User talk:SnowCM

Snow Capital Management L.P. is a boutique investment manager, which is headquartered in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. The firm was founded in 1980 as RAS Capital Management. It registered with the SEC in 1990 as an independent investment adviser. In 2001 the RAS Capital Management was restructured as Snow Capital Management L.P.

Founding
Richard Snow started the company in his early twenties investing the proceeds from his family businesses after they were sold. Snow developed an investment philosophy and process that attempted to preserve capital and realize long-term appreciation by selecting securities with attractive risk/reward attributes. Over three decades later, Snow Capital Management L.P. still employs the same time-tested process to manage investments for their clients. Snow's family assets are still managed along-side these portfolios.

Operations
While continuing to play an active role in managing the portfolios, Richard Snow has developed a talented and experienced investment team of professionals who embrace his process and philosophy of value equity investing. Collaboration is at the core of our investment process. A culture of open and continuous dialogue among the investment team exists throughout the investment cycle. This collaboration begins with idea generation using proprietary fundamental screens and news flow, continues through the analysis and thesis stages, and into portfolio implementation. The result is a portfolio of continuously monitored companies.

Investing Strategies
The firm offers several value strategies that are available in multiple formats. Snow Capital Management uses a contrarian, fundamental, relative value investment philosophy. Snow Capital's intensive, collaborative research is their most powerful risk management tool. Potential securities are determined by valuation, market capitalization, and fundamentals. Selections are further evaluated through a detailed review of the financial statements, industry characteristics, potential catalysts, and possible appreciation of the company's current stock price. The portfolio managers may decide to invest in the company based on its characteristics and suitability for specific portfolios. The company advises that attractive returns can be earned by constructing diversified portfolios of well-managed, financially strong companies where the stock price is depressed because the company has experienced short-to intermediate-term difficulties.

Value investing is prudent investing at Snow Capital Management L.P. The firm employs a contrarian, fundamental, relative value investment philosophy. The firm's philosophy is that attractive returns can be earned by constructing diversified portfolios of well-managed, financially strong companies where the stock price is depressed because the company has experienced short-to intermediate-term difficulties. This philosophy is consistent with modern behavioral finance research. It attempts to take advantage of investors' overreaction to negative surprises and, as a result, should avoid overpaying for the crowd's current favorites. This investment philosophy relies on independent, fundamental research to determine the nature of the problem, assess the likelihood of a solution, gain confidence that the company has the financial resources to survive the difficulty, and estimate the likely value of the company's stock after the problem is resolved. When skillfully executed, this contrarian philosophy should result in a portfolio of stocks with the potential for an asymmetrical payoff. The downside should be minimized because the stock price is already depressed, the company appears to be in sound financial condition, Wall Street's opinion is already negative, and investor expectations are low. The upside potential may be enhanced by both the expected earnings turnaround, and more powerfully, the potential expansion of the price-to-earnings ratio that a positive change in investor sentiment can generate after an earnings recovery.

Analytics
Once the risk association and valuation of securities determine the selection, the analytic review takes place. The analytic review may take months or quarters to complete and involves ongoing investment team collaboration. During the review the investment team conducts an exhaustive review of the company, and upon completion of the review an analyst formally presents an assessment of the investment thesis. The decision to invest in the company is made by the portfolio managers based on the characteristics and suitability for specific portfolios. Any company that qualified through the analytic review, but did not meet all of the requirements for investment are put on an informal watch list. The watch list is dynamic and is managed by the whole investment team. Many ideas for the watch list are added to the firm's portfolios eventually, but can be removed from the list before they are purchased if the catalysts for investment do not materialize.