Donald Drapkin Shoots On Cliffs Natural Resources, Activism, And High Frequency Trading

The discussion turned to Drapkin’s activist position in Cliffs Natural Resources Inc (NYSE:CLF), a position Casablanca opened in the second quarter of 2014. Casablanca won a six-month proxy battle to gain complete control over the board, installing Lourenco Goncalves as the mining company’s new CEO. While Drapkin praised the job Goncalves has done to shed debt and expenses burdening the company, the position has disastrously lost 85% of its value since Casablanca opened it due to depressed iron ore prices. Other scarred investors of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc (NYSE:CLF) include Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies and Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management.

To close, the discussion turned to the United States’ standing as a good market to invest in, which Drapkin emphatically agreed with, stating that numbers out of China are not trustworthy, that the London Stock Exchange is overpriced, and that Europe in general has too much uncertainty.

“There’s no place else in the world to put your money (than the United States),” Drapkin said.

Disclosure: None