AdvisorOne Interview's Bob Rodriguez
Found via GuruFocus.
Invigorated after a year-long sabbatical, renowned fund manager Robert Rodriguez, CEO of First Pacific Advisors, sternly warns that markets and the economy are threatened by the government’s tardiness in addressing fiscal reform. Unless restructuring begins within seven months, he says, a new financial meltdown will likely befall us in a few years.
Rodriguez, whose firm manages assets of $15 billion, forecast the global financial crisis of 2008-09. In 2007, he moved to a cash level nearly 12 times that of the industry. Today, FPA equity funds are at all-time highs. The compounded rate of return of the FPA Capital Fund, Sept. 30, 2007, through Jan. 31, 2011, was 5.3%. The FPA New Income Fund hasn’t had a down year in 32.
After a 12-month holiday circling the globe, Rodriguez, 62, remains a managing partner of his Los Angeles-based firm. As planned, partners who ran Capital and New Income in his absence continue as day-to-day managers. Rodriguez is an advisor to both funds.
AdvisorOne chatted by phone for more than two hours with the value manager, who makes his office in Lake Tahoe, Nev. Here are excerpts from that conversation:
