Absolute Return interviews Seth Klarman
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The value pro is still looking at troubled companies, mortgage securities and select equities. But he is not buying much at the moment. Klarman says there are some opportunities in commercial real estate on the private side, but not as much as would be expected, given the depressed levels of the market. “That’s why we want to be patient,” he stresses.
Baupost is 30% in cash now, its long-time average. Klarman stresses that the cash position is residual—the result of a search for opportunity and not the result of a macro view. He says he can find great opportunities to buy at the same time he has a bearish view on the world. “We’re good at finding bargains, good at doing analysis,” he emphasizes. “We’re not good at calling short-term movements in the markets.”
And when the markets started to crumble in mid-May, he mostly stood pat, asserting that the 5% to 8% drop in prices did not unleash a torrent of bargains, mostly because of the market’s surge from its March 2009 bottom. “The market has gone up so much that, based on valuation, it is overvalued again to a meaningful degree where the expected returns logically from here can be as low as the low single digits or zero for the next several years,” he says.
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