The Contributors
Seth A. Klarman, president of the Boston-based Baupost Group, L.L.C., manages a series of successful investment partnerships using Graham and Dodd principles. In his preface, Klarman discusses the timelessness of their philosophy, the changes in the environment with which value investors must work, and the unanswerable questions that will always require value investors to work hard. He is also the author of Margin of Safety, a classic investment book. Klarman is the lead editor of this sixth edition.
James Grant, founder and editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, has been writing about markets and financial figures for over 30 years. He is the author of five books, including biographies of financier Bernard Baruch and President John Adams. He is a founding general partner of Nippon Partners, a hedge fund that invests in Japan. Grant’s introduction takes us back to Graham and Dodd’s era to put Security Analysis in a historical perspective. He also served as an editor of this sixth edition.
Roger Lowenstein, one of America’s top financial journalists, gives us his keen insights into contemporary value investing. Lowenstein is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine, Portfolio, and Smart Money. He is also the bestselling author of the book, Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist and When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital. His most recent book is While America Aged. Lowenstein is also an outside director of the Sequoia Fund.
Howard S. Marks, CFA, chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management based in Los Angeles, was an early investor in high yield bonds and a devotee of Graham and Dodd. At first glance, those two ideas appear to be antithetical, but Marks says that’s not the case. His introduction to Part II, which is about fixed income investments, explains how the ideas in Security Analysis can be applied profitably to today’s corporate bond market.
J. Ezra Merkin, managing partner of Gabriel Capital Group in New York City, is one of today’s leading investors in corporate bankruptcy and distressed securities. In “Blood and Judgement,” which is the introduction to Part III, Merkin lays out various bankruptcy scenarios using real examples and analyzes them as investment opportunities from a value
buyer’s perspective.
Bruce Berkowitz, is the founder of Fairholme Capital Management and the manager of the Fairholme Fund, a value mutual fund. This Miamibased investor offers his insights on corporate dividends and their modern-day equivalent, free cash flow. Using examples and anecdotes from his own experience, Berkowitz provides this key update to Graham and Dodd’s wisdom.
Glenn H. Greenberg, cofounder and managing director of New York–based Chieftain Capital Management, admits flat out that he never read Security Analysis in business school and that even midway through his career, he found the text a bit fusty. Going back to the book after more than three decades on Wall Street, he finds it remarkable for its enduring sound advice. His introduction to Part V shows us how to assess companies and their income statements with a value investor’s eye.
Bruce Greenwald, is the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia Business School, and he also heads the Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing. In his introduction to Part VI, he tears apart the corporate balance sheet and shares his unique insights on this most important of financial statements. He is the author of Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond. He also served as an editor of this sixth edition.
David Abrams, heads his own investment partnership, Boston-based Abrams Capital Management. In “The Great Illusion of the Stock Market and the Future of Value Investing,” which is the introduction to Part VII, Abrams offers his early experiences in and lessons from the investment business and makes the dry subject of warrants and options come alive.
Thomas A. Russo, is a partner in Gardner Russo & Gardner, which is based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and is a general partner of Semper Vic Partners, L.P. Russo has specialized in global value investing for over 20 years. His essay introduces the part of the book that was never written—value investing in global markets. The subject was small bore in Graham and Dodd’s day, but it is of great importance now.
Jeffrey M. Laderman, CFA, served as an editor of this sixth edition. He is a 25-year veteran of BusinessWeek and has written and edited articles on everything from stock market crises to trading scandals. He is now the editor of “On the Markets” and “The View,” publications that go to the clients of Smith Barney and Citi Private Bank respectively.