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Six money managers examine portfolio management strategies in the latest issue of The Wall Street Transcript, available at (212/952-7433) or http://www.twst.com/info/info562.htm

TWST: Can you give us a brief overview of Cohen, Klingenstein & Marks and your responsibilities there?

Mr. Kukul: We are a large cap growth manager. That is our only product. We have about 22 people on staff and 3.5 billion under management. There are six investment professionals, who act as economists and analysts. We work as an investment committee. The three principals and I are part of the investment committee. As a large cap growth manager, we have developed a three-step investment process. The first step is to develop our top down economic view. From there we move on to a proprietary quantitative screen which, in essence, is a dividend discount model that allows us to screen candidates for consideration. Finally, we move on to our traditional fundamental analysis that we then apply to that smaller group of stocks. Basically, that’s an outline of how the investment process works. In that first step of developing our top-down view, we try to assess changing world events and develop our economic forecast from there. Clearly, as conflicts are currently arising around the world, that’s obviously going to play into how we look at the world long term. It also helps us to determine what we are going to emphasize in the portfolio, and what to avoid. We try to not only determine how that will affect long-term trends, but where we are in a particular economic cycle, for example, whether we’re in a pro interest rate environment or an environment where political trends are shaping economic policy. We try to determine where we stand relative to the consensus, how we differ from that. We try to focus more specifically on the forces that move the economy through cycles — durable goods production, inventories, labor availability, manufacturing, real estate; things of that nature help us get a clear picture on where we believe the larger macro trends are headed. We’re not trying to determine targets for those particular issues. We’re not making any precise predictions on those statistics; rather, we’re just trying to determine a very broad pattern that we see developing. That’s what helps define the character of the portfolio and outlines the portfolio’s attributes. From there, we move to the quantitative step. As I mentioned, this is a proprietary software system that was developed by the principals back in the 1970s. In essence, it’s a dividend discount model that looks at what a company can earn in future years, and then it adjusts for inflationary effects of time and risk. Then it compares those results to the price of the stock and also to its peers and other industry groups.

TWST: What are some of your recent buys and the reasons why you were attracted to them?

Mr. Kukul: We bought Carnival Corporation (NYSE:CCL) in the fourth quarter. We like Concord EFS (Nasdaq:CEFT), which is a processor of debit card transactions. Unlike the credit card transaction where the consumer is billed at month end, the debit transaction is withdrawn directly from the customer’s bank account at the point of purchase. So, of all the forms of electronic payment, debit cards are growing the fastest. This is being driven by consumer convenience, wider merchant acceptance of debit cards and lower cost. Concord has scale advantages over their competitors in this area, and they have the ownership of the networks that drive that business. So again, there are some very attractive advantages to the businesses I just mentioned, which makes them good examples of what we have purchased recently.

This special Investing Strategies Report includes:

1) Sarat Sethi, Principal and Portfolio Manager/Equity Analyst of Douglas C. Lane & Associates, Inc., examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 3,600-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.

2) Frederic G. Burke, President of Johnson Lemon Asset Management, examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 2,600-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.

3)Arnold R. Schmeidler, President of A.R. Schmeidler & Co., examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 6,500-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.

4) Jerome H. Walther, Chief Operating Officer of Church Capital Management, examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 3,000-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.

5) Donevan E. Kukul, Portfolio Manager with Cohen Klingenstein & Marks, Inc., examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 4,000-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.

6) Paul C. Hogan, Investment Research Analyst at Fenimore Asset Management, examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 3,900-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.