“The worth of a business is measured not by what has been put into it, but by what can be taken out of it.”
BENJAMIN GRAHAM
Foundational Beliefs
Valuation Measures Need Updating
Due to the evolution from physical to intellectual investment and related accounting distortions, traditional measures of value have lost meaning and efficacy. As a result, they need to be updated and rationally redefined in an asset light economy.
Corporate Risk is Best Measured by Fundamentals
We believe focusing on a company’s underlying fundamentals is the rational way to evaluate risk. This enables us to try to mitigate the heavy impact of drawdowns on compounded, real-world returns.
Due to Investor Behavior, Opportunities Exist for Excess Returns
Our process seeks to exploit behavioral biases by foregoing some large outperformers, avoiding even more large underperformers, and capturing a disproportionate share of stocks that modestly beat the market.
A DEEP DIVE INTO OUR METHODOLOGY
AN UPDATED APPROACH TO SECURITY SELECTION
The Distillate Capital Partners Story
Distillate Capital Partners was founded in 2017 by industry veterans Tom Cole, Matt Swanson, and Jay Beidler. Their collective experience which dates to the 1980s includes roles as Chief Investment Officer, Portfolio Manager, and analysts across a wide variety of sectors at firms such as Institutional Capital (ICAP), UBS Global Asset management, and Brinson Partners.
The research they conducted over that time led them to reconsider the traditional measures of value and quality that had struggled to retain their meaning in an increasingly asset-light economy. What came out of that multi-year effort was an updated approach to security selection based on free-cash-flow measures, which restored the comparability across equity markets.
Using this modern approach, Distillate assembles portfolios that are meaningfully different than traditional processes and more relevant for today’s asset-light economy.
Distillate manages more than $2.0 Billion as of 9/30/2024 across three strategies. The firm is 100% employee-owned and the partners are significantly invested alongside their clients.
Our Team
THOMAS COLE, CFA®
CEO, CO-FOUNDER
Tom is a co-founder of Distillate Capital. Tom previously was Chief Investment Officer at Institutional Capital, LLC (ICAP), a Chicago-based value investment firm. Prior to joining ICAP in 2012, Tom was head of U.S. Equities at UBS Global Asset Management. Tom held several other senior investment roles at UBS and its predecessor organization, Brinson Partners, going back to 1985.
Tom holds a BBA and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he was a member of the Applied Security Analysis Program. Tom is a CFA charterholder.
JAY BEIDLER, CFA®
CO-FOUNDER
Jay is co-founder of Distillate Capital. Previously, Jay worked for ten years at Institutional Capital, LLC (ICAP), a Chicago-based value investment firm where he focused on quantitative analysis and macroeconomic research. He worked as an analyst in the basic resources, energy, and healthcare sectors. Prior to ICAP, Jay worked at Congaree River Limited Partnership, a family office.
Jay has an AB from Brown University, an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and is a CFA charterholder.
MATTHEW SWANSON, CFA®
CO-FOUNDER
Matt is a co-founder of Distillate Capital. Matt previously worked for 18 years as a portfolio manager of U.S. and international value strategies, and as an equity analyst covering the healthcare industry at Institutional Capital, LLC (ICAP), a Chicago-based value investment firm.
Matt has a BA in Economics from Northwestern University, and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Matt is a CFA charterholder.
JOHN OLSEN, PARTNER
HEAD OF CLIENT RELATIONS
John Olsen is a Partner and head of client relations for Distillate Capital. John was previously a principal at Alternative Fund Advisors and, prior to that, Executive Director at AQR Capital Management from 2010 to 2020 where he was responsible for business development and
client relations.
John has a BA from Salve Regina University and has more than 20 years of investment marketing experience working with registered investment advisors, bank trusts, institutional consultants, foundations and endowments.
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