New Ventures

Dear Friends and Partners,

It is with great pride and pleasure to be introducing Ruterra Partners. Joseph Rutigliano, Chief Executive Officer of the company and I have known each other for over a decade and our friendship and partnership is a natural synergy. With Joseph’s qualitative expertise as a master operator and my investment management and quantitative skillset, we have created what we believe to be a well-rounded company based on solid investment principles. By combining our strengths along with our willingness to challenge one another, we have formulated an investment methodology grounded in traditional fundamental analysis and enhanced by advanced technological efficiencies that offer a winning combination.

Ruterra Partners has been launched using internal family wealth and our objective is to partner with like-minded high net worth individuals and institutions that share our core values and beliefs along with our investment criteria. Our objective is to provide long-term capital appreciation with a return objective of minimally fifteen percent (15%) annually with as little volatility in the portfolio as possible. Through the use of core fundamental analysis, dividends, option premium, hedging, merger-arbitrage and pairs trading, Joseph and I are confident in our ability to accomplish our stated goals.

Our investment strategy has truly been a long time in the making. Joseph and I have spent years learning and formulating to become best-in-class stewards in our respective fields, while speaking often to compare and contrast our experiences. We have ultimately decided on the direction of Ruterra Partners and our investment policy is threefold.

First and foremost, we have decided to adhere to our beliefs that traditional value-based investing is an exemplary way of achieving above average market returns. As a Chartered Financial Analyst, my background and experiences in value-based investing has proven to be the most efficient and logical way to navigate an increasingly complex and sophisticated capital market. Both Joseph and I have spent many long hours discussing investment opportunities and we usually come together with a similar thesis, albeit through different avenues of analysis. As mentioned his qualitative managerial approach blended with my quantitative mathematical modeling have garnered investment harmony that is difficult to normally achieve.

As with any prudent investment management company our objective is to achieve consistent and superior returns in every market cycle.

As value investors wading through a field of overpriced and expensive securities that currently rule the day, it may be difficult to find the appropriate companies that meet our investment criteria and standards. We pride ourselves on our many virtues and certainly patience is one of them. We absolutely understand that the capital markets may at times refuse to offer us the occasion of a good company at a reasonable price. One advantage that we have on our side is the minimalization of career risk. Many fund managers constantly feel the need to be doing something to keep performance up to par with industry peers and justify fees. Given that this venture has been funded with internal family assets, we are less prone to the pressures of a typical wealth management firm, but we completely understand the risks of idle cash as it relates to portfolio performance. This brings us to our second objective at Ruterra Partners – the use of idle cash to keep the integrity our portfolio returns as we wait for a more opportune time to deploy assets.

Our second policy at Ruterra Partners is deploying idle cash set aside for our core portfolio investments into more finite strategies. These strategies are designed to keep our portfolio performance intact without having to risk our assets in a way that violates our core strategy. We achieve this objective by taking advantage of equity mispricing in merger-arbitrage and pairs trading.

As with our core strategy we have developed and refined our arbitrage and pairs strategy to comply with our primary investment objectives, taking into account the risk and reward dynamic for each investment that is made. My experience in dealing with large data aggregation and years of working with some of the largest financial institutions and the Federal Reserve have made our progression into this investment arena a natural fit for the firm and a marvelous tool to assist us with our stated investment objectives.

Our third policy at Ruterra Partners capitalizes on the many years of experience that Joseph has accumulated as a business owner and operator in the field of waste management, recycling, and logistics. He has built and sold many successful entities and has a proven track-record as an operator that knows how to squeeze maximum profits from the fruits of modern business – in a respectable and efficient manner. With that experience, its begs to reason that we will have a keen advantage in working with younger companies within our area of expertise. We will seek out capital finance opportunities that will allow us to deploy assets in a judicious manner while granting us the ability to tap into our business prowess that has worked so well in the past.

Having clear-cut strategies and an ability to find exceptional investment possibilities is paramount to the success of Ruterra Partners, but it is only part of the investment decision making function. We take pride in embracing key behavioral and risk mitigation theories when putting all the pieces together to form our portfolio. Taking the appropriate position sizing given the variance of certain securities assists us in avoiding additional unwanted portfolio volatility. Tracking and monitoring our beta adjusted market exposure with a clear plan for hedging our downside risk should the capital markets and/or the economy weaken will protect our capital during exceptionally turbulent times. Constructing highly correlated pairs trades that exhibit unique mispricing characteristics can boost returns when the general capital markets are in a downtrend and will balance our risk/return profile. Understanding and utilizing advanced portfolio management techniques places a higher probability on attaining our desired portfolio results.

While a long time in the planning process, this is a new journey that I, for one am extremely excited about. As we continue to advance our investment portfolio, increase our asset base and continually monitor and add new opportunities we will be cataloging our progress with our quarterly results and market outlook. We encourage our friends and partners to mark our progress. I look forward to our future correspondence and a journey of limitless potential. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Joseph S. Kalinowski, CFA