Services
Sweetbay Capital Management is a Washington, DC-based fee-only registered investment advisor. We manage investment accounts for individuals, family offices, and corporations on a discretionary basis. Our clients' assets are custodied at UBS.
Strategy
Sweetbay Capital Management pursues long-term, tax-efficient growth of capital through a patient, value-conscious investment approach. We employ patience and discipline in sourcing investments, as well as once an investment has been made, to give an investment thesis adequate time to unfold. We allocate capital based on our fundamental analysis of individual companies, and only when we perceive a discount to fair value that is likely to close over our three- to five-year investment horizon.
Core to our strategy is our belief that competitively-advantaged, well-financed companies become better investments if their share prices decline, allowing us to embrace the inherent volatility of stocks as opportunities to improve our expected returns. In the short-term, a company's market price can deviate significantly from its intrinsic value, which tends to exhibit only modest variability. Eventually, the fundamental value of a business and its stock price converge. Our long-term investment horizon negates the impact of short-term market price fluctuations.
We seek to limit investment risk by investing in companies with strong business characteristics, while avoiding highly leveraged companies and overvalued securities. We generally source our ideas by seeking what the market is overly discounting. Industries ebb and flow through economic cycles, for example, which can provide opportunities to invest in good businesses at discounted valuations.
Distinction
Why Sweetbay?
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We invest client assets directly in securities, rather than via mutual funds, thereby eliminating a layer of fees.
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We offer a transparent fee structure and disciplined investment approach.
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We are fiduciaries and act in the best interest of our clients.
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We personally invest in every security we purchase on behalf of clients.
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Our portfolios typically hold 25-30 securities. We believe our portfolios are well diversified from a risk perspective, but our investment returns are not diluted by an unnecessary level of diversification.
Team
Mr. Crawford co-founded Sweetbay Capital Management in 2015. He has over 20 years of experience in the investment business, including as a partner and analyst with Maple Leaf Partners, a long/short equity hedge fund on the Tiger Management platform in New York. Mr. Crawford obtained a BA in music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1997, and an MBA in 2003 from Columbia Business School, where he was co-president of the Investment Management Club. Mr. Crawford is also an adjunct professor of value investing at the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.
In Memoriam
Kathleen Koltes Crawford
(1976-2020)
Kathleen co-founded Sweetbay Capital Management in 2015. She worked for 20 years in the investment business, including in the research departments of Third Avenue Management and Alliance Capital Management, two New York investment firms. She obtained a BA in economics from Northwestern University in 1998, and an MBA from Columbia Business School in 2003.
Kathleen sadly lost her battle with cancer in September 2020 after a nearly two-year fight. She was a model of courage and integrity, and she was a loving mother and wife. Kathleen set an example for us to strive to emulate.