6th Annual Investment Symposium

Tuesday, OCTOber 30, 2012

Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House – Dallas, TX

Speakers

Many thanks to our remarkable past speakers for their time, insights and support. Our 2011 speakers are listed below. Stay tuned for information on our speaker lineup for 2012.

 

Bill Ackman
Founder and CEO, Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P.

Mr. Ackman is the chief executive officer and portfolio manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., an SEC registered investment adviser founded in 2003.  Pershing Square is a concentrated research-intensive fundamental value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public markets, typically focusing on large-cap and mid-cap companies.

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 an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard College.

Mr. Ackman’s board memberships include chairman of The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC), JCPenney (NYSE: JCP), Justice Holdings Limited (LSE: JUSH), the board of dean’s advisors of the Harvard Business School and a number of not-for-profit boards including the Pershing Square Foundation, a charitable foundation that he founded in 2007.

 

Bruce Berkowitz
Founder, Managing Member and CIO, Fairholme Capital Management

Mr. Berkowitz is the founder, managing member, and chief investment officer of Fairholme Capital Management and president and a director of Fairholme Funds, Inc.

Mr. Berkowitz is also a director and chairman of the board of directors of The St. Joe Company.

Mr. Berkowitz received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1980.

 

David Einhorn
President, Greenlight Capital, Inc.

Mr. Einhorn is president of Greenlight Capital, Inc., which he co-founded in January 1996. Greenlight Capital is a value-oriented investment advisor whose goal is to achieve high absolute rates of return while minimizing the risk of capital loss.

Greenlight’s investment philosophy is to combine the analytical discipline of determining fair value with a practical understanding of markets. The firm believes that an investment approach that emphasizes intrinsic value will achieve consistent absolute investment returns and safeguard capital regardless of market conditions.

Mr. Einhorn is chairman of the board of Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (NASDAQ: GLRE) and a director of BioFuel Energy Corp. (NASDAQ: BIOF). He is the author of Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story, published in May 2008. He also serves on the boards of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, and the Robin Hood Foundation.

Mr. Einhorn graduated summa cum laude with distinction in all subjects from Cornell University, where he earned a B.A. from the College of Arts and Sciences.

 

Mario Gabelli
Chairman and CEO, GAMCO Investors, Inc.

Mr. Gabelli is Chairman and CEO of GAMCO Investors, Inc., a New York Stock Exchange-listed company. Mr. Gabelli is a summa cum laude graduate of Fordham University and holds an M.B.A. degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Business as well as an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and Fordham University. He was Morningstar’s Portfolio Manager of the Year in 1997 and was named Money Manager of the Year by Institutional Investor for 2011.

 

Lisa Hess

President and Managing Partner, SkyTop Capital Management LLC

Ms. Hess is president and managing partner of SkyTop Capital, launched in October 2010. From 2002 to 2008, she was chief investment officer of Loews Corporation. Prior to joining Loews in 2002, she was a founding partner of Zesiger Capital Group.

Ms. Hess serves on the board of TIAA and the Radian Corporation and is a trustee of the WT Grant Foundation and The Chapin School. From 2002 to 2010, Ms. Hess was a regular columnist for Forbes magazine, and from 1996 to 2002 served on the United States Treasury Debt Advisory Committee.  Ms. Hess earned her B.A. from Harvard University and her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

 

John Kleinheinz

Founder and President, Kleinheinz Capital Partners, Inc.

Mr. Kleinheinz is the founder and president of Kleinheinz Capital Partners, Inc. (KCP), the manager of the Global Undervalued Securities Fund, a $2.25 billion long-short equity / global macro themed hedge fund which has returned 26.6% (net) per annum. KCP is based in Fort Worth, Texas, employs 26 professionals and manages investments for over 300 high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors.

Prior to founding KCP in 1996, Mr. Kleinheinz was a principal and shareholder of San Antonio Capital Management, a money management firm focused on investments in emerging market debt and equity, and managed the Russia Value Fund, one of the first Russian hedge funds. Previously, Mr. Kleinheinz worked for Merrill Lynch & Co. and Nomura Securities in New York, London, and Tokyo in the Corporate Finance and Mergers and Acquisitions divisions. Mr. Kleinheinz received a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University in 1984.

Mr. Kleinheinz has committed over $100 million to charities either directly or through the Kleinheinz Family Endowment for the Arts and Education.

 

R. Brad Martin
Chairman, RBM Venture Company

R. Brad Martin is the retired chairman and chief executive officer of Saks Incorporated and chairman of RBM Venture Company, his family investment business.

Mr. Martin retired as chairman of Saks after serving 20 years as an executive. Under his leadership, Saks and its predecessor business, Proffitt’s, Inc., grew from ten stores with annual revenues of $70 million to become one of the largest department store businesses in the United States. During Mr. Martin’s 18 years as chief executive officer, the value of its stock increased more than 12-fold.

Mr. Martin is involved in a variety of entrepreneurial and business activities. He co-founded Corporate Child Care, Inc., which subsequently evolved into the largest corporate-affiliated child care company in the U.S. He currently serves on the board of directors of FedEx Corporation, First
Horizon, Dillard’s, lululemon athletica and Pilot Travel Centers.

Mr. Martin is a graduate of The University of Memphis where he served as president of the student body and holds an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University. He served five terms as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives and is involved in a number of civic and philanthropic activities.

 

Ray Nixon
Executive Director and Portfolio Manager, Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss, LLC

Mr. Nixon joined Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss in June 1994 from Smith Barney, Inc., where he was a member of the firm's Investment Policy Committee and served as their lead institutional stockbroker for the Southwest. During his 33-year investment career, he also served as a research analyst for the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.

Mr. Nixon is a member of the board of the Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation, the Salvation Army (and former chairman), development board for The University of Texas, and the Susan G. Komen Investment Committee. He holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin.

 

Boone Pickens
Founder and Chairman, BP Capital Management

A legendary oil and gas entrepreneur who has become the nation’s most effective energy expert, T. Boone Pickens is on a mission to enhance U.S. energy policies to lessen the nation’s dependence on OPEC oil — a reliance that he views as the greatest threat to America’s national security and economic well-being. Cited by President Barack Obama for his leadership in developing The Pickens Plan for America’s energy future, the entrepreneur and visionary has long been an advocate for harnessing domestic alternatives and developing even greater new technologies. He has not been shy in predicting oil and gas prices, and has been uncannily accurate. As a result, he is a frequent guest on some of the nation’s most-watched business programs (CNBC coined him the “Oracle of Oil”). In his keynote presentations, Pickens showcases his folksy, candid, no-holds-barred approach to solving America’s energy crisis as well as the lessons he has learned over the course of his outstanding professional life. Truly an American success story, he grew from humble beginnings in Depression-era Holdenville, Oklahoma, to be one of the nation’s most successful businessmen, gracing the cover of Time, Fortune and virtually every other major business publication in America. A folk hero in global business for his tenacity in the rough-and-tumble world of mergers and acquisitions, his career has staggering breadth. He first built and led one of the largest independent natural gas and oil companies. Then, at a time in his life when many of his peers retired to the golf course, he reinvented himself by establishing one of the nation’s most successful energy-oriented investment funds. The much-honored Pickens chronicles the lessons he learned during the journey in his best-selling 2008 autobiography The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America’s Energy Future. Ranked by Forbes as one of the world’s richest people, Pickens also is an innovative, committed philanthropist who has donated nearly $1 billion to charity. His impact on American culture reflects his many interests and passions, including an unyielding belief in the entrepreneurial spirit, leadership in corporate fitness, the need for alternative fuel development, and prudent stewardship of American lands.

 

Michael Price

President, The Price Family Foundation, Inc. and Managing Member of MFP Investors, LLC

Mr. Price is the president of The Price Family Foundation, Inc., managing member of MFP Investors LLC, and director of Liquidnet Holdings and Nexsan Technologies. He also serves on boards for The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

Mr. Price was chairman of the board of Franklin Mutual Advisers and Franklin Mutual Series Fund. He had been associated with both entities and their predecessor organizations since 1975. At that time, the adviser was known as Heine Securities Corp and the fund was Mutual Shares Fund. Mr. Price was Vice President of the fund from 1975 until 1986. From 1986 until November 1998 he was chhief executive officer, president, and chairman of the board of the adviser and the fund, which came to be known as Mutual Series Fund.

Mr. Price earned his bachelor’s degree in 1973 from the University of Oklahoma. In 1999, the University of Oklahoma honored him with a Doctor of Humane Letters.

 

Gretchen Morgenson (Moderator)
Assistant Business and Financial Editor, The New York Times

Ms. Morgenson has been Assistant Business and Financial Editor and a Columnist at The New York Times since 1998. She covers the world financial markets and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her “trenchant and incisive” coverage of Wall Street. In 2009, Ms. Morgenson won a Gerald Loeb Award in the “Beat Writing” category in her coverage of Wall Street. This followed her Gerald Loeb Award for excellence in financial commentary in 2002 and the American University School of Communication’s Annual Journalism Award for excellence in personal finance reporting in 2000.

Ms. Morgenson began her career at Vogue magazine as an Assistant Editor in 1976. By the time she left the magazine in 1981, she was a writer and financial columnist. She has filled the roles of Assistant Managing Editor and Investigative Business Writer and Editor at Forbes magazine, Press Secretary for the Forbes for President Campaign, Executive Editor for Worth magazine, Staff Writer at Money magazine, and Stockbroker for Dean Witter Reynolds in New York from 1981 to 1984. Ms. Morgenson received a B.A. degree in English and History from Saint Olaf College. She is co-author of The New York Times bestseller Reckless Endangerment, published by Times Books in May 2011.