Yahoo Finance Ariel Investments Chairman John Rogers: We’re buying stocks, 'leaning in looking for opportunities'
Ariel Investments chairman, co-CEO and chief investment officer John Rogers sees value in the market even after a hard rally from the lows in late March. And he is putting his money where his mouth is.
“We have seen a lot of crises over the 37 years of Ariel’s existence — this one is the most stunning, deepest, the most wrenching that I have been through. But as Warren Buffett talked this weekend [at his annual shareholder’s meeting], the magic we have in America always brings us back from the precipice. So we’re buying, we’re leaning in looking for opportunities,” Rogers said on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade.
Rogers has more than $10 billion in assets under management, according to Ariel Investments’ website. He is known as a value investor — not unlike Buffett — and for being deeply plugged into Corporate America’s boardrooms. Rogers currently sits on the boards of directors of restaurant giant McDonald’s and sneaker king Nike.
“It has been a great opportunity to find some iconic brands that have really gotten hit,” Rogers noted.
Rogers said Ariel has been buying shares of Madison Square Garden Entertainment (owner of basketball’s New York Knicks) and Vail Resort — while continuing to have a small position in cruise line operator Royal Caribbean.
Added Rogers, “It has been a great time to be able to add to wonderful businesses like that.”
Despite Rogers’ stock buying, he does strike some caution on the pace of the global economic recovery — like what Buffett did at his latest annual meeting.
“On the boards I am on, people are concerned about the virus coming back in the fall. The worry that maybe all the things that you do to get things back on track will be derailed in that period,” Rogers said. “Also the theme I have been hearing is that people aren’t going to come back as fast as many of us have been hoping. So it’s make sure we have the balance sheet strength to weather the storm and just prepare for the worst and hopefully the worst doesn’t happen.”
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and co-anchor of The First Trade at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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