About VIA
Value Intelligence Advisors GmbH (VIA) is an independent asset management company based in Munich, Germany, and was founded in November 2009 by Stefan Rehder. The company holds a license from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to provide financial services according to § 15 WpIG (German Securities Institutions Act).
Company Objective
It is the company objective of Value Intelligence Advisors GmbH to only offer products and services based on a modern value-oriented philosophy which provide the customer with an added value in the form of an attractive, risk-adjusted, long-term return. The long-term vision of the company is to achieve outstanding results in the areas of portfolio management, customer communication and customer services, thereby developing Value Intelligence Advisors GmbH into a leading, independent provider of value funds in the German-speaking world.
Target customers are financial institutions, asset managers, family offices and foundations.
Company Philosophy
The primary goal of Value Intelligence Advisors GmbH is to promote a long-term, value-oriented investment approach. We are convinced that this approach makes sense and – unlike nearly all short-term investment strategies – adds real value for the customer.
The long-term success of our customer is our topmost priority. Our products and services are characterized by relatively moderate fee structure because we are well aware that high management and distribution fees are detrimental to the long-term investment results.
When managing our customers’ assets, we apply the same conservative criteria that we use for managing our own assets. Our commitment to responsibly handle the capital entrusted to us is underlined by investing a significant part of our own private wealth into our value fund long-term.
We maintain open and honest communication with our customers. Historically we can see that phases of relatively modest performance are the price a value-oriented investor has to pay for results that are superior in the long run. The communication with our customers is especially important in such phases in order to achieve the common goal.
We strive to continuously improve our investment process without deviating from the fundamental principles of value investing, which over decades have proven to be successful. Our network of renowned academics and leading value investors gives us the opportunity to learn from the best and to keep developing.
Team
Stefan Rehder,founder and managing director of VIA GmbH
The founder and managing director of the company has more than 25 years of capital markets experience, especially in consulting important international institutional investors and as fund advisor. His career path took him to the private bank Schröder, Münchmeyer Hengst & Co, M.M. Warburg (New York), HypoVereinsbank (New York) and BayernLB. He discovered his passion for value investing in the late 90ies, when he met leading American value investors and covered them as investment advisor over many years. Convinced by the value-oriented investment philosophy, he implemented the approach at BayernLB research, investment advisory and asset management starting in 2003. In 2009, he fulfilled his long-held wish to set up his own asset management company, Value Intelligence Advisors GmbH. His most important tasks for the company include the development of the investment strategy and the stock selection for the managed equity funds.
Thomas Wiedemann, CFA, Analyst
Thomas Wiedemann joined Value Intelligence Advisors as research analyst in May 2012. He started his career in 2005 with a dual study program at BayernLB. During this time he already worked for Stefan Rehder and learned about the teachings of Benjamin Graham. After this, he successfully passed an M.Sc. Banking & Finance at the University of Liechtenstein and spent two years in Moscow where he studied at the Financial University of the Russian Federation. Thomas Wiedemann is a certified Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). In 2013 he rounded off his value-specific education with a value investing seminar of Prof. Bruce Greenwald at Columbia University, New York.
Maximilian Herde, Business Development & Research
Maximilian Herde joined VIA in April 2020 in the Business Development & Research department. Previously, he has been a working student at VIA for 2 years during his studies. He started his academic career in 2013 with studies at the TU Munich. He learned the principles of value investing early on at the TU Investment Club. During his studies, he also gained practical experience in private equity, M&A and alternative investments before successfully completing his Master in Management & Technology in 2020. At the beginning of his professional career at VIA, he expanded his value-specific education through the Value Investing Seminar of Prof. Tano Santos (Columbia University).
Advisory Board
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Hens
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Hens is one of the leading European academic researcher in the field of behavioral finance. He teaches at the University of Zurich and is also head of the Swiss Banking Institute. Handelsblatt ranked him among the top 10 economics professors in the German-speaking world. In his scientific work, Prof. Hens expands on the question how investors make decisions and what role human psychology and biology plays in the development of the capital markets. Apart from his academic work, Prof. Hens also founded an association, the BhfS Behavioral Finance Solutions, which supports financial institutions with their analyses of individual customer needs. He is the author of a number of books, e.g., “Behavioral Finance for Private Banking", published in 2010. Also, Prof. Hens acts as advisor to the pension fund of the city of Zurich. He has been supporting our work for many years and, like ourselves, sees a close connection between value investing and behavioral finance. He provides advice in all scientific questions that are relevant for our investment process or portfolio construction.
Fund Administration
Ampega Investment GmbH, Cologne, acts as the captial investment company for the fund initiated by the asset manager. AmpegaInvestment has approx. 151 bn Euros assets under management (21.1 bn third party) and is among the leading asset management companies in Germany. AmpegaInvestment currently looks after 148 institutional portfolios, 61 specialized funds and 87 retail funds. Of these 87 retail funds, 70 are label funds, i.e. funds for third parties (e.g. Value Intelligence Advisors GmbH).
The services that AmpegaInvestment provides to Value Intelligence Advisors GmbH include the fund administration, the fund reporting and sales support of the fund to institutional investors.
State Street Bank GmbH, Munich, is the custodian bank of the Value Intelligence Fund. State Street is the leading provider of custodian banking services worldwide and because of its size and international presence it is a suitable partner for a globally operating equity fund like the Value Intelligence Fonds AMI.
The services that State Street Bank GmbH provides to Value Intelligence Adivisors GmbH include the safekeeping of the portfolio assets, the settlement of security transactions and the payment transactions.