Joseph W. Garner is Director of Research and a member of the Small Cap Growth Portfolio Management team at Emerald Advisers LLC, and he is also a Portfolio Manager of the Emerald Growth Fund. Mr. Garner’s research is focused on small and midsize firms in the business services, capital goods, consumer, financial services and technology sectors. In 1997, he was named as a “Home-Run Hitter” byInstitutional Investor magazine.
Stacey L. Sears is Senior Vice President and a member of the Small Cap Portfolio Management team since 2002 at Emerald Advisers LLC. Ms. Sears has been employed by Emerald since 1992 and maintains research coverage of the retail, apparel, consumer goods and consumer technology companies and is primarily responsible for Emerald’s portfolio-management-related client communications.
These two award winning portfolio managers discuss their top picks in this 5,132 word exclusive interview in the Wall Street Transcript.
Stacey Sears describes the firm’s investment focus this way: “The firm was founded in 1991 under the basic premise that earnings growth drives stock prices and that the best way to assess revenue and earnings opportunities is by being out in the field and meeting with management, and understand the market by meeting with customers, competitors, suppliers and vendors. That’s really the cornerstone of our research process. So we are truly fundamental bottom-up.”
One of Joseph Garner’s top picks is an example of this in-depth analysis: “…in late 2016, an individual by the name of Billy Cyr became the CEO of Freshpet (NASDAQ:FRPT), coming to them from Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), where for several years he led their juices division, Sunny Delight to be specific…Over 70% of the individuals who bought it once would buy it again, which is very high by industry standards, yet the household awareness and penetration levels were very low, particularly compared to its peers in the pet food industry…So the strategy was, we’ve got a great product, we’ve got the distribution channel, we’ve got the manufacturing capacity in place, we need to make more people aware of this product. So they increased their media spend by over 60% in 2017, have done it again in 2018 and have seen a significant lift in the retail sales of the product…”
To get more top picks from this award winning portfolio management team, read the entire 5,132 word interview in the Wall Street Transcript.
Grandeur Peak Finds Hidden Gems for Its Investors in Global Small Cap Screening Process
October 29, 2019
Jason Wulff Finds the Small Cap ESG Hero Stocks for 2020
February 18, 2020
Mesirow Financial has Leo Harmon Jr. Leading the Small Cap Value Portfolio Through this Phase of the Economic Cycle
June 11, 2019
Sam Wiseman is Finding Portfolio Value Boosters in the Global Small Cap Market
July 10, 2019
Snow Capital Small Cap Value Top Picks for 2021 from Portfolio Manager Joshua Schachter
December 23, 2020
