Cullen Philosophy

Basic Value Strategy

As an independent registered investment adviser, we provide fee-only investment management services to eligible clients. This process involves the careful selection of individual securities (stocks, bonds, and cash equivalents) to create a portfolio that is suitable for client objectives. Portfolios receive ongoing monitoring for suitability and performance, and clients receive periodic reports showing positions and performance. Valuable tax strategies are also employed when appropriate.
Our Basic Value Strategy is rooted in fundamental analysis, a disciplined approach we apply consistently across all client portfolios. Through this analysis, we look for companies with attractive business models, solid finances, and high-quality management that have demonstrated superior efficiency in running the company. We seek companies selling at prices that are attractive in relation to their sales, book values, rates of growth, returns on equity, and financial strength.
Within this endeavor, we focus our efforts on diversifying over a select number of companies selling at what we perceive to be attractive discounts to their intrinsic value. We also look for special situations that have caused a company to become undervalued and where we believe there is an opportunity for the company to increase in value as circumstances unfold.
This investment strategy takes a long-term perspective. We employ fundamental analysis in our sell decisions, carefully evaluating when we believe a company becomes overvalued or when its return potential no longer meets our criteria. While we typically maintain positions for 3-to-5 years, we may sell when a company exceeds our target price or when company fundamentals deteriorate.
The cornerstones of our strategy are patience and discipline. Over time, this methodical approach has historically delivered consistent returns while helping to reduce portfolio volatility and preserve capital during market downturns.

Bucket Approach to Retirement

As an independent registered investment adviser, we provide fee-only investment management services to eligible clients. This process involves the careful selection of individual securities (stocks, bonds, and cash equivalents) to create a portfolio that is suitable for our clients' objectives. Portfolios receive ongoing monitoring for suitability and performance, and clients receive periodic reports showing positions and performance. Valuable tax strategies are also employed when appropriate.
Our portfolio management philosophy is called the Bucket Approach to Retirement. We feel that clients need a consistent income stream in retirement from their investment portfolios to supplement social security and/or pension income. However, clients generally should not become too conservative with all of their investments due to the longevity risk that is ever-increasing as life expectancy increases.
Our solution is to create a cash bucket invested in a combination of money market funds, certificates of deposit (CDs), and ultra-short-term bond funds. This bucket of assets will have a balance sufficient for three to five years of anticipated withdrawals. From this bucket, we create an automated monthly deposit into a client's checking account, replicating the income stream on which the client relied while employed.
The remaining client assets are invested in a portfolio of individual securities pursuant to our Value Investing approach detailed in this package. We believe investing assets in this type of portfolio allows for potential long-term growth to provide sufficient returns to live comfortably into the future.