(cache) Virgil Adams

Current

Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner at New Frontier Investments, LLC

Past

Portfolio Manager at MATTHEWS INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL
Founding Partner and Portfolio Manager at Amida Capital & Hachibushu Capital
Senior Investment Manager at Gartmore Japan

Equity Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Fidelity Investments
Member at Mitsubishi Auto-Credit Lease

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2 more...

Education

University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business
Waseda University
University of Oregon

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Connections

68 connections

Industry

Investment Management

Websites

My Company

Virgil Adams’s Summary

Senior portfolio manager with over 13 years of equity analysis and portfolio management experience. History of producing strong relative and absolute returns on Japanese and Asian portfolios, on both long-only and long-short strategies.

Extensive knowledge of portfolio construction, industry and sector analysis, risk management, and team building. Experienced at launching new portfolios and products, forming companies and teams, and implementing fundamental-analysis frameworks.

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

• Led a turnaround of the $250 million Matthews Japan Fund, helping to take the Fund from a long history of underperformance to excess returns of nearly 300 basis points (annualized) in 2009

• Turned around the $300 million Gartmore AlphaGen Hokuto Japan Long-Short Fund, helping to take the Fund from three years of negative returns to historically-high returns of 17% in 2003

• Founded and ran two Pan-Asian hedge funds in Japan, gathering assets of nearly $500 million and posting average annual returns of approximately 30%

• Co-Founded a company that invests in Chinese real estate and businesses; have generated returns of 20% per annum over the past six years

• Created a methodology for fundamental analysis that allows investment teams to generate and build leads over other investors; trained analysts, created proprietary earnings models, and led in industry reviews and thematic research

• Personally conducted over 300 company meetings annually in Japan and Asia, including numerous factory visits, meetings with government agencies and officials, and extensive meetings with private companies within the value chain of the industries I was investing in

• Voted Best Buy-Side Analyst, Telecom, by Asia Invest in 2000; Won the “Best New Fund” Award by Asia Invest in 2004 and the “Best New Fund Award” by Asia Hedge in 2004

Virgil Adams’s Specialties:

Business valuation, portfolio management, team management, investment analysis, risk management, real estate investments, equity investments

Virgil Adams’s Experience

Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner

New Frontier Investments, LLC

(Investment Management industry)

October 2002 — Present (8 years 1 month)

Founded a company that invests in small-city Chinese property and does property development in Kunshan, China. Formed and helped manage a team of six people in the U.S., China and Japan. Created a diversified real estate portfolio of residential, commercial and development properties.

• Generated nearly 20% per annum returns between 2003 and 2009; asset base of approximately $10 million currently

• Evaluated over 100 different property investments, conducting extensive due diligence on over 30 properties and investing in eight diversified properties and projects

• Met with numerous Chinese government officials, real estate professionals, and local and foreign business investors in the Kunshan market

• Worked on risk management, portfolio diversification, and all legal and financial issues associated with the formation and management of a foreign company investing in China
Portfolio Manager

MATTHEWS INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL

(Investment Management industry)

March 2008 — October 2009 (1 year 8 months)

Brought in as a senior analyst to help restructure the Fund, which had a long history of underperformance. Created a strategic plan for focusing resources, managing risk, and implementing bottoms-up research methodologies with the objective of reducing turnover, concentrating positions, and building leads over our competitors. Achieved all goals and promoted to Portfolio Manager in December 2008, running the Fund with the existing manager in 2009.

• Led the Fund to a strong recovery in 2009, beating the MSCI Japan benchmark by nearly 300 basis points, annualized

• Reduced turnover by over 50% within 18 months by creating an investment-categories-led approach to portfolio management

• Concentrated the portfolio from nearly 100 positions to approximately 50, while also reducing risk; focused the Fund on three key areas: REITs, nuclear power, and new automotive technology

• Conducted extensive due diligence of the value chain in the three strategic industries I identified; met with over 300 companies, and had numerous meetings with central bank and other government officials and visits to companies in Asia

• Introduced a structured, disciplined process of stock selection that included generating and maintaining proprietary earnings models, using technical analysis to time entry and exit points, and managing risk by creating policies on investment in illiquid and small-cap stocks
Founding Partner and Portfolio Manager

Amida Capital & Hachibushu Capital

(Investment Management industry)

September 2003 — January 2007 (3 years 5 months)

Set up Hachibushu, one of Asia’s first multi-strategy hedge funds, in 2003 and worked on the Fundamental Long-Short Fund and Event Fund within that company before “carving out” the long-short strategy into Amida Capital, a pure equity long-short fund, in 2005.

• Helped create and manage one of Japan’s fastest-growing and best performing funds, growing from five initial partners to a total headcount of 21 people

• Grew from $12 of partner capital to nearly $500 million in less than two years

• Generated returns of 3% in 2003, 70% in 2004, 8% in 2005 and -6% in 2006

• Did extensive bottoms-up, company-visit-driven fundamental research on a wide array of Japanese and Asian companies, conducting nearly 400 meetings a year, and holding over 100 meetings with government officials and private companies
Senior Investment Manager

Gartmore Japan

(Investment Management industry)

June 2002 — September 2003 (1 year 4 months)

Brought in to help restructure the investment team, create a focus on long-short funds, and shift from a trading-oriented culture to a more balanced, longer-term one that blended short-term trading with longer-term fundamental stock analysis.

• Restructured the investment team and investment process, centered around proprietary fundamental research and industry analysis, complemented by trading-driven position sizing and entry/exit points

• Generated historically high returns of 17% in 2003 with the new investment team in place

• Did hundreds of meetings in Japan and Asia with public and private companies
Equity Analyst and Portfolio Manager

Fidelity Investments

(Privately Held; Financial Services industry)

June 1995 — June 2002 (7 years 1 month)

I worked at Fidelity during an extremely high-growth period, covering twelve different industries as an analyst and launching and running a retail fund.

• Ranked #1 or #2 each year within an analyst team of 15 for Pilot Fund performance, returning an average of over 2,500 basis points above the index over three different funds

• Launched and ran the Fidelity Select Developing Communications Fund in 2001, generating performance of 1,200 basis points over the benchmark over twelve months; Co-Manager of the Fidelity Global Telecom Fund

• Consistently ranked highly as an analyst in my coverage of the Airline, Land Transport, Machinery, Power and Gas, Fiber Optic, Telecom, Internet, Media, Engineering, Software, Trading, and Auto industries

• Numerous research and marketing meetings in Japan, Asia, the U.S., and Europe
Member

Mitsubishi Auto-Credit Lease

(Investment Management industry)

September 1991 — May 1994 (2 years 9 months)

Hired as the first foreign employee of a fast-growing subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation that wanted to acquire American and Australian auto leasing companies.

• Worked with top management throughout the company to develop an international growth strategy and identify opportunities and risks associated with foreign acquisitions and joint ventures

• Did strategic and financial analysis of potential foreign acquisition targets, and participated in high level M&A meetings

Virgil Adams’s Education

University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business

MBA , Corp Strategy, Finance , 1994 — 1996

Activities and Societies:

Graduated with Honors
Investment Club
International Business Students Assn
Waseda University

International Relations 1990 — 1991

Activities and Societies:

Recieved scholarship to study business and economics at Waseda University in Tokyo. 4.0 GPA in course and elective studies.
University of Oregon

B.A. , International Studies, Economics , 1988 — 1991

Activities and Societies:

Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude, Dean's List Honors

Additional Information

Virgil Adams’s Websites:

My Company

Virgil Adams’s Interests:

Investments -- equity and property Mixed Martial Arts Playing with my kids Travel

Virgil Adams’s Groups:

Ross School of Business Alumni
Invest in China
Suzhou Network
Family Offices Group
Mutual and/or Hedge Funds who would like investors in Europe or emerging markets.
Venture Capital
China Investments
Global Private Equity & Venture Capital
China Venture Capital & Private Equity Club
Overseas Property Investment Network
China Job, Recruitment, Networking, Business & Investment Opportunities
AVCJ Hong Kong Forum
Hong Kong Venture Community
Global Investment Network
Kun Shan Club
Innovative China 创新中国
XPats Online
XPats Online: KunShan
VC & PE weekend workshop