Richard Clark, Director of Sales and Marketing, Jensen Investment Management met with Julie Cooling, Founder & CEO, RIA Channel to discuss the firm’s quality-based investment strategy.
Founded in 1988, Jensen Investment Management is a roughly $8.6 billion asset manager based in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The 100% employee-owned shop emphasizes a client first mentality as well as a collaborative approach to quality-based investment management. Seeking long-term returns and minimized risk, the firm’s investment philosophy prioritizes a select group of steadily performing companies over broad market exposure. Jensen offers its strategies in the form of mutual funds and separately managed accounts.
The foundation of Jensen’s Quality Growth and Quality Value strategies center around what the firm refers to as The Jensen Quality Universe™. Starting with a pool of over 4,000 publicly traded companies, Jensen whittles down their investable universe into 230 firms. These 230 companies must meet strict criteria around return on shareholder equity, consistency of earnings growth, and display a sustainable competitive advantage. From there, the Jensen investment team leverages bottom-up fundamental analysis and a proprietary process to measure cash flow, assign valuations to determine which 25 – 50 firms belong in their Quality Growth Fund or Quality Value Fund. The firm’s concentrated stock approach aims to deliver investors a smoother ride than the sometimes bumpy S&P or Russell Index. Jensen’s recent blog post, Jensen Quality Growth Fund: Peak to Peak Spotlight, highlights the benefits of the fund throughout an entire economic and stock market cycle.
Richard Clark, has been a part of the Jensen team for nearly two decades. Today, he leverages his experience and background to serve the intermediary channel in terms of sales and client service. Prior to joining the financial services industry, Clark worked as a professional counselor and later worked as an advisor at both Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.
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