Skip to main content

Who is Chicago Equity Advisors? – CEA Sights

By March 18, 2022March 21st, 2022White Papers

The Private Insight

Chicago Equity Advisors is not the investment management company that you read about in the news, taking outsized risk on long shot trades. We are not putting all our chips on one bet, we are not leveraging our assets 10x, we are not making irresponsible gambles on moonshot stocks that return +50% or -50% in a week. Chicago Equity Advisors, since its inception in 2011, has had a totally different angle.

The founders of our firm are not from the same mono class that runs every other hedge fund. Our team is not made of ivy league grads, MBAs, or bulge bracket firm alumni. We come from and thrive in the trenches. We fight for the wins and understand what it takes to operate businesses from pre revenue to exit. We communicate with our trusted management teams, vendors, and customers to understand the minute details involved in the day-to-day operations.

 

Our angle is different from large legacy firms. We believe the largest players in the investment space leave so much on the table during their leaps into venture capital and private equity deals. They see only a single way to make money- through a larger buyer or public listing. What they leave out is the secondary value of information that these companies can yield. We harvest the information, patterns, and insights from our private portfolio of 13 companies, extrapolate this data to a higher level, and deploy our fund assets accordingly.

Our Team

With over 35 years of experience managing businesses ranging from start up to multi hundreds of millions in revenue, we have a deep understanding of how seemingly small events or imperceptible transitions can significantly affect the longer-term growth trajectory and value of a business.

We know how to identify and interpret company patterns and financials in ways that other funds don’t.  The insights we glean from our private holdings greatly contributes to our investing success.

Sharing Our Knowledge

Our team will regularly publish patterns, insight, and information our private companies are generating to produce up to date case studies.

Additionally, our team will detail macro events that we are observing across the world with material implications on US Equities.

 

Where We Sit

 

Here we will detail updates in our portfolio moves. For example, earlier last year our team took positions in rail and on-road freight companies due to our knowledge of freight price increases from the private companies our investment committee operates. We have continued to see price appreciation while the supply chain system slowly catches up with demand, but given the projected increase in fuel costs this year, we have focused our on-road exposure towards asset light operations. We took profits in some of our names and increased exposure to our highest conviction investments. Railroads and trucking companies are the arteries of American commerce, and remain, to quote the Oracle of Omaha, “an indispensable asset for America.”

Macro View

Finally, we will address our macro view on the next few months. As we deal with the present Ukraine crisis, our team has raised a 15% cash position to take advantage of lower stock prices when we become comfortable being fully invested yet again. The large cash position will allow our team to make swift moves once the dust has settled in the geopolitical theatre. Our team does believe that there will be volatility in the coming weeks despite the market’s drastic single day upside swings. There is much unknown, and when there is a plethora of unknowns, money managers must default to the fundamentals of stocks.

In the face of all this ambiguity, we must remember that over 80% of companies reported earnings that beat expectations and most companies guided in a positive direction. The resilience of US corporations to generate strong quarters amid a fluid rate cycle, supply chain issues, and geopolitical concerns, is why investors find comfort in owning proven businesses with short durations across US equity markets.

It is our belief that as geopolitical uncertainties play out, it will be proven time and time again that US equity markets are the best markets for global investors to find earnings power, innovation, and the strongest business models.

As such, Chicago Equity Advisors is one of the best vehicles to participate in the market.

We welcome your questions and feedback and look forward to communicating with you.

*Stated financials and performance prior to 2021 have been subject to an independent financial audit.

This presentation is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer, subscription, recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell an interest in any fund or investment product. An offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, an interest in Chicago Equity Advisors Fund I, LP (the “Fund”) may be made only by the delivery of a Confidential Private Placement Memorandum of the Fund (the “Memorandum”) specifically addressed to the recipient. An investment in the Fund is a speculative investment involving substantial risk of loss. Positive returns are not assured and investment returns will fluctuate. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

Any historical information relating to performance and other investment metrics is based on a proprietary account of Chicago Equity Advisors, the manager of the Fund for the time periods indicated. The Fund itself does not have any performance history. There can be no assurance that any fund managed by Chicago Equity Advisors will have comparable results to those shown. Stated financials and performance prior to 2021 have been subject to an independent financial audit. Performance listed is net of all fees.

A prospective investor’s decision to invest must be based solely on the information set forth in the Fund’s Memorandum. No one should consider investing in the Fund who is not, either alone or together with such investor’s financial advisers, financially sophisticated and capable or evaluating the merits and risks of an investment in a private investment vehicle like the Fund.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT AN INVESTOR WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFITS SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN HEREIN. THE FUND’S TRADING WILL BE SPECULATIVE AND SIGNIFICANT LOSSES CAN OCCUR.