Value Line
Value Line, Inc. is an independent investment research and financial publishing firm based in New York City, New York, United States, founded in 1931 by Arnold Bernhard. Value Line is best known for publishing The Value Line Investment Survey, a stock analysis newsletter that is among the most highly regarded and widely used independent investment research resources in global investment and trading markets, tracking approximately 1,700 publicly traded stocks in over 99 industries.
Company background
Value Line was incorporated in 1982 and is the successor to substantially all of the operations of Arnold Bernhard & Co., Inc. In June 2005, AB & Co. owned approximately 86.5% of the Company’s issued and outstanding common stock.The Company produces investment related periodical publications through its wholly owned subsidiary, Value Line Publishing LLC. VLP publishes in both print and electronic formats The Value Line Investment Survey®, one of the nation's major periodical investment publication, as well as The Value Line Investment Survey - Small and Mid-Cap Edition, The Value Line 600, Value Line Select, Value Line Dividend Select, The Value Line Fund Advisor, The Value Line Special Situations Service, The Value Line Daily Options Survey and The Value Line Convertibles Survey. VLP also provides current and historical financial databases which include DataFile, Estimates & Projections, Convertibles, ETFs and Mutual Funds in standard computer formats. The Company also markets investment analysis software, including The Value Line Investment Analyzer and Value Line Mutual Fund Survey for Windows. The Company's print and electronic services are marketed from time to time through media, direct mail and the internet to retail and institutional investors.
In addition to Value Line Publishing LLC, the Company's other wholly owned subsidiaries include Vanderbilt Advertising Agency, Inc., Compupower Corporation and Value Line Distribution Center. Vanderbilt Advertising Agency, Inc. places advertising on behalf of the Company and its subsidiaries' businesses. Compupower Corporation serves the subscription fulfillment needs of the VLP's publishing operations. VLDC primarily handles all of the mailings of the publications to VLP's subscribers. Additionally, VLDC is a disaster recovery site for the New York operations. The Company has a substantial non-voting interest in EULAV Asset Management, investment adviser and distributor of the Value Line Family of Mutual Funds.
Arnold Bernhard, the son of European immigrants, his father came from Germany and his mother from Romania. Bernhard took an unusual path to success in the stock-picking world. He attended New York City's Stuyvesant High school where he was a distinguished student and a member of The Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity, but failed to graduate by ignoring a graduation requirement. His overall record permitted him to go on to Williams College, where he graduated with honors and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Bernhard started out on a literary career and wrote several plays and theater reviews for the New York Post and Time. His interest piqued by Edwin Lefèvre's book Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Bernhard broke into the investment management business, first as an analyst with Moody's Investor Service and later as an account executive managing investments. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to his lay off from Moody's, but he retained some of his clients.
Bernhard then began to develop his method for picking stocks which he called the "Value Line".
The "Value Line" defined
The "Value Line" was a line representing a multiple of cash flow that Bernhard would visually "fit" or superimpose over a price chart. This was a pioneering attempt to normalize the value of different companies. He soon began publishing his investment survey.In 1946 Bernhard hired Samuel Eisenstadt, a brilliant and modest young man fresh out of the Army, as a proofreader. Eisenstadt was a graduate of Baruch College who majored in statistics. In 1965 Eisenstadt convinced Bernhard to use a statistical method called ordinary least squares regression analysis to replace Bernhard's visual method of fitting cash flow to a price chart. Using scores of Monroe mechanical calculators and a handful of data operators, Bernhard and Eisenstadt produced a stock picking system so successful that it caught the attention of the famed academician Fischer Black of the University of Chicago. Black validated the system's results when he published his famous article in the Financial Analysts Journal, "Yes, Virginia, There Is Hope: Tests of the Value Line Ranking System" in 1973. The system came to be known as the "Value Line Ranking System for Timeliness". With Eisenstadt on board, Bernhard continued to expand the business, adding the other publications and mutual funds along the way. In May 1983, Value Line sold stock for the public for the first time, though the Bernhard family retained 80% control.
Bernhard died in December 1987, but until his death, Bernhard continued his literary interests by combining with W. H. Auden, Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling in founding the Mid-Century Book Society.
Shortly after his death, his daughter, Jean Buttner, was named CEO of Value Line.
Fraud case
Fraud was uncovered by the Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2009. The fraud, which spanned nearly 20 years and involved over $24 million, was committed by Value Line against its mutual fund shareholders. The fraud was first reported to the SEC in 2004 by the then Value Line Fund portfolio manager and Chief Quantitative Strategist, John Dempsey of Easton, Connecticut, who was required to sign a Code of Business Ethics as required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Restitution totaling $34 million was placed in a fair fund and returned to the affected Value Line mutual fund investors. The Commission ordered Value Line to pay a total of $43,705,765 in disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalty, and ordered CEO Jean Buttner and COO David Henigson to pay civil penalties of $1,000,000 and $250,000, respectively. The Commission further imposed officer and director bars and broker-dealer, investment adviser, and investment company associational bars against Buttner and Henigson. No criminal charges were filed.Restructuring
As of December 23, 2010, Value Line, Inc. completed its previously announced restructuring of its asset management business under EULAV Asset Management, a Delaware statutory trust. As part of the Transaction: EULAV Securities, Inc., a New York corporation and wholly owned subsidiary of Value Line that acted as the distributor of the 14 Value Line Mutual Funds, was restructured into a Delaware limited liability company named EULAV Securities LLC; Value Line transferred 100% of Value Line’s interest in EULAV Securities LLC to EULAV Asset Management, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Value Line that acted as the investment adviser to the Value Line Funds and certain separate accounts; EAM LLC was converted into EAM; and EAM admitted Mitchell Appel, Avi T. Aronovitz, Richard Berenger, Howard B. Sirota and R. Alastair Short as holders of profits interests and Value Line restructured its ownership interests in EAM as described below. According to recent SEC filings Howard B. Sirota has resigned as trustee, but retains his 20% voting profits interest. Pursuant to EAM’s Declaration of Trust, Value Line has no voting authority with respect to the election or removal of the trustees of EAM and holds an interest in certain revenues of EAM and a portion of the residual profits of EAM. The Shareholders were selected by the independent directors of Value Line and hold residual profits interests in EAM. The Shareholders paid no consideration in exchange for their interests in EAM.
The business and affairs of EAM will be managed by five individual trustees and by its officers subject to the direction of the Trustees. The Trustees are Mitchell Appel, Avi T. Aronovitz, Richard Berenger, R. Alastair Short and a
Delaware resident trustee, The Corporation Trust Company, that exercises no authority. Value Line holds non-voting interests in EAM that entitle Value Line to receive a range of 41% to 55% of EAM’s revenues from EAM’s mutual fund and separate account business. In addition, Value Line will receive 50% of the residual profits of EAM. The Shareholders will receive the other 50% of residual profits of EAM. EAM will elect to be taxed as a pass-through entity similar to a partnership. The Declaration of Trust also provides for distribution of proceeds in the event of a full or partial sale of EAM in accordance with capital accounts and then in accordance with a sharing formula set forth in the Declaration of Trust.