28 Feb 2013 Meridian Value Fund - Q4 2012 Commentary ( Portfolio )
We continue to seek out-of-favor companies, typically having experienced an extended period of declining earnings. In recent years, most earnings problems have been related to poor economic conditions. With some stability in the economy, albeit tenuous, we now see more companies that meet our strategy for company-specific reasons. These investments are the traditional strength and point of differentiation of the Meridian Value Fund. We are gradually shifting the portfolio to more of these investments and believe that this should bode well for a return to the Fund’s historically strong performance levels. The Fund is invested in 56 positions, representing 34 industry groups along with Treasury Bills. We continue to invest in companies of all market capitalizations and our largest areas of concentration are technology, retail and transportation.

During the quarter we purchased shares of Air Products, Arthur J. Gallagher, Corning, Cree, Energen, Linear Technology and Xylem. We sold our positions in Apache, Heartland Payment Systems, KBW and Wells Fargo.

Flowserve is a leading manufacturer of pumps, valves and seals found in a variety of end- markets such as oil & gas, power generation and chemicals. The company holds leading market positions across various geographies, product segments and end-markets. It is also ahead of the competition with aftermarket service centers located throughout the world, providing it with deeper customer relationships and steadier demand for higher margin replacement and repair business. Flowserve’s late cycle markets have bottomed and pricing on new projects is beginning to improve as excess capacity gets absorbed. Additionally, the company should, in our opinion, benefit from the build-out of emerging market infrastructure and domestic opportunities such as new chemical plants and pipeline expansions brought on by abundant natural gas. Flowserve maintains modest financial leverage and generates returns on equity of 20%. We believe the company is attractively valued at 12x our $13 per share estimate of potential earnings power.