ABOUT US / PALM SYSTEM
Our investment
A BETTER APPROACH
Palm SystemSM combines independent high-conviction decision-making with the diversity that comes from multiple perspectives. It has delivered long-term results that help clients pursue their goals.
HOW IT WORKS
Our portfolios house diverse
perspectives
Multi-manager structure
We divide portfolios into segments, each run by an individual manager. The managers represent a diverse set of backgrounds, styles and approaches. Typically, each is personally invested in the portfolios they manage
Our portfolios feature high-
conviction investments
Promoting independent thinking
While managers collaborate and share insights, each invests independently according to their strongest convictions. The resulting portfolios are a diverse collection of investment ideas, not just one manager’s perspective. This approach creates the potential for portfolios to fare well in a variety of market conditions.
Our investments are grounded in
fundamental research
Research-driven investing
Our investment analysts conducted more than 20,000 meetings with companies in 2020. Keeping in close contact with management teams and spending time on location, when possible, help drive deep operational understanding and informs all our investment decisions.
Our investment analysts do more more
than make recommendations
The research portfolio
At most firms, analysts only recommend investments, but at Palm Alliance Management they typically have the opportunity to actually invest in their highest conviction ideas. Most funds have research portfolios managed by analysts.
Our system provides management
continuity and a consistent approach
A time-tested system
Our multiple-manager system supports our commitment to investors with long-term goals. It has allowed us to navigate near-term noise and periods of economic and market uncertainty in pursuit of key goals..
Designed to help investors pursue
long-term investment success
Aligned with investor goals
We strongly believe long-term investing aligns with client goals, and our culture and compensation structure reinforce that focus. We typically hold investments significantly longer than our industry peers.*.
Our Approach
Palm Alliance Management has generated strong performance since inception by consistently employing our long-term, concentrated, engaged value investment discipline. We apply the same in-depth, fundamental company research and rigorous security selection across all strategies. A key to our decades-long success has been our business ownership mindset that underlies our investment criteria of high-quality businesses, run by capable people, trading at a discounted price.
Long-Term: patient, disciplined, intelligent investing
As long-term business owners – not traders or speculators – we can capitalize on the fear and greed that drive short-term market prices by investing with a five-plus year horizon, using objective intrinsic values.
We have maintained our long-term discipline since our inception, even as time horizons for most investors have moved meaningfully shorter. As long-term, bottom-up, fundamental business appraisers, volatility is our friend and enables time horizon arbitrage. Short-term market price dislocations give us the opportunity to own discounted, high quality businesses run by partners who compound long-term value, which are temporarily out of favor. Because Palm Alliance Management is independent and employee-owned and our employees are collectively our own largest client, we can stick to our long-term discipline, even in times when it feels difficult to do so. However, it is not enough to be a long-term investor; you must also have a client base that will think and act long-term. We have aligned ourselves with our clients by investing alongside them in our funds, closing our strategies when it would benefit our shareholders to do so and maintaining an open dialogue over time. We are fortunate to have developed a strong base of likeminded, long-term, aligned clients who have allowed us to successfully pursue our approach .
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In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.
PAM’s Average
Active Share
*Our high Active Share - defined as the percentage of fund holdings that is different from the benchmark holdings - reflects the truly differentiated nature of our portfolios.
Concentrated: enhancing potential returns and minimizing risk
We own what we view as the most qualified 18-22 global investments in each portfolio.
Concentrating allows adequate diversification while providing the opportunity to maximize returns and minimize loss. Most research shows that holding 10-12 uncorrelated investments allows for adequate diversification. Owning 18-22 allows us to concentrate in our best ideas while allowing for potential overlapping risk factors or correlations. Concentrating in our best ideas allows our global investment team to form a deep understanding of each business through in-depth research and continual refinement of each case over time. We take a private equity-like approach to vetting each business and engaging on an ongoing basis with our management teams.
Our concentrated approach also applies to how we run our business. We employ a single, consistent investment approach. We understand and stick to our circle of competence and only seed new strategies when we find an opportunity set where we want to invest our own capital that we cannot access in our current funds. We operate a team-driven structure. We have a concentrated research team of 15 generalists across our three research offices. The team is deep and experienced enough to adequately cover the globe but nimble enough to effectively collaborate across borders.
Engaged: applying an ownership mindset
We view our portfolio company management teams and boards of directors as partners, and we constructively engage with them to help drive successful, long-term outcomes, using our global network, size and reputation.
We seek to partner with aligned management teams that have a track record of creating value for shareholders. We approach every investment with a business owner mindset, and we believe it is our fiduciary duty to always keep an engaged dialogue with our management teams and boards of directors. Even in cases where we are fully supportive of management, we are never passive. Our experience and reputation of being a large, long-term, collaborative shareholder gives us access to management and the credibility to share ideas and help effect positive outcomes. Our extensive global network, built over four decades, is a unique competitive advantage that allows us to evaluate businesses and management from multiple perspectives. We tailor our engagement in each country based on our on-the-ground experience and understanding of what is most effective in each region.
Value: following Ben Graham’s investment discipline
We are value investors and demand a wide margin of safety to minimize the risk of permanent capital loss and maximize return potential.
We believe that margin of safety is the driving force for long-term, intelligent investing, but cheap is not enough. Every business must meet our quantitative and qualitative criteria. We require a high-quality business and management because they increase the probability that the company’s future value per share will grow and that our outcome will be better than expected. We must purchase that quality at a discount to our appraisal value to have a margin of safety in the event of unexpected challenges in the unknowable future. Finding all three investment criteria – strong business, good people and discounted price – is extremely difficult.
'HIRE' RATED MANAGER PERFORMANCE
+1.62%*
Our 'hire' rated managers outperform their benchmark by an average of 1.62%.
Robust
These results are measured over rolling 5-year periods from the start of the millennium to the end of 2019.
79%*
On average, 79% of our 'hire' rated managers beat their benchmark.
Intelligently diversified
The future is uncertain, we focus on making the most of it.
Our approach to asset allocation and diversification is based on one simple insight. No one asset class or style always outperforms. No single manager is great at everything. History repeats this story time and time again.
This insight informs our diversified approach. Our expertise extends well beyond traditional stocks and bonds, with extensive expertise in non-traditional asset classes including infrastructure and private equity—over 170 asset categories in total.
We draw on this expertise to design an asset allocation, stress-testing across 5,000+ possible scenarios to help ensure it offers the highest likelihood of reaching your goals.
BRINGING TOGETHER SPECIALIST EXPERTISE IN:
All
major asset classes
15
Factors
30+
Sectors
170+
Sub asset classes
220+
Investment styles
14k+
14k+
TRUST
Palm Alliance Management is tremendously proud of the trust clients place in us, and it is an honor we work diligently to uphold every day. We are committed to developing long-lasting relationships with each client and providing a comfortable, successful investment experience. Our personal advisors engage new clients in an initial assessment to discuss their financial and personal situations, goals and investment strategy in detail. Not only does this inform investment choices, it enables a strong client-advisor relationship based on openness and integrity.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR NEEDS
By fully understanding each client’s unique investment objectives and issues (such as investment length or income tax requirements) we provide the most suitable asset management and wealth planning opportunities. Palm Alliance Management offers exclusive investment vehicles that meet the specific conditions and goals of each client.
SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT RETURNS
Most of our clients prefer to increase their wealth through conservative, low-volatility investments. To meet their needs, we develop appropriate strategies, utilizing carefully selected investments. Palm Alliance Management follows a value-oriented investment approach with a strong focus on constant and predictable cash flow as well as an exclusion of investments that lead to loss of purchasing power.TRANSPARENCY
When clients have questions, we pride ourselves on delivering clear – and timely – answers. Each client can monitor the status of his or her account any time and from any secure internet connection. Advisors are just as accessible: they are always available to discuss specific concerns as they arise.
THE POWER OF DIVERSITY
Bringing it all together
Bringing it all together The Palm System builds portfolios that house multiple, disparate views. This diversity creates the potential for portfolios to fare well in a variety of market conditions.