Built by three undergraduates
We are a founder-directed public equity investment fund, all capital-contributing founders are the same members managing the portfolio.
Carolina Strategic Equities launched with twenty-five thousand dollars in combined founder capital, split between three undergraduate students who wanted real experience managing money as a team, rather than studying how it is done secondhand. Every rule the fund runs on today, from position limits to how a trade gets approved, was written before the first dollar was invested.
The founders set one standard alongside the financial one: outperform the S&P 500 without losing sight of acting responsibly. It's written into the fund's original business plan, and it still shapes how a position gets chosen, not just whether it makes money.
Why we chose the American chestnut
The American chestnut once made up roughly a quarter of the hardwood canopy across the eastern United States. The American Chestnut was the tallest, fastest-growing tree in an old-growth forest which lived for centuries.
At the turn of the 20th Century, an imported blight reached New York, within about forty years, the blight killed billions of American Chestnut Trees. Eastern old-growth forests already battled foresting, but the loss of a keystone species cemented their demise.
We use it as our mark because we believe in environmentalism, the chestnut is a reminder of natural prosperity and the danger of uncareful human intervention. It's worth protecting what remains and it is worth rebuilding what was lost through investing.
Fund breakdown
CSE is a North Carolina LLC, funded entirely by its founders. Every shareholder also sits on the Investment Committee which decides what shifts will be made to the portfolio through analytical pitches.
Kaiden Lech
One vote on the Investment Committee. Shares responsibility for portfolio construction, risk oversight, and trade execution.
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Grant Faraci
One vote on the Investment Committee. Shares responsibility for research, risk oversight, and fund direction.
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Sawyer Kribbs
One vote on the Investment Committee. Shares responsibility for sector research and position review.
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Marcus Woodell
Monitors compliance with securities regulations, organization bylaws, internal procedures, and related legal considerations.
LinkedIn ↗Economic ownership and voting authority are kept separate. Each founder's stake is set by their Capital Account. On the Investment Committee, every managing member carries exactly one vote, regardless of contribution size.
Any founder may propose a trade, which then circulates for 24 hours until a vote. To be passed, a proposal requires a two-thirds minimum committee approval vote to be executed. The same threshold applies to any non-stop-loss exit, or any actions on a position review.
Position and Portfolio Construction
This page outlines our position limits, exposure ranges, and valuation methods used within the analysis of proposed trades. The objective of CSE is to maximize shareholder value at a rate which exceeds the returns of the S&P 500 Index (SPY exemplfiies this metric above) in a manner which upholds altruism, humanitarinaism, and environmentalism.
Comparables
Benchmarks P/E, EV/EBITDA, and P/S against direct peers.
DCF
Used where cash flows are predictable enough to model forward.
Precedent deals
Applied where a name is a plausible acquisition target.
Proposal
Contains the: thesis, valuation, price target, and size of trade. Shorts add a stop-loss and borrow cost.
Circulation
Proposals are sent to the full committee for 24 hours before a vote.
Vote
To be approved, proposals require a two-thirds majority to be approved.
Execution
Trade is logged, then routed through the Carolina Strategic Equities' brokerage account.
Get in touch
CSE is founder-directed and does not currently accept outside capital.
General inquiries
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Before you reach out
CSE operates exclusively on founder capital and has not registered any offer or sale of membership interests. Nothing on this site is an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy, any security.