home Products Inc., a $200 million house-wares manufacturing company that Third Avenue led through a rapid pre-packaged reorganization. Mr. Fineman has participated on many ad-hoc creditors committees including LandSource Communities LLC, U.S. Shipping, Grant Forest Products, Building Materials Holding Corporation and Collins and Aikman.

Mr. Fineman has an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a B.S. in Business Administration with honors from the University of Delaware. He is a CFA Charterholder, a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts and holds a certification in Distressed Business Valuation.