All investing involves risk, including the potential for loss of principal.  There is no guarantee that any investment strategy will be successful.

Investment Strategy

​​Investment Focus & Strategy


At Dakota, we are equity managers investing in growth companies with a catalyst.  We invest in all market capitalizations but emphasize our investments in small-cap stocks.  We are industry agnostic investing in healthcare, technology, industrial, consumer and the financial sectors.  We do not invest in pre-approval biotech companies or commodity driven businesses.


We search and monitor companies which offer a new disruptive technology, a shift in business strategy or a newly appointed executive capable of successfully carrying out the business strategy.  Emerging growth companies come in many forms, anywhere from a newly issued public company to a fallen-angel.  These companies are frequently misinterpreted, out-of-favor or simply under-followed by analysts, which leads to opportunities to capitalize on.

Our core strategy is ‘bottom-up’ fundamental stock picking.  Since this is such a dynamic process, we have amassed over 1,000 companies that we follow and monitor.  We conduct our own research internally as databases can often overlook or simply not uncover many of these smaller companies with catalysts. 
 
There are no shortcuts in finding catalysts to generate alpha. We are committed to deeply analyzing and uncovering investment opportunities by attending industry conferences, trade shows, telephone calls, knocking on doors and sitting down with management teams. These ongoing efforts allow us to determine the best investment outlook with a fundamental catalyst for us to invest. 

Sell Discipline


While our typical holding period spans a multiyear investment horizon, we nevertheless believe that, if our investment thesis is broken, portfolio positions must be reduced or eliminated.  Generally, we pare or exit investments based on several factors including: 

  • Adverse changes in long-term earnings power
  • If the company changes its strategy in a questionable direction
  • Excessive valuation
  • Loss of confidence in management, and/or
  • Opportunities to allocate capital to more compelling investments