Investopedia, a leading financial education website, featured Sunny Vanderbeck, co-founder and managing partner of Satori Capital, in the new Investopedia Influencers series. During this Q&A, Sunny offered wisdom and insights for both beginning and advanced investors.
Q: What is your investing philosophy?
At Satori, we include all of the traditional things you’d expect as an investor. For example, in the private equity business, we look at market share, profitability, strategy, and so forth. When we invest in other funds, we look at alpha, Sharpe ratio, and structural arbitrage. We find a lot of value in all of those economic or financial buzzwords and very tangible things.
What makes our investing philosophy different, though, is that we take an additional data source. We think the non-financial dimensions of business are as important as the financial or tangible dimensions. Said another way, inside a hedge fund, let’s say there are two similarly situated funds and one is among the “Best Places to Work,” while at the other, portfolio managers throw chairs at analysts. We believe that over time the one with the great culture will outperform. One reason is that a great culture encourages great ideas as well as both taking and uncovering risk.