WealthTrack on Whitney Tilson and David Winters

CONSUELO MACK: Yes, we do. Whitney Tilson, you're more domestically oriented but you're not a buyer per se.

WHITNEY TILSON: We're doing more selling than buying. During this rally we've been trimming a lot of our longs in our hedge fund, adding to some of our shorts. And six months ago we were playing offense, today we're playing defense. The reason is twofold. One is valuations- if you look at the S&P 500, everyone uses different estimates, but the latest ones I saw, trading 19 times next year's earnings and 17 times the subsequent year’s earnings. And those earnings are pretty optimistic earnings estimates; analysts are assuming that corporate earnings return to peak levels only two years from now. And so even at those peak levels, it's trading at a pretty rich multiple, and secondly, we're very concerned that we're in for a long grinding recession. Armageddon is off the table I think, that's the good news. But the housing crisis, which has been really driving this recession, we think has many more years of abnormally high losses that's going to keep the financial system weak and keep our economy not necessarily on life support, but certainly far from robust.

CONSUELO MACK: But longer term, David, if you're, again, skating where the puck is and you're looking at the China market for instance, the China consumer, one of the things that Michael has been reporting on and other people as well is the reflation that's occurred in China, the incredible stimulus that's occurred, which is supposed to be very inflationary- are you concerned about a bubble developing in China? Is that something that’s on your radar screen?

DAVID WINTERS: Absolutely. I don't know what's going to happen, or really anybody else does. But I think the inflation issue is something that almost no one is talking about, and you have it right on the nose. That's why we like companies like Nestle, because kids of all ages have always liked chocolate bars. When I was a kid, a chocolate bar was ten cents. It’s a buck. In my lifetime chocolate bars have gone up ten times and you get paid 3.5% to wait and they've got all these other assets, so they buyback stock. So we look for companies that can grow all over the world. You can diversify your currency streams and you really don't have a lot of risk. There's this whole idea of market risk. But chocolate bars are not a risky place.

Full Transcript

David Winters: Managing An Unsure Market

David Winters on WealthTrack Interview

Full Video interview

David Winters: Bloomberg Interview: Why he loves Swire Pacific, Swatch Group, Japan Tobacco.

Interview

Wintergreen's Global Hunt for Bargains

David Winters discusses picks from his go-anywhere strategy.

Full Video Interview

Wintergreen: 13F - HR May 15, 2007

Wintergreen: 13F - HR

Source: Letsvalue

Billionaire Bets

Putting your money where the billionaires are investing right now, with David Winters, Wintergreen Advisers CEO; Mohnish Pabrai, Pabrai Funds managing partner and CNBC's Maria Bartiromo

Thank you Shai for the link.

Please visit: CNBC.com.

Wintergreen Fund 2006 Annual Report

Wintergreen Fund 2006 Annual Report

Happy learning,
David

David Winters: The Fat, Slow Pitch

From Forbes:

-----------------------

The award for the most perplexing career move of 2005 goes to David J. Winters, formerly chief executive officer and chief investment officer of Franklin Mutual Advisers. Winters resigned from that $35 billion fund behemoth in order to found his own mutual fund. Repeat: mutual fund, not hedge fund. He calls his creation Wintergreen.

Ask him the question most often put to hedge fund jockeys by jumpy institutional investors: "What's your edge?" And he replies, "We're long-term investors."

Imperial Tobacco Group, whose stock is available in London as well as New York, is an example of what Winters means by fat and slow. He can hardly contain himself in describing this British cigarette manufacturer, which operates beyond the reach of the U.S. courts. "Ten years ago they were spun off from Hanson, and since then the rates of return are just wild," Winter says. "The compound rates of return have just been spectacular. They've taken it from being a domestic U.K. business to being a very global organization. And they've done a series of really intelligent acquisitions. They now buy back their own stock. They pay nice dividends. Excellent corporate governance and accounting." All this for the equivalent of 14 times the 2007 earnings estimate.

Newspaper publisher Gannett, for example, was trading at 12 times trailing net income, the lowest multiple in 15 years. "Wall Street loves companies that are growing at 35% a year," Winters said at the time, "but it has real trouble looking at companies that are either in decline or have some of the characteristics of a liquidation. The same thing was true when I invested in the steel industry a couple of years ago."

-----------------------

Wintergreen Fund

David J. Winters says he wants his associates at Wintergreen Advisers in Mountain Lakes to be so content that they "tap-dance to work."

His new fund, Wintergreen (WGRNX), started last October, is up slightly more than 9 percent.

What makes his new fund different?

It enjoys the best of two worlds, he explains. It has the transparency of a traditional mutual fund along with adherence to the SEC regulations that help keep managers honest.

He also has the tools of hedge funds: the ability to go anywhere for things to buy, to engage in short-selling (which he has done only on a small scale), arbitrage, hedging currencies and so forth. "We can do essentially everything a hedge fund can do -- except leveraging." (Borrowing to invest.)

In short, his fund is flexible. It's also global: Almost half of the assets are invested in foreign companies.

How many stocks does his fund own?

About 30, and he expects to keep the number down -- to focus on his best bets.

What advice would he give to all the people I meet who are afraid to invest in the stock market?

Buy one share of Berkshire Hathaway B, selling for about $3,300, which is "a fine collection of companies, managed by one of the smartest men on the planet, Warren Buffett."

To read the complete article.