Redleaf Andy Absolute Return Whitebox

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A HedgeFund Intelligence publication December/January 2007/8 Vol 5 Nº8 www.absolutereturn.net absolute return Whitebox’s man of letters

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A HedgeFund Intelligence publication • December/January 2007/8 • Vol 5 Nº8 • www.absolutereturn.net

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Whitebox’sman of letters

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man who makes bold predictions may not beseeking the spotlight. But it’s bound to findhim when he manages loads of money –and happens to be right more often thanwrong.

For Andy Redleaf, founder of $3.6 billionWhitebox Advisors, the attention these

days is nothing short of glowing. A onetime options trader witha penchant for writing longish, philosophical essays on changesin market dynamics, Redleaf can rightfully claim to have pre-dicted this summer’s structured finance meltdown, even beforehe penned his thoughts in a December 2006 letter to investors.

And his performance has been enviable. According toinvestors, three of the firm’s six funds had netted 25% ormore through October this year, in part by implementingRedleaf’s short credit thesis. (One of those funds, WhiteboxIntermarket, won a 2007 Absolute Return Award for top per-formance in the small-cap equity category on December 4, whiletwo other funds, Whitebox Hedged High Yield and Whitebox“Concentrated” Convertible Arbitrage, were Absolute ReturnAward nominees.) Net annualized returns for the four largestWhitebox funds run from the high teens to low twenties.

Redleaf, who is 50, has no fear of making grand prognostica-tions. His current view, that both the dollar and the stock

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market are in for a long decline, are among the more provoca-tive. Although it’s too early to know if he’ll be right on these,a peek at Redleaf’s writings over the years shows he has beena step ahead of sundry market-moving trends.

This past August, for example, Redleaf reiterated his call thatthe U.S. dollar would weaken, as it did quite dramatically thisfall. While lower interest rates may have been the immediatetrigger, Redleaf’s reasoning follows a grander theme: that,absent some unforeseen catastrophe, the liberation of China,Russia and India from socialism will dominate the world econ-omy for a couple of hundred years. “Inevitably, the new worldwill have a new monetary regime . . . and, without question, theinternational role of the national currency of the U.S. will bediminished,” Redleaf wrote. Since then, coincidentally, thedollar has declined about 6.5% against the euro and 7% againstthe yen.

As long as 20 years ago, when Redleaf was trading in the pitsof the Chicago Board Options Exchange, he was making pub-lic predictions. In the summer of 1987, Redleaf submitted a four-and-a-half page article to the conservative journal NationalReview, outlining the reasons why the stock market was set fora crash. Redleaf’s thesis, which was published a month afterBlack Monday (when the editors had deemed the topic moretimely), argued that the stage for decline had been set by a pro-

Andy Redleaf’s global vision is provocative – and profitable

By Carolyn Sargent

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liferation of new structured investment products and the elim-ination of fixed commissions for New York Stock Exchangemembers, both of which encouraged leverage and short-termspeculation. Redleaf, of course, had been proved right: OnOctober 19, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508points, and Redleaf, by his own account, “made money. Lots ofmoney.”

If there is a key to Redleaf’s success, it is his unconvention-al approach to the markets, to his firm and even to the way hehas gone about staffing it. “If you come away from his lettersconcluding that he thinks a little bit differently, then that is accu-rate,” says Steve Klammer, who worked with Redleaf for fiveyears before starting his own statistical arbitrage firm, HighbarCapital Management. “He is not necessarily a contrarian, buthe does look for inflection points in areas that other people shyaway from.”

The lineup of Whitebox’s single-strategy funds – StatisticalArbitrage, Hedged High Yield, Intermarket (small-cap marketneutral), “Concentrated” Convertible Arbitrage and DiversifiedConvertible Arbitrage – fails to capture the breadth of Redleaf’swide-ranging investment interests. In the past couple of years,Whitebox has made an eyebrow-raising purchase of half of asmall, Twin Cities airline (Sun Country Airlines, an investmentWhitebox sold in November) as well as a couple of grain ele-vators, which enable the firm to take delivery of commodities.And then there’s the firm name, which was chosen thought-fully. Whitebox is meant to denote the opposite of “blackbox,” where trading decisions are driven solely by secretquantitative models.

Based in his home town of Minneapolis, Redleaf formedWhitebox in 1999 with $10 million in capital. His goal was tocreate a nimble portfolio whose parts he could change quick-ly. In addition to robust returns, theway to accomplish this, Redleafdecided, was to be as candid withinvestors as he could. “I wanted totry to develop relationships withclients and have them know us,”Redleaf says.

Once Whitebox was up and run-ning, Redleaf began to turn moreattention to writing letters toinvestors. Not the kind of cursory market outlooks that manyhedge fund managers pen, but lengthy letters (12 pages is notunusual) arguing such theses as the secular decline of theimportance of labor costs in manufacturing (hastening the endof international labor arbitrage) and the possibility that, afteryears of fairly benign policies, politics in the United States couldonce again negatively impact the financial markets.

Readers have come to expect regular appearances by Mr.Market, one of Benjamin Graham’s favorite allegories. Redleafconsiders Graham one of the “Great Ones,” along with WarrenBuffett (whose skill at investor relations he admires), GeorgeSoros, Julian Robertson, Michael Steinhardt and Steve Cohen(with whom he once worked). Redleaf has now written aboutfive dozen letters, some republished in books, which investorssay they turn back to every now and again.

“I spend a large part of my time reading commentary frommanagers, and that is where Andy distinguishes himself,”says Mark Jernigan, who has been an investor in Whiteboxfunds since 2003 through Cimarron Partners, his Chicago-

area fund of funds. “His letters make me think. They are some-times contrarian. And they are sometimes completely outsidethe box.” A prime broker once said that Redleaf’s letters spreadlike wildfire across Wall Street – and can briefly quiet a tradingfloor as traders pause to skim them.

In September, when markets were gyrating on uncertaintyover the meltdown in collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs,Redleaf boldly claimed the credit crunch to be over. “That wasfast,” he wrote. “The credit crunch, which we first predicted,then waffled on, and then predicted again, has already come –and gone.” At the time, Redleaf argued that the credit crisis hadsubsided because the system still had liquidity, as evidenced byGoldman Sachs’s ability to raise billions of dollars for a dis-tressed fund and Bank of America’s $2 billion investment inCountrywide Financial, the troubled mortgage originator. “Ifthere were a real credit crunch going on, none of this would behappening,” he wrote.

That view is one that Redleaf has since changed – he is notafraid to say he is wrong – as he is now ascribing a higher prob-ability to a sustained credit crisis.

REDLEAF WAS READING Value Line invest-ment research when he was 12 years oldand began trading four years later withfunds that his father, a doctor of internalmedicine, had initially saved for Redleaf’s col-lege tuition. (Redleaf explains that whenhis father got financially comfortable

enough to pay for his four children’s college educations outof current income, he turned these funds over to the intend-ed beneficiaries.)

After graduating from St. Paul Academy and Summit School(which, in 1911, expelled F. ScottFitzgerald for cheating), he enrolled inYale University’s honors program inmathematics, earning a BA and MAin three years as well as co-winningthe university’s undergraduate prizein mathematics. He was acceptedinto the doctoral programs atStanford University, University ofCalifornia at Berkeley and Harvard

University (but, perhaps painfully, not to the program at Yale).Redleaf, however, wanted to trade – a goal that despite his

deep interest and strong quantitative credentials, took perse-verance to achieve. During the 1976-1977 academic year (his sec-ond at Yale), Redleaf says, he wrote more than 100 lettersseeking a summer internship at a securities firm. One rejectionhe remembers vividly: A letter from Robert Rubin, who thenran the risk arbitrage desk at Goldman Sachs (and who later wasU.S. Treasury Secretary), explaining that the firm was not in themarket for interns.

Redleaf eventually managed to connect with Andy Stillman,then head of proprietary options trading at Drexel BurnhamLambert, where the Redleaf family kept its investment accounts.Stillman didn’t have a place for Redleaf but, impressed with thescholar’s grasp of option pricing theory, put Redleaf in touchwith a friend at Gruntal & Co., Ron Aizer, who was running anewly established options arbitrage desk.

Aizer wasn’t easily persuaded. According to Redleaf, Aizerhung up the phone four times before Redleaf managed to get a

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I spend a large part of my timereading commentary from othermanagers, and that is where Andydistinguishes himself Mark Jernigan

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meeting. During the interview, Redleaf recalls, Aizer expressedfrustration that Redleaf didn’t know the symbols for a coupleof stocks. It was only when Redleaf displayed an understandingof the butterfly spread, and the different ways it could beplayed, that Aizer relented. It was 1978, and Redleaf was Aizer’ssecond hire. The first was Steve Cohen, who went on to run hisown trading group at Gruntal before founding SAC CapitalPartners.

“Andy was very mathematical and very talented,” Aizersays. “But I’m not so sure he enjoyed the kind of crazy tradingthat we did. He was more quiet than that.”

Redleaf left Gruntal in 1980, after about 18 months, to part-ner with his father, who had decided to put his medical careeron the back burner to trade. Taking a seat on the CBOE, theyounger Redleaf made a name for himself trading somewhatobscure listed equity derivative products, such as preferred equi-ty redeemable cumulative stock (PERCs) and dividend enhancedconvertible stock (DECs). By 1989, Redleaf was partnering ontrades with two well-known Chicago options players – IrvKessler and Dan Asher.

Kessler and Asher are both serial entrepreneurs. Together,they had formed a clearing firm (Kessler Asher Group) and KATrading, an investment vehicle that focused on convertibles.In 1992, Kessler, Asher and Redleaf formed the hedge fund firmnow known as Deephaven Capital Management.Coincidentally, both Kessler and Redleaf were fromMinneapolis, and they decided to set up shop there. Redleaf’srole was to trade institutional option products, which he did atfirst with proprietary funds and later with outside capital.

The Russian debt crisis in the fall of 1998 roiled Deephaven,as it did a number of hedge funds, and, Redleaf says, he dis-agreed with the other principals’business decision to shed risk andliquidate at the bottom of the mar-ket, in October 1998.

One of the reasons Redleaf hastried to build strong relationshipswith investors is to avoid that samescenario. “If we could have raised$50 million at that time, we wouldhave done really well in the spring of1999. It would have taken a veryhard decision off our hands. And Ithought, when this happens again,I want to be in the position to askpeople for more money.”

Redleaf left Deephaven at the end of 1998 in a bitter split thatseems to have been complicated by the other ventures Kesslerwas involved in, particularly Arbitrade Holdings, an electron-ic options market maker, which was sold along with Deephavento Knight Capital Group within a year of Redleaf’s departure.

REDLEAF TRADED SECURITIES both on theCBOE and for Deephaven. But when it came tosetting up his own firm (which Asher capital-ized with $5 million), he decided to step backfrom the day-to-day tasks of running a portfolio.Redleaf doesn’t talk to brokers about prices. Andhe doesn’t manage any of the funds in the

Whitebox fund family, preferring instead the role of macrostrategist. “I am the firm’s ultimate risk manager,” Redleaf

explains. “If things go well, it’s because of the portfolio manag-er. If things go badly, it’s because of me. My job is to ensure thatit doesn’t go badly.”

To launch the first Whitebox fund, a statistical arbitrage strat-egy that opened to outside investors in January 2000, Redleafhired Klammer, a former Deephaven analyst. (The stat arb fund,which manages about $118 million, netted 37.5% its first yearbut has struggled of late, gaining about 4% year to date). Thesecond fund to be introduced, Whitebox “Concentrated”Convertible Arbitrage, is managed by Rob Vogel. Other port-folio managers include Jason Cross (Statistical Arbitrage andIntermarket); Gary Kohler (co-manager of Intermarket); NickSwenson (Hedged High Yield), and Brian Lutz and DaleWillenbring (co-managers of Diversified Convertible Arbitrage).

The investment team claims some eclectic experience,including that of a rocket scientist (Blaise Morton, a PhD inmathematics from Berkeley who has worked for the U.S. spaceprogram); a turnaround specialist (Bruce Nordin); a former tele-com banker (Scott Malloy), and a former convertibles traderwho, for the past two years, has been the primary person exe-cuting Whitebox’s subprime trade (Paul Twitchell).

If a common thread exists among Redleaf’s hires, it is prob-ably mathematical aptitude. Cross, for example, holds a doctor-ate in statistics from Yale and once worked with Myron Scholesat Oak Hill Platinum Partners (now Platinum Grove AssetManagement). Another commonality: Several employees –including Vogel, Morton, Twitchell, Willenbring and JonathanWood, Whitebox’s chief operating officer – are émigrés fromEBF & Associates, a Minneapolis multistrategy firm that wasspun out of Cargill.

That breadth of experience, as well as Redleaf’s well-placedtrust in his employees, has devel-oped into a strong asset forWhitebox. “Andy may be the prin-cipal visionary, but somehow orother, what pops out of this collab-orative environment is a macroview that frequently becomes ashared theme in more than one ofthe Whitebox funds,” says Jerniganof Cimarron Partners.

Rob Vogel joined Whitebox inNovember 1999, initially using acard table as a desk and a computerthat was bought across the street.Redleaf paid him by personal check.

Now manager of the highly successful concentrated convert-ible arbitrage fund, Vogel sees Redleaf as a rich resource. “I wantto know what Andy thinks, and he doesn’t charge me perquestion. So I ask him questions. He has been exceptional atguiding me through convertibles trading.”

Redleaf generally spends about half his time in a corner onWhitebox’s small trading desk and about half the time in hisoffice, on the corner of the third floor of a six-story officebuilding overlooking Minneapolis’s Lake Calhoun. Redleaf’sfirst hour or so in the office is often spent reading, an activitythat requires a magnifying glass due to his poor eyesight – theresult of macular degeneration. Redleaf reads nonfiction of allkinds – though not always the morning newspaper – from polit-ical writings to academic papers to popular financial books andthe occasional trade publication.

Founded: 1999Founder and principal owner: Andy RedleafAssets under management: $3.6 billionFlagship funds: Whitebox “Concentrated” Convertible Arbitrage, 23%*Whitebox Hedged High Yield, 23%*Whitebox Combined, 18%*(*net annualized through October 2007)Office: Minneapolis

Fact file: Whitebox Advisors

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In eight years, only one Whitebox portfolio manager – thefirst, Klammer of Highbar – has left. One reason is that Redleafhas given each manager an ownership stake in the fund he runs.All fund managers also share in the profits of the multistrate-gy portfolio, called Whitebox Combined Fund. Instead of com-peting for capital, as trading teams do at some multistrategyfirms, the portfolio managers are financially motivated tocooperate, because the better the Combined Fund performs, themore they all make. Having standalone funds in addition to themultistrategy, Redleaf says, is “the difference between sellinginternally [to the founder] and selling externally [to outsideinvestors]. With the latter, there are a lot fewer hard feelings.”

Redleaf believes in asking people to do what they’re good at.“This business is a pyramid. If you’re on top of the pyramid, youhave to think about how to maintain it and how to keep the peo-ple lower down happy. My philosophy is to have people doingwhat they like to do, and then they are happy. If, for example,someone is not good producing analytic, systematic reports, turfit out to someone who is.”

Portfolio managers don’t talkto each other every day, and thefixed-income and equity folksdon’t always know what theother is doing. Monthly part-ner meetings encourage theflow of information. Redleaf, asWhitebox sage, also serves tocross-pollinate ideas amongasset classes and strategies.

The firm’s core competence is “paradigm arbitrage,” Redleaf’sname for the process of exploiting inefficiencies that arisefrom the models that dominate pricing in the financial markets.Over time, market paradigms change, the hoped-for resultbeing that new opportunities continue to present themselves.

One example of this approach is indenture arbitrage – atrade that has made Whitebox lots of money over the past cou-ple of years. Most convertible bond traders rely on sophisticat-ed quant models for trading signals. But, as Redleaf sees it,“individual opportunities often turn on a deep analysis ofqualitative factors, such as call risk, borrow risk, indenture com-plexities, distressed pathways, and special events, none ofwhich can be effectively incorporated into the dominant quan-titative models.”

A careful analysis of individual bond indentures, or borrow-ing contracts, led Whitebox to buy at a discount some $15 mil-lion in convertible bonds issued by Bell Microproducts, a SanJose, Calif., distributor of high-tech products, which cameunder investigation for allegedly backdating stock-optiongrants. Whitebox’s bet was that the investigation would pre-vent Bell from filing updated financial reports on time, asrequired in the borrowing agreements. When Bell indeedfailed on this count, Whitebox (and other hedge funds in on thetrade) demanded immediate payment of the bonds’ full princi-pal, netting a tidy profit.

“The distinguishing factor of the firm, and what we do well,is intelligently blend qualitative and quantitative tools,” Redleafsays. Another distinguishing factor, of course, is Redleaf’squirky way of looking at the world. “I’m not sure which is morevaluable to me at Whitebox – my degree in business fromKellogg or my undergrad studies focusing on philosophy,”says Graham Cook, who joined the hedge fund firm in April as

chief marketing officer after four years at Bank of America,where he ran Midwest prime brokerage operations.

THE PURCHASE OF HALF of Sun CountryAirlines in October 2006 has been one ofRedleaf’s more controversial moves – and rais-es a question about the importance of privateinvestments in the Whitebox portfolio. At thetime, Redleaf told investors that the cost of thetransaction plus all anticipated capital expendi-

tures would be less than 1% of Whitebox’s total capital at the time,or roughly $16 million.

As Redleaf explained in a letter to investors, the opportuni-ty to try a new pricing and service model was too compellingto turn down. Redleaf’s thinking, in sum, was that an airline thatoffers more predictable prices and provides better servicecould have a go at developing customer loyalty.

Given the difficulty of the passenger airline business, anumber of investors were skeptical. “The Sun Country acqui-

sition did sort of make mescratch my head,” says one. “I feltlike the explanation was a littlecontrary to my sense of whatthey do. There are a lot of smartpeople in this world, and not toomany have solved the airline rid-dle.”

After having to pour moremoney into Sun Country (the

airline reportedly lost $27 million over the past four quarters),Redleaf apparently agreed with his investors, selling Whitebox’sequity stake in mid-November.

The Sun Country investment itself was allocated across anumber of funds, which are managed to keep illiquids at 10%or less of total capital. The exception is the small-capIntermarket Fund, which has two share classes: one with a sidepocket of 20%, and one with no side pocket at all.

Even with the side pocket, Redleaf says he doesn’t seeWhitebox morphing into a hybrid hedge fund/private equityshop. He has actually already tried private equity once: In1984, Redleaf left the CBOE to buy a machine shop. He alsooptioned a plastics blow molder. “I was going to LBO small man-ufacturing companies,” he says. He went back to trading,because, he decided, “it’s just way too hard to make stuff.”

Redleaf does like securities positions that give the firm influ-ence and control. In fact, Kohler, who joined Whitebox fromOkabena Advisors and is now co-portfolio manager of thesmall-cap fund, did so initially to focus on small private equi-ty transactions.

Redleaf sees some convergence between hedge funds andprivate equity but says the division in the industry is else-where. “To be fully institutionalized [as a hybrid firm wouldhave to be], it means having institutional investors. And intruth, the biggest institutional investors can really only buybeta.” By beta, Redleaf means not beta to the S&P 500, butwhat he calls “alternative beta,” the beta of the alternativesmarket. When an asset management firm gets to a certain size– say tens of billions of dollars – the firm is too big to do any-thing else but deliver a set of returns that represent an assetclass (alternatives) and not real alpha, or so Redleaf’s thinkinggoes.

I was going to LBO small manufacturingcompanies,” Redleaf says. He went back totrading, because, he decided, “it’s just waytoo hard to make stuff �

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Instead, Redleaf sees the hedge fund industry bifurcating intofamily offices for owners and some outside investors – andproviders of alternative beta, which are fully institutional andscalable. Many highly successful hedge funds eventually turninto family offices, Redleaf explains, because compoundingmakes the 1.5% and 20% fee structure unsustainable. “If youare any good, you have to take in more and more money or elsemore and more of it is yours.” And when a third or a half of theassets are yours, is it even worth bothering with registration,client service and the complexities of running a larger organ-ization?

Redleaf would like to make a play on this so-called alternativebeta, and in fact he is doing so with Whitebox DiversifiedConvertible Arbitrage, which is meant to produce alpha whileoutperforming the convertible arbitrage benchmarks. Thefund has accomplished this goal in part because it has a 20%tailwind: It charges a 1.5% management fee but no incentive.The fund is up 7% this year and has a net annualized return of6.3%.

In the end, Redleaf says, Whitebox may not be corporateenough to be a provider of alternative beta. Whitebox’sinvestors are mostly family offices, funds of funds and wealthyindividuals who have a reasonable tolerance for risk and cangive Whitebox enough leeway to pursue a broad range ofopportunities. In April, for example, some investors backedWhitebox when it launched a special opportunities tradingvehicle to short subprime-related securities. That fund, whichhad a one-time open and close, gained more than 120%through the end of October.

There have been missteps along the way. In 2005, Whiteboxintroduced an energy strategy, Whitebox Hedged HydrocarbonFund, that traded energy derivatives. Six months later, the fundwas wound down after giving up about 4.5% on a natural gastrade (long summer gas, short winter gas). Closing the fund wasa business decision. “It is too much of a disadvantage not to beable to take physical possession,” Redleaf explains.

While that mistake may have cost Whitebox, it didn’t costits investors. The firm made whole all of its clients directlyinvested in the energy fund, according to two investors. On thedrawing board now: a commodities strategy whose form hasnot yet been set.

WHEN REDLEAF IS confrontedwith disappointment, colleaguessay, his gentle, low-key demeanorand sense of humor serve himwell. In difficult markets, Redleafbecomes more introverted andcontemplative rather than angry

or rash. “You can almost see the gears going as he tries to thinkthings through himself,” Klammer says. “He is not the impul-sive type.”

In 2005, for example, when convertibles hit a rough patch,Vogel found it hard not to let it get him down. “But it didn’t getto Andy,” he says. “I’ve seen him nearly every day for eight years.He’s generally happy about life.” And not afraid to celebrate it.For his 50th birthday in September, he hosted a party for 175 peo-ple at the New York Palace Hotel. Entertainment included a mind

reader and a Hillary Clinton impersonator, who was asked to talkabout Clinton’s cattle futures trading strategy.

Redleaf, who is married with three children, likes to hedge inunusual ways, even at a personal level. When Deephavenwas sold to Knight, Redleaf wasn’t happy for a lot of reasons.“There was a bad feeling about how quickly that deal wasdone after he left [Deephaven], like maybe there were irons inthe fire before he left,” Klammer says. After Knight purchasedDeephaven, Redleaf bought Knight stock. “That way, if the stockwent up, Andy would make money. But if it went down, hewouldn’t mind so much either,” Klammer explains.

Redleaf’s relaxed approach is evident in his dress. He favorsgolf shirts (he wore one to his birthday party). And shaving isoptional. In conversation, his hazel eyes twinkle and his speechis punctuated with laughs when he thinks he has said some-thing that sounds, in his words, “absurd.” In his letters, his senseof humor shines. In an August 2006 missive, Redleaf, who hasa graying mustache and goatee and is neither tall nor svelte,described himself as “a figure like unto a hairy man, but yetshorter than a man, and of great stoutness. And his stoutnesswas even unto many cubits, and his face was covered with hair.”

Redleaf speaks in paragraphs (like his letters), which meansfollowing his arc of thought requires close attention. “He isthinking all the time,” Vogel says. “He wants to make sure hispoint is fully understood, plus he wants to provide all theattendant reasoning.”

A question about Sun Country led Redleaf to a lengthydescription of how a position in Delta Air Lines enhancedequipment trust certificates almost led Whitebox to take deliv-ery of three 1990 vintage McDonnell Douglas MD-88 airplanes.The planes were orphaned, because no other airline flew them.In the end, Whitebox was able to offload the aircraft thanks toa startup called Allegiant Air, whose business model was pred-icated on flying low-cost planes. Redleaf’s point? First, that hehad experience investing in airlines. He also seemed to havebeen commenting on the importance of being ready to take pos-session of underlying collateral – a theme that is echoed in hisrecent grain elevator purchases.

Because of this tendency to lengthy speech, investors say,Redleaf sometimes resonates more in print than he does in con-versation.

In October, Whitebox funds returned 2% to 6.5%, accordingto an investor, who attributed the success in part to the secondand third leg of trades on the structured credit meltdown. Forall but the stat arb and diversified convertibles fund, stronggains continued through mid-November. After Whiteboxshorted subprime mortgage securities, the firm bet againstmortgage finance companies and, later, against the big, globalbanks that had exposure to these low-quality loans.

Redleaf’s inclination to make predictions has on occasion ledpeople to ask him for more. “My utter lack of faith in my ownpredictive abilities has never discouraged me from respondingto these inquires with an air of serene confidence,” Redleafwrote, tongue in cheek, in October. “So here goes: The stockmarket is set for a long, grinding decline, which many investorswill refuse to acknowledge until it is too late.”

With the S&P 500 down 9.5% since it hit a high of 1565 inOctober, that thesis may well be unfolding. ar

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