ELeder2020,
I think you mentioned this fund manager in a previous post, this is the kind of coverage we need to get for ancr...I will give John Shaugnessy a call today & recommend he call Mr. Kopp who would be another great addition to the team..
Edie
Kopp to retain top 5-year title as he launches new fund
Jill J. Barshay / Star Tribune
Riding high for the moment, Edina money manager Lee Kopp didn't even pause amid Thursday's 187-point market plunge.
"This is inconsequential," he said, dismissing the numbers tumbling across his TV screen.
Though many professionals maintained their composure during Thursday's market events, Kopp's recent successes may give him more reason than most to keep cool.
Three weeks after opening his first mutual fund to the general public Oct. 1, Kopp already has received $185 million from investors for the new Kopp Emerging Growth Fund. While the money flows in, so do the accolades.
Once again, the Wall Street Journal is slated to bestow Kopp Investment Advisors with the coveted honor of the top small-stock money manager in the nation for the past five years with a 37.47 percent annualized return, according to the firm's calculations. It's a title Kopp has held for most of this year.
But until recently, only wealthy individuals or institutions who could commit at least $1 million had access to the firm's expertise in small stocks. Still, that's been enough business for Kopp to amass over $4 billion under management since he opened shop seven years ago.
Kopp's biggest problem Thursday was corralling his portfolio managers to put the fresh mutual fund money to work.
Kopp said he hopes the market will stay soft for a while, affording him with cheaper initial stock prices from which to build his fund than he might otherwise have.
But Kopp is quick to point out that he's had downs as well as ups, and that he's currently the beneficiary of a number of fortuitous factors.
Kopp's firm runs a high-risk, high-return portfolio of small stocks, with a focus on the volatile technology sector. Quarterly returns are just as likely to be steeply negative, as they were in the first quarter of this year, as they are to be steeply positive.
"Since April, we've been fortunate that small stocks have picked up," he said.
And while the impressive response to Kopp's fund is partly because of marketing, and because 80 broker-dealers are selling it, it's also because small is hot right now and there aren't many small-stock funds available.
Many small funds are closed to new investors (Kopp plans to cut his off at $1 billion) to make it easier for portfolio managers to run them. The multi-billion-dollar behemoths aren't nimble enough to move in and out of companies that have a limited number of shares outstanding, Kopp said.
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