What you need to know about the Turk who bets big on stocks others hate — Carlyle & Valeant

    By
    NexChange
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    The “young Turk” Ahmet Okumus saw his name splashed across headlines this week for snapping up almost 9% of Carlyle Group’s publicly traded stock — just as others downgraded the private equity firm’s shares. Here’s what you need to know about the founder of Okumus Fund Management:

    1. He knew from adolescence what he wanted to do. Okumus started his career as a trader at the Istanbul stock exchange in 1987 at age 17. 
    2. The college dropout transferred to be near a brokerage. Okumus traveled to Georgia Southern University, but soon transferred to San Diego State University because there weren’t any brokerages nearby. It wasn’t close enough. Okumus stopped attending classes by senior year and never received a degree.
    3. He isn’t afraid of losing. Okumus closed his first firm at the end of 2008 after being hit hard by the financial crisis. He founded Okumus Capital in 1997, and the fund peaked at nearly a billion dollars under management. He opened Okumus Fund Management in 2013.
    4. Okumus is a deal hunter. He’s an admitted contrarian and value investor, who seeks out “deep” value situations.
    5. He parlayed $100 into $2.4 million. Okumus says he started trading with just $100 in 1987 and in 10 years had $2.4 million.
    6. The late John Templeton invested $100 million in Okumus. Templeton gave Okumus more than $100 million for his first hedge fund. Maybe more stressful, Okumus’s mother also handed over nearly all her money for Okumus to manage.
    7. His last bet hasn’t been working out so well. In May, the firm disclosed a 6% stake in Ascent Capital Group, and in December increased the holding to 10.5%. That stock has fallen more than 60% in the past six months and is trading at $16.70 Monday.
    8. The bets are big on a small concentration of stocks. At the end of the second quarter of 2015, he focused on just six stocks, with the biggest positions in Web.com and LifeLock.
    9. He went “very heavy” in Valeant. In October, Okumus called Valeant CEO Michael Pearson a “shrewd” businessman, and said the stock is conservatively worth $150. Valeant started October at $179.60 and closed Monday at $98.50.
    Photo: Luke Ma