Business & Finance
Business and Finance
Business and Finance
Tue, November 9, 2010 "AAA" - S&P Awards AAA Rating to GAM GAMCO EquitySeven Straight Years
RYE, N.Y.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--GAMCO Investors, Inc. (NYSE: GBL) announced that Standard & Poora™s has awarded its AAA rating to the GAM GAMCO Equity fund for the seventh consecutive year.
"Our investment team is especially honored bythis S&P AAA rating, which again underscores our research driven Private Market Value with a Catalyst a" approach to astock pickinga™. We have been privileged to serve GAM as the adviser to the GAM GAMCO Equity fund since its inception in October 1987."
Mario Gabelli, Chairman of GAMCO Investors, Inc. said,"Our investment team is especially honored bythis S&P AAA rating, which again underscores our research driven Private Market Value with a Catalyst a" approach to astock pickinga™. We have been privileged to serve GAM as the adviser to the GAM GAMCO Equity fund since its inception in October 1987.a
GAM GAMCO Equity is one of only three funds among the 69 rated in S&Pa™s U.S. Mainstream Equities peer group as of October 1, 2010 to receive the AAA rating.
The S&P AAA rating is a widely acknowledged measure of excellence, awarded only when, in S&Pa™s words:
The fund demonstrates the highest standards of quality in its sector based on its investment process and managementa™s consistency of performance as compared to funds with similar objectives.
In affirming the AAA rating for the fund, S&P said:
Performance success from a consistent process applied by an experienced manager, results in the S&P AAA rating.
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The following is excerpted from S&Pa™s AAA November 2010 rating report on GAM GAMCO Equity:
Thematic and industry views are used to direct research towards areas showing structural growth and/or consolidation, with Gabelli and his senior analysts being key to this process. Support in terms of stock research is provided by a 30-strong team of global sector analysts. They are responsible for conducting in-depth analysis of the opportunities within a given area, conducting a large number of meetings with companies, their competitors and suppliers, to ensure a full understanding at the industry and stock levels. Future earnings are modelled, with private market values estimated through ratio analysis.
GAMCO's team of 30 global equity research analysts is structured along seven broad sector categories. One of four senior analysts leads each group. The analysts follow their sectors on a global basis. Each analyst is responsible for gathering, arraying, and projecting company data for making investment decisions. Experience in the team varies considerably. The majority of the analysts are US-based with others in London, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
On the Funda™s Management style, S&P wrote:
Gabelli follows a bottom-up, value-driven approach, developed from Graham & Dodd. The approach uses detailed fundamental analysis to highlight stocks that are currently undervalued, but have a reasonable probability of realising a private market value (PMV) through the intervention of a discernible catalyst. The PMV is the value they believe an informed investor would be willing to pay for a company. Catalysts can be a specific event or a range of circumstances with varying time horizons.
Research is focused by themes that reflect Gabelli's areas of interest and experience. There is often a bias to industries such as media where a wealth of industry data can be used to compare asset values. Holdings should have a strong franchise, a shareholder-friendly management and the ability to generate free cash flow. Most opportunities are found in under-researched small-/mid-cap stocks.
Positions are built gradually according to conviction, on a five to 10-year horizon and turnover is therefore very low.
Sector weights are not constrained. Risk is largely controlled by building a broadly diversified portfolio with no consideration for the S&P 500 index benchmark.
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GAM GAMCO Equity is an open-end, British Virgin Islands domiciled, investment company sub-advised by GAMCO Asset Management Inc. (a subsidiary of GAMCO Investors, Inc) for GAM, continuously since October 1987.
Standard & Poora™s is a globally recognized provider of objective fund information as well as ratings on debt securities; a leading authority in the investment world. S&Pa™s fund evaluation process is based on an in-depth analysis of both the quantitative and qualitative factors considered to be key contributors to long-term investment performance. These include the historic performance, volatility and portfolio construction of a fund; the managera™s investment process, risk control, skill, experience and resources; and the groupa™s corporate management, investment culture and stability.
GAMCO Investors, Inc., through its subsidiaries, manages private advisory accounts (GAMCO Asset Management Inc.), mutual funds and closed-end funds (Gabelli Funds, LLC), and partnerships and offshore funds (Gabelli Securities, Inc.). As of September 30, 2010, GAMCO had $29.5 billion in assets under management.
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SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION
Our disclosure and analysis in this press release contain some forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements give our current expectations or forecasts of future events. You can identify these statements because they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. They use words such as aanticipate,a aestimate,a aexpect,a aproject,a aintend,a aplan,a abelieve,a and other words and terms of similar meaning. They also appear in any discussion of future operating or financial performance. In particular, these include statements relating to future actions, future performance of our products, expenses, the outcome of any legal proceedings, and financial results. Although we believe that we are basing our expectations and beliefs on reasonable assumptions within the bounds of what we currently know about our business and operations, there can be no assurance that our actual results will not differ materially from what we expect or believe. Some of the factors that could cause our actual results to differ from our expectations or beliefs include, without limitation: the adverse effect from a decline in the securities markets; a decline in the performance of our products; a general downturn in the economy; changes in government policy or regulation; changes in our ability to attract or retain key employees; and unforeseen costs and other effects related to legal proceedings or investigations of governmental and self-regulatory organizations. We do not undertake to update publicly any forward-looking statements if we subsequently learn that we are unlikely to achieve our expectations or if we receive any additional information relating to the subject matters of our forward-looking statements.
