An In Depth Look At The Value Investing Congress

The 2010 Value Investing Congress (VIC) is being held at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, next week, and I recently had a chance to speak with co-founders Whitney Tilson and John L. Schwartz M.D., about the

The VIC started as a result of Schwartz investing with Tilson at T2 Partners 10 years ago, where Tilson is a fund manager, and founder of the firm. Tilson is a long time value investor, and has been to the Berkshire Hathaway

annual shareholder meeting to hear Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger speak many times, as well as many other investing conferences. Tilson decided that he didn't like the way other conferences were run, which used panels of speakers, and decided that a change needed to be made. Whitney saw value in the question and answer session that the speakers were doing at the end of conference, particularly liking Seth Klarman speak, and decided that an investing conference needed to be more like that. Schwartz had already been in the conference business prior to the VIC, having founded CME, Inc., which is a conference provider for medical professionals to continue their medical education. Schwartz went to Tilson and wanted to know more about meetings and an idea was born. A couple of the new speakers this year are Kyle Bass, of Hayman Capital, and Lee S. Ainslie, of Maverick Capital. Also new to the New York conference is Francisco Parames of Bestinver Asset Management, who Tilson described as "the European Warren Buffett." Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management and David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital Management are returning speakers. Einhorn is a noteworthy speaker at the VIC, as he described his thesis for being short Lehman Bros. in 2007, well before any one had an idea that issues were about to arise at the now defunct investment bank. Tilson said, "It was an all time great call. Investors had not yet panicked." Tilson and Schwartz do not front run the trading ideas, meaning they are not allowed to trade the ideas given at the presentation until they have been shared with the audience. Schwartz described the Congress more in detail, saying that it always sells out, and they have a waiting list of people who want to hear the key note speakers discuss their ideas and thesis on stock ideas. Schwartz added that a major focal point of the conference is not only the terrific stock ideas being provided, but the networking that goes on, as the audience interacts with the speakers. The Value Investing Congress is being held October 12-13.