Cox Capital Management Founder Bill Cox 鈥�81 Launches Internship Program
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12/11/2017
By Ed Brennen
Alum Bill Cox says he's found success in the world of finance by thinking independently and refusing to follow the crowd.
As founder and chief investment officer of Cox Capital Management, Cox is using that same strategy to grow his four-person firm in Andover. While there are plenty of business schools in the Boston area from which to draw talent, Cox is focusing exclusively on top students from the Manning School of Business.
鈥淥ur job is to hire the best of the best, and that鈥檚 what we鈥檙e doing,鈥� says Cox, who is launching a new internship program in January that will give hands-on money management experience to a rotating pool of up to five undergraduate business students.
Cox, who earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree in finance in 1981, announced the program during a recent visit with nearly 100 business students hosted by the UMass Lowell Finance Society at the Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center.
鈥淯Mass Lowell has made incredible strides over the past few years and is producing some really top-tier students. We鈥檙e excited to give them experience and reap the benefits of what they have to offer,鈥� says Cox, a Lawrence native who worked at various Boston brokerage firms before founding Cox Capital in 1997. His firm has grown to manage money for close to 100 families and 13 nonprofits from across the Merrimack Valley.
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鈥淚 saw a real need for institutional-quality portfolio management for people in the area who might not have access to big institutions because their accounts aren鈥檛 big enough,鈥� Cox says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e small compared to Fidelity or Putnam or MFS, but we鈥檙e effective.鈥�
Cox says that effectiveness is the result of independent thinking. During the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 buy one technology stock,鈥� Cox says. 鈥淎nd you know the story after that. Everybody was brought to their knees.鈥� A decade later, Cox avoided investing in the big money center banks that went bust and led to the financial crisis of 2008.
鈥淣ow it鈥檚 avoiding the Amazons of the world,鈥� Cox says of his conservative strategy. 鈥淭here鈥檚 been a huge herding effect into fewer and fewer stocks. If things do roll over, we鈥檒l be protecting our clients again because we鈥檙e going to avoid following the crowd.鈥�
Cox was joined on his campus visit by another alum, Ethan Brown, who has worked as a research analyst and portfolio manager at Cox Capital since earning his MBA from the Manning School in December 2014.
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A native of Lowell, Brown ran cross country and track at the University of Michigan while earning his degree in political science. He went on to become a professional triathlete and won a pair of national championships. After just missing a spot in the 2012 London Olympics, Brown returned to his hometown, where he was struck by the transformation that had taken place at UMass Lowell. He enrolled in the Manning School鈥檚 MBA program.
鈥淩iding bikes wasn鈥檛 going to pay the bills forever,鈥� says Brown, who discovered a knack for finance and quantitative research analytics and won the Gary Mucica Outstanding MBA Student Award. 鈥淕etting my MBA changed my life. I knew it would open a lot of doors for me.鈥�
And the door he chose was at Cox Capital.
鈥淲hen I was looking for a research analyst, I knew I needed someone smarter than me,鈥� Cox says. 鈥淎nd Ethan has been absolutely amazing.鈥�
Both men agree that Brown鈥檚 quantitative background has complemented Cox鈥檚 fundamental strategies.
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鈥淚 began building portfolio optimization models that can run through hundreds of thousands of scenarios and give you an ideal investment solution,鈥� Brown says. 鈥淎nd along the way, it was interesting because a lot of my model鈥檚 recommendations are what Bill鈥檚 done intuitively. We found this common ground that鈥檚 really taken off.鈥�
When Cox decided to hire his first intern earlier this year, Brown reached out to one of his mentors in the Manning School, Asst. Prof. of Finance Tunde Kovacs, for student recommendations. They ended up hiring Nick Salema, a senior business administration major with concentrations in finance and management.
鈥淯sing my classroom knowledge in a real-world setting was extremely interesting,鈥� says Salema, a native of Derry, N.H., who expects to complete his degree this December. During his nine months at Cox Capital, Salema compiled macroeconomic data, analyzed companies and worked with portfolio optimization models.
鈥淣ick鈥檚 the first in what we think will be a long line of hiring UMass Lowell students,鈥� Cox says. 鈥淲e are sold on UMass Lowell.鈥�