WE JUDGE IDEAS
BY THEIR MERIT, NOT THEIR
PEDIGREE
At Weiss, we have an uncompromising commitment to rationality and use a cerebral approach to problem solving. We promote continuous learning and improvement because we believe that by understanding our mistakes, we make progress.
We value integrity, intellectual honesty, creativity, and collaboration. Our culture is more important than any individual and more persistent than any strategy.
WE INNOVATE TO OUTPERFORM
For more than 25 years, Weiss has developed proprietary value-based investment strategies designed to deliver high risk-adjusted returns to our investors. We work collaboratively to solve problems, and to identify undervalued assets through deep fundamental research, statistical analysis and an analytically rigorous approach to decision making.
INVESTING
MANAGEMENT
TEAM WHO
INTERNED
TEAM AVERAGE
AT WEISS
OF COVERED
MARKETS
“LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET IN THE WAY.”
If you disagree, we expect you to speak up – whether you’re an intern or portfolio manager. Rigorous debate helps us find the best answers to the problems we are trying to solve.
INTERN PROGRAM
If you:
- Work well in a flat structure
- Are comfortable voicing dissenting opinion
- Prioritize acting ethically in all situations
- Are driven to constantly learn and improve
- Make rational decisions based in fact
SPEAK UP
BENEFITS
SOCIAL IMPACT
ANALYTIC APPROACH
EMPLOYEE BACKGROUNDS
Our long-run risk-adjusted returns depend not only on the assets we currently own, or even the strategies we currently understand, but on the quality of our employees. More than anything else, you will likely find that what makes our culture so strong are the people working next to you.
NOT JUST VALUE INVESTORS
Our test is simple: if we wouldn’t be proud describing our work to our family, or reading about it in the newspaper, we won’t make that investment. We hold ourselves to rigorous ethical standards in all of our decisions.
To Teach
We typically hire recent graduates and post-graduates who have great raw ability and potential but haven’t developed the relevant skills yet. We put tremendous effort and resources into teaching and training employees today so they can become the stars of tomorrow.
As our company expands, opportunities for teaching, growth, and mobility multiply. We encourage everyone to share their knowledge. Our internal Wiki on all things Weiss helps us retain our institutional knowledge, repeat profitable transactions, and learn from our mistakes.
We hire extraordinary people. We build extraordinary teams. We foster a culture of collaboration where we learn from each other, inspire one another, and share in our successes. We achieve far more together than we ever could on our own.
We encourage independent thought and criticism of standard operating procedures. Ideas are judged on their merit, not on the title of the person proposing them. If an employee thinks we are making a mistake, it is their job to speak up about what we are doing wrong.
Of Ideas
If we had simply continued what we started out doing in 1991, we would be closed today. We are constantly reinventing ourselves and finding new opportunities. Our culture focuses on developing, implementing, and monetizing innovative ideas.
We’re proud to be investing on behalf of many universities and foundations who are working on the cure for cancer, among other great causes. It makes me proud to think that our work, and the profits we generate, are supporting these nonprofits.
WAM Foundation
- We launched the WAM Foundation internally in response to our employees’ interest in more direct involvement in allocating resources to alleviating suffering.
- Approximately 10% of Weiss Asset Management profits are donated to the WAM Foundation annually.
- Employees are significantly involved in applying our typical analytical rigor to the selection of donation recipients.
- The WAM Foundation made a substantial gift to Samhita Social Ventures to deploy oxygen concentrators in rural communities in India in response to the COVID crisis.
Ethics Committee
- The Weiss Asset Management Ethics Committee is comprised of employees and is responsible for reviewing whether certain decisions we are making across our business are ethical.
- The committee aims to foster an environment where employees can be proud of the work they do.
- The Committee’s purpose is to educate employees on their responsibility to proactively raise ethical concerns, to provide a public and accessible way to raise such concerns, and to transparently record past decisions.
Mission-Driven Investors
- Over a third of the investors in our hedge funds are non-profits.
- Over the past several years, we have made it a goal to increase our relationships with mission-driven investors.
- Our current non-profit investors include global leaders in biomedical research and pediatric medical research, as well as hospital and university systems.
- We are proud that our efforts to generate high risk-adjusted returns indirectly support these causes.
CRI Foundation
- Andrew Weiss, our founder, is focused on alleviating suffering in impoverished countries in the most cost-effective ways.
- In 2004, Andrew and his wife, Bonnie, launched CRI Foundation. The foundation focuses on improving health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. Andrew intends to donate substantially all of his future income from Weiss Asset Management to CRI, the WAM Foundation, or related endeavors.
- CRI also provided funding of $50 million for the Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics, which is now based at the University of Chicago. Andrew was deeply honored that the 2019 Nobel Laureates in Economics chose to donate their prize money to the Fund.