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United States Joel Greenblatt is a renowned hedge fund manager, value investor, author, and academic, celebrated for his innovative investment strategies and educational contributions to the finance world.
Joel Greenblatt serves as Managing Principal and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Gotham Asset Management, the successor to Gotham Capital, an investment firm he founded in 1985.
For over two decades, Mr. Greenblatt was a professor on the adjunct faculty of Columbia Business School teaching "Value and Special Situation Investing."
Mr. Greenblatt formerly served as a director of Pzena Investment Management, Inc., a global investment management firm.
He was formerly the Chairman of the Board of Alliant Techsystems, a NYSE-listed aerospace and defense contractor.
Greenblatt started Gotham Capital in 1985 with a $7MM check from “junk bond king” Michael Milken. From there he earned 50% per year for a decade.
Greenblatt co-founded a website with John Petry called the Value Investors Club, where investors approved through an application process exchange value and special situation investment ideas.
In October 2009, Greenblatt launched a website for Formula Investing, providing an online tool that follows the investment strategy described in his book.
In 2002, Greenblatt donated $2.5 million to P.S. 65Q, a public elementary school in the borough of Queens.
In 2006, Greenblatt co-founded the Success Academy Charter Schools, then known as the Harlem Success Academy Charter School, an elementary school in the city's historically African-American neighborhood.
Greenblatt is a founding Master Player of the Portfolios with Purpose virtual stock trading contest.
Joel Greenblatt shares insights on active vs passive investing, the value of patience, learning from mistakes, and the importance of detailed valuation in this podcast episode.
Joel Greenblatt, born on December 13, 1957, in Great Neck, New York, is an American academic, hedge fund manager, investor, and writer. He earned both his B.S. summa cum laude in 1979 and his M.B.A. in 1980 from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His early academic work at Wharton included a paper titled “How the small investor can beat the market,” published in The Journal of Portfolio Management. These foundational experiences led him to a career in finance, where he became a prominent figure known for his value investing approach.
In 1985, Mr. Greenblatt established Gotham Capital, a hedge fund that began with an initial investment of $7 million. Under his leadership, Gotham Capital achieved significant returns, with an annualized return of 50% (before incentive fees) or 30% (net of all fees) between 1985 and 1994. The firm specialized in “special situations” such as spinoffs and corporate restructurings. In January 1995, Gotham Capital returned approximately $500 million of capital to its outside partners. Following a period where the fund was closed to outside investors from 1995 to 2009, Gotham Asset Management, LLC was founded in 2008 as the successor to Gotham Capital’s investment advisory business. By December 2021, Gotham Asset Management, LLC managed $3.74 billion.
Beyond his direct investment management roles, Mr. Greenblatt has contributed significantly to financial education and literature. For over two decades, he served as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, teaching “Value and Special Situation Investing” to MBA students. He is the author of several books, including “You Can Be A Stock Market Genius” (1997), “The Little Book that Beats the Market” (2005), and “The Big Secret for the Small Investor” (2011). His book “The Little Book that Beats the Market” introduced the concept of “magic formula investing,” which focuses on identifying “cheap and good companies” with high earnings yield and return on invested capital. This strategy has been studied globally and has demonstrated long-term outperformance, though with higher short-term volatility. He also co-founded the Value Investors Club, an online community for approved investors to exchange investment ideas, and has engaged in philanthropic efforts, including substantial donations to public education and co-founding the Success Academy Charter Schools.
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