Brad McGill — Senior Research Analyst
I grew up sailing on Long Island Sound with my father (who grew up sailing on Long Island Sound with his father). An outdoorsman and former navy pilot, my father was a proponent of self-reliance and saw to it that I could single-hand his 40-foot sailboat at age seven. He taught my sister and me lessons in sail trim, lift and the Venturi effect, dead reckoning and navigation, how to read clouds to predict weather, and most important, how to anticipate change and deal with challenging situations. In many ways, gaining competence during those early years on the water — mastering the countless variables involved in sailing — prepared me for the challenges of the investment world.
After earning my BS in economics and finance at Lehigh University, I began my career at Smith Barney (now Citigroup), covering the retail sector. I immediately became hooked by the interconnectedness of business strategy, financial returns and stock performance. I made quick progress as a sell-side analyst, moving up through the ranks at Smith Barney and later Montgomery Securities and Banc of America Securities, where I was a Senior Equity Research Analyst. I did well in the role and was recognized for having a strong analytical approach, but I disliked the marketing aspect of the job. What I truly enjoyed was dissecting business models, understanding strategy and translating that into stock selection. I made the transition to the buy side in 2002.
As a consumer analyst at two hedge funds, and then at Lehman Brothers managing a long/short equity fund, I incorporated a strong risk management discipline into my investment process and learned that probabilistic thinking — mapping a range of outcomes against a market backdrop — was key to extracting more value from each investment idea. Defining key drivers and running if/then scenarios against valuation levels became a habitual part of my investment style and portfolio construction process.
I joined Daruma Asset Management in 2006. With 14 years of experience investing in public equities for institutional clients, I’ve lived through market cycles, worked on both the sell and buy sides, invested within varying strategies and learned from both victory and defeat. Those lessons have made me a better investor, and at the same time have allowed me to appreciate this firm’s distinctive culture and strategy. At Daruma, intensive research supports the conviction needed to manage a concentrated portfolio where every position counts. Just as with sailing, we outperform through intensity of focus in mastering a constantly changing set of variables.