Seth Klarman
Seth Klarman is a value investing legend and the Co-Founder and CEO of the Baupost Group, one of the largest hedge funds with approximately $29 billion of assets under management. He has overseen the Baupost Group’s investments since its inception in 1982. Klarman is a billionaire investor, hedge fund manager, author, and proponent of value investing. He has gained recognition for his distinctive value investing methodology and unconventional strategies. He is the author of Margin of Safety, a book that outlines his value investment philosophy, and the editor and contributor to the Benjamin Graham and David Dodd classic, Security Analysis. He also regularly teaches in investment classes at leading colleges and business schools and speaks at various industry gatherings.
Seth Klarman Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
-
Co-Founder and CEO
Academic History
-
M.B.A., Baker Scholar
-
B.A., Economics, Magna cum Laude
CURRENT APPOINTMENTS
Co-Founder and CEO, Baupost Group
Board of Dean's Advisors, Harvard Business School
Board Member, Broad Institute
Vice Chair, Beth Israel Hospital’s Board of Managers
Co-Chairman, The Klarman Family Foundation
Baupost Group uses a value discipline with an event-driven bias to find global opportunities in such diverse areas.
The firm manages roughly $29 billion with a broad and flexible charter, investing in a wide range of asset classes, including significant holdings in publicly traded debt and equity securities, private debt, real estate, and private equity.
Klarman has overseen the firm’s investments since inception and now works alongside the firm’s President Jim Mooney and an extensive team of skilled and experienced investment partners and analysts to thoughtfully steward our clients’ capital.
RECOGNITION
Klarman was inducted into Institutional Investor Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame in 2008.
He is sometimes referred to as "the Warren Buffett of his generation".
Forbes listed Seth Klarman as one of the 25 Highest-Earning hedge fund managers in 2013.
Forbes listed his personal fortune at US$1.50 billion as of 2021.
He earned the moniker "Oracle of Boston," reflecting his paramount role in the investment world.
INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY
Klarman is a very conservative investor, and often holds a significant amount of cash in his investment portfolios, sometimes in excess of 50% of the total.
He often makes unusual investments—he buys unpopular assets while they are undervalued, seeking a margin of safety and profiting from any rise in price.
He also uses complex derivatives and buys put options. Klarman has been regularly featured in a variety of investment industry publications.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
His 2013 total earnings of $350 million rank him the 20th among the 25 top-earning hedge fund managers.
He has been an avid supporter of the teachings of Benjamin Graham.
He stresses the utility in the economy's business cycles and their predestined and perpetual self-corrective tendency.
He is the 15th highest-earning hedge fund manager in the world.
Once a major donor to the Republican Party, Klarman publicly denounced Trump in 2016, and has been contributing to the Democratic Party.
MEDIA & APPEARANCES
Klarman has been profiled or featured in numerous financial media outlets and publications.
He has appeared in Forbes, CNBC, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Markets Insider, Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Institutional Investor, Business Insider, Seeking Alpha, Yahoo! Finance, The Boston Globe, and Barron's.