Glen Eagle Resources is mentioned in this report by Brian Ostroff from Windemere Capital (Source: George Mack of The Energy Report 04/14/2011) Conflict Exposes Need for Phosphate Independence
ABSTRACT
There’s more to fertilizer than potash, according to Windermere Capital Managing Director Brian Ostroff. He touts the value to be found in phosphate and offers his take on how the unrest in Africa, environmental concerns, global food prices and basic geology drive the phosphate market in this exclusive interview with The Energy Report.
The Energy Report: Brian, please start by sharing Windermere Capital’s investment philosophy.
Brian Ostroff: Windermere is an investment manager. We currently oversee two hedge funds with a natural resource focus. The Breakaway Strategic Resource Fund and the Navigator Fund are both offshore hedge funds based in the Cayman Islands. They are open-ended funds designed for high net-worth individuals and institutional investors. They are quoted on the Irish Stock Exchange, but subscriptions are done directly with the fund. Most of the people here have technical backgrounds as opposed to a financial or capital markets background. We have two partners in our fund—Ocean Partners, which is made up of the former ores and concentrate trading team at Pechiney and Peter Hawley and his group. These guys have all been in the business for +30 years, building and operating mines.
The other area where we think differently from other funds is that we are active investors. We tend to take fair-sized stakes in the companies in which we get involved. Then, we try to help the company going forward by making additions on its board, perhaps helping it operationally, assessing its assets and either helping the company divest or find other assets.
Finally, we are extremely value oriented. We tend to look at a company and assemble a peer group. We try to understand why a given company is trading considerably cheaper than similar operations, and then we identify the issues and how we could close the gap. After that, we have a discussion with management to see that we’re all on the same page. Once again, we are active—not activist. We have a meeting of the minds and when everyone is comfortable with the
business plan, we tend to make our investment.
(Source: George Mack of The Energy Report 04/14/2011) Conflict Exposes Need for Phosphate Independence
