Richard Ryskalczyk, CFA, Partner and Chief Equity Analyst, Sandhill Investment Management, joins Julie Cooling, Founder and CEO, RIA Channel to discuss the firm’s flagship Concentrated Equity Alpha Strategy, differentiated approach to active management, and history of consistent performance.
The Buffalo-based investment manager is well-known for their multi-cap, high conviction approach to stock picking. Rather than fit into a pre-exsisting style or strategy box, the Sandhill investment team leverages its bottom-up, collaborative research methodology to uncover companies across the size spectrum, most likely to win long-term.
The Concentrated Equity Alpha portfolio, Sandhill’s proprietary multi-cap growth product, is made up of about 30 high quality companies. Focused on delivering long-term risk-adjusted returns, these high quality companies have “some type of structural economic advantage or tailwind behind them that propels long-term growth for a multi-year time horizon,” says Ryskalczyk.
The research team works together to collect a “much broader mosaic of information,” says Ryskalczyk. This collaboration combined with the adaptability of active management gives Sandhill a significant competitive edge. “Having that collective mind frame allows us to make better decisions over the longer term,” says Ryskalczyk, who leads the research team at Sandhill. The analysts maintain high levels of autonomy, giving them the flexibility required to respond to times of high uncertainty and volatility. Top portfolio holdings include cutting edge companies like Palo Alto Networks Inc. (PANW), a global cybersecurity leader and Transmedics, a company that’s pioneering medical transplantation technology.
Sandhill’s fixed income allocation strategy leverages a similar research-driven approach. “We’re a very simple buy and hold, looking for quality credits that we think are somewhat mispriced either due to the size of the company or size of the issuance, that we can offer to our clients and get a nice yield to maturity,” says Ryskalczyk.
Sandhill Investment Management is a boutique investment management firm that oversees over $2.1 billion in assets. They offer four proprietarily managed investment products and serve clients and institutions in over 42 states in America.