Wintergreen fund (WGRNX)

23feb-Business Week--A Bigger Voice For Small Investors

The very rich, F. Scott Fitzgerald once observed, "are different from you and me." That has applied even to shareholder activism, a niche of the investing world dominated by hedge fund managers who are paid enormous fees to holler and claw for every last nickel of return on behalf of their wealthy clients.


But with corporations under mounting pressure to acknowledge shareholder rights, ordinary mutual fund managers are increasingly asserting themselves on behalf of smaller investors.

The standout example is David J. Winters, chief executive of Mountain Lakes (N.J.)-based Wintergreen Advisers, a mutual fund firm with $1.3 billion in assets under management. His 15-month-old Wintergreen Fund(WGRNX ) returned 20% in 2006, four points more than the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, thanks in good part to his activist approach. "We don't treat our stocks like rental cars," says Winters. "You've got to think and act like an owner, getting the company to think better."

That's what Winters has been doing with his second-largest position, Consolidated-Tomoka Land Co(CTO ). The 105-year-old property developer owns a vast expanse of virgin land in Florida. Winters has been using his 16% stake to encourage management to stay the course on its measured development campaign and to buffer it from pressure to liquidate its acreage. "We try to engage companies in a long-term constructive way," says Winters. "They've been very receptive."

Meanwhile, Franklin Mutual Advisers, Winters' old fund shop, has affixed itself to the ankle of forest products giant Weyerhaeuser Co (WY ). Franklin is using its $1.2billion stake to petition the company to convert itself into a real estate investment trust in order to gain tax advantages.

for info:

http://yahoo.businessweek.com/magazi...4/b4018050.htm

8jun- Morningstar.com
Three More Funds We'd Love If They Were Cheaper
Tuesday June 5, 7:00 am ET
By William Samuel Rocco

Wintergreen (NASDAQ:WGRNX - News)
This young world-stock fund has an excellent pedigree. David Winters is a hard-core value hound who had a long and successful career at Mutual Series. That career included a five-year stint at the helm of a world-stock offering, Mutual Discovery (NASDAQ:TEDIX - News), where he delivered impressive returns with modest volatility. And Winters is using the same hedge-fund-like strategy here as he did there. This means that he will look all over the world and across the market-cap spectrum for bargains, that he will invest in distressed debt and engage in merger arbitrage, and that he won't hesitate to hold cash when he can't find enough cheap opportunities.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ms/070605/195423.html?.v=1

Fund Insight
Look Back at Past Month Offers Lessons for Future
By Rob Wherry

(((The Wintergreen Fund is a very steady money making mutual fund. I am already up over 21% for 2007 using the buy and hold strategy. Mr. Winters, mentored under Mr. Michael Price the bankruptcy and undervalued guru, invests in undervalued companies overseas. This mutual fund operates like a typical hedge fund and will make me big money in the next ten years))))


While others are honing their strategies David Winters is getting a bit of validation for his. Winters, the former chief investment officer at the $35 billion Franklin Mutual Advisers, struck out on his own in 2005 by launching the Wintergreen fund (WGRNX<>><>><>>). The fund had yet to go through a trying time — until this month that is. Winters employs an eclectic, go-anywhere style he likes to say gives him "investment flexibility." The portfolio consists of stocks that run the style and size spectrum and come from all parts of the globe. Recently, he's been adding to his existing positions by deploying a 10% to 15% cash position he had been sitting on. The fund is up 10% year to date, good enough for a top 10 position in its Morningstar group. "We have held up very well in this panic situation," says Winters. Now, he adds, "we are consistent buyers."

http://www.smartmoney.com/fundinsigh...0823&afl=yahoo

Thanks for the updates!!!

Wintergreen fund--welcome back..

Fundmastery Blog--Kurt Brower

((This fund is doing great in this very unstable market... I am already up 25.4% year-to-date. And this is based on a buy and hold. I added more $$$ to my ROTH during the sub-prime crisis in Aug 07 and made a quick 10% profit.))


One interesting mutual fund we like is Wintergreen Fund. The Fund generally invests in stocks, however it is not just a stock fund. We consider it an alternative equity fund because of its investment strategy. Wintergreen Fund (WGRNX) has a flexible, value-oriented strategy that gives David Winters, the portfolio manager, a broad mandate to seek undervalued assets.

Winters formed the Fund in 2005 after a long stint at the Mutual Series group, which is part of the Franklin Templeton family of funds. When he left Franklin Templeton, he was president and chief investment officer for the Mutual Series group, which had $35 billion in assets at that time.

We used funds from the Mutual Series group for many years, however we stopped using them in 1996 when the group was sold to Franklin by Michael Price. In a way, we can say welcome back to Wintergreen. The Fund is quite new, but the investment approach is very similar to one which we like very much and had used for many years.

Here are a couple of excerpts on the fund’s investment philosophy. I shortened the list below to its main headings. Much more information on the Fund’s investment philosophy, risk profile and many other factors is available from its web site:

‘… The Investment Manager will follow a global approach to investing that combines the following key elements:

* Activism and Arbitrage…
* Bankruptcy…
* Cash and Convertibles…
* Distressed Companies…
* Equities That Are Undervalued…
* Financings…
* Global…
* Hedging…
* Integrity…

…With an emphasis on undervalued equities, risk arbitrage and other arbitrage transactions and distressed companies, the Fund will focus its investments in areas where it finds the most compelling opportunities at any given moment and on situations that, in the Investment Manager’s opinion, have the potential for capital appreciation…’

Given some of the strategies it employs, I suspect the Fund is pretty busy these days. With the subprime mess, the failure of several hedge funds, mortgage companies and others, there are lots of opportunities to evaluate distressed income and equity securities. As they say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

http://fundmasteryblog.wordpress.com...-welcome-back/

2 Great Value Mutual Funds (Wintergreen and Fairholme Funds)

( I am already up 21.3% ytd with my Wintergreen Fund using the buy and hold method. I am sure that Mr. Winters is busy buying those distressed financial securities. ))

By Emil Lee November 20, 2007


Whether it's my relatives or people sitting next to me on planes, I get asked the question all the time: "What should I do with my money?" Personally, I think it's hard to go wrong picking a great mutual fund manager and letting him do all the work. Here are two of my favorite value mutual funds.

All's fair at Fairholme
If I had to pick one mutual fund to put all of my money in for the next 10 years, it would be Fairholme (FUND: FAIRX). Under legendary manager Bruce Berkowitz, the fund has trounced its benchmark averages. If you'd invested $10,000 in the Fairholme Fund at its inception at the end of 1999, you'd now have $36,615, compared to $11,849 if you'd invested in an S&P 500 index fund.

Just as importantly, the Fairholme Fund's returns are strong on a risk-adjusted basis. Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) is the fund's top holding, at 17.5% of assets, according to Morningstar.

While we all know the merits of Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett, Fairholme has also found other strong performers, including Inside Value recommendation Sears Holding (Nasdaq: SHLD) and Leucadia (NYSE: LUK). Sears CEO Eddie Lampert and Leucadia's management team of Joseph Steinberg and Ian Cumming are often mentioned in the same sentence as Buffett. It's hard to go wrong when you've got a skilled mutual fund manager allocating your capital to equally skilled corporate managers.

A fund for all seasons: Wintergreen
How would you like to eat filet mignon for what a sirloin steak costs? I can't help you there, but I can tell about the Wintergreen Fund (FUND: WGRNX), a top-quality mutual fund without the hedge fund expense ratio.

Before founding Wintergreen Advisors, fund manager David Winters trained under one of the best in the business: Mutual Series' star manager Michael Price. After that, Winters could've easily started a billion-dollar hedge fund, charging investors 1% of assets plus 20% of its profits.

Instead, Winters decided that a "mutual fund is a truly democratic way [to invest]. You can invest your friends' money. It is nice to be able to do a nice job for people who need the money." The fund does charge 1.95% of assets annually, which puts its costs on the high side compared to an average mutual fund. But Wintergreen is hardly average.

The Wintergreen Fund has been off to a strong start since its inception in October 2005. In the past year, and from inception to date, the fund is up 34% and 24%, respectively.

The fund also offers global diversification, with top holdings including foreign stocks like Japan Tobacco. Winters' domestic picks include Consolidated-Tomoka Land (NYSE: CTO) and Wynn Resorts (NYSE: WYNN), both of which have very valuable land holdings, as well as Berkshire Hathaway.

As with Fairholme, the Wintergreen Fund has been able to achieve strong returns on a risk-adjusted basis and looks to be a good long-term bet for investors.

http://www.fool.com/investing/mutual...ual-funds.aspx

I added this fund to my watch list yesterday after reading the same article.
I can buy this fund at Fidlelity without a transaction fee, since it is a NTF fund and probably will next week. Thanks for the info.

The Wintergreen fund appreciated 21.13% in 2007. As of 18 Jan 08, it is down 7.3%. We are aleady in an recessionary environment in the USA with inflation. It is like a double edge knife. We are unfortunate that we have a FED central banker who is a theorist and does know how the practical financial market works. I am currently building up my cash reserve in my Roth IRA account. I plan to add more funds to invest in Wintergreen funds when it drops another 5% or so.

As far as the Nikkei, Japanese investors are staying away from Japanese equites and are satisfied with their meager return of .5% return on their money market fund. I don't blame them since the Nikkei is dropping like a log. I think the Japanese financial market authories will panic in the future when they discover that majority of investors of Japanese stocks are foreigners (governments of China and Singapore, and Middle easterns).