the sun-drenched house he’s renting in the ritzy Miami enclave of Bay Harbor Island, Adam Wyden is livid at the news crossing his Bloomberg terminal. It’s April 22, and markets are sinking on a report that President Biden aims to raise capital-gains tax rates to 39.6% for high earners, effectively doubling the rate for rich investors.
Over the past decade, the younger Wyden, 37, has grown his bar mitzvah money and personal savings into a $350 million hedge fund in which his share is now worth $100 million. Through his Miami-based ADW Capital Partners, Wyden has proven his mettle as a deep value investor buying companies full of underappreciated assets. He hunts far from the picked-over S&P 500, preferring micro- and small-cap stocks mostly ignored by analysts and large hedge funds.
Wyden bought a large position in Fiat Chrysler in 2014 after learning investors were getting ownership of its Ferrari subsidiary at virtually no cost. The supercar maker was spun off in 2016 and now trades at a $50 billion market value, many times Fiat’s entire market cap when Wyden first invested. He calls such investments “Russian doll” stocks because inside, they hold valuable hidden assets.
In 2008, as the stock market was crashing, Wyden enrolled at Warren Buffett’s alma mater, Columbia Business School, and began to invest his savings aggressively, looking for “blood in the street” bargain stocks. His focus was on cash-rich, undervalued microcap companies like bottom-tier brokerage firm Rodman and Renshaw, which was trading at between 10 and 30 cents but was profiting by arranging dubious Chinese reverse mergers for hefty fees.
EVI Industries, a distributor of commercial laundry equipment, which had soared to $47 from $6 in 2016, when Wyden invested, shed nearly half its value. Wyden lashed out, accusing the company of misalignment. When other stocks in his portfolio began to underperform, he turned activist.
He's not worried about this pose for the photo?
What
Unlike Sen_JoeManchin that does what’s is the best interest of his daughters company
good luck