About Me

Agustin Gonzalez.
Born and raised in Dallas, Texas,  I am Founder/Trader of AG Capital Management, a Registered Investment Advisor, located in Dallas, Texas.  I currently trade equities and derivatives for my clients.  Prior to starting my own firm, I advised high-net-worth clients in investment strategy and portfolio management at Merrill Lynch Global Private Client Group. 

My educational background includes having attended the United States Air Force Academy between 1994 and 1998 before receiving an Honorable Discharge for medical reasons.   I would later graduate with a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Management Science from the Southern Methodist University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in Dallas, Texas.  I also completed my Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business with a double concentration in Corporate Finance and Financial Consulting. 

In my studies, I co-authored a research paper titled, “Altria Group – Case Study for Restructuring”, that outlined the strategic advantages of Altria potentially engaging into an equity carve-out for their PMI unit (international division of Altria).  Our team argued in the paper that PMI’s high growth rate plus dominant market position would give investors reason to place a higher premium on the assets – in other words, the pieces valued separately were far more valuable then the entire entity in its current state.  With tremendous growth rates within the PMI unit, we ultimately recommended that Altria Group proceed with an equity carve-out of the PMI unit based on our quantitative valuation models.  Using the EV/EBITDA multiples for 2007 on both domestic and international tobacco companies, we showed that the sum of the parts excluding the Altria's financial services business was almost $80 per share ($45 for PMI, almost $30 for PMUSA and $5 for the stake in Miller Brewing) which at that time was about 20% greater than the prevailing market price of $65 per share. 

While my trading style involves assets from a cross section of industries and sectors, the emphasis of my research for this website is on financials.  I believe that financial stocks provide a fairly accurate proxy of the economy.  As a result, I currently follow the listed firms:

Bank of America, ex-Bear Stearns assets, Blackstone, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lazard, Lehman, ex-Merrill Lynch assets, Morgan Stanley, and Och Ziff

And I also cover the following analysts and traders:

Meredith Whitney of Oppenheimer, Guy Moszkowski of Merrill Lynch, Glenn Schorr of UBS, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital and Peter Thiel of Clarium Capital

In addition to my portfolio management services, I have also served as a strategic advisor to small and medium-sized firms seeking financial modeling and analysis for financial transactions to include valuations and acquisitions.  Recently, I was engaged as a buy-side financial advisor for a highly successful Dallas-based services firm looking to acquire new assets in attempt to further increase their market share.  The proposed transaction required me to value the assets up for bid, build a qualitative case for the acquisition, and assess post-deal free cash flows.   

I am married to the beautiful Elizabeth Gonzalez and we are proud parents of our first child, Nicolas Maximilian. We are expecting our second child this coming April. I love spending time with my family and close friends.   During my free time, I coach an inner-city youth Pop Warner football team and enjoy reading financial journals and books.  Amongst my favorite books: "When Genius Failed" by Roger Lowenstein and "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis.

My biggest passion outside of my family and stocks is following my favorite college football team: the Air Force Academy Falcons.  I am an active member of the US Air Force Academy Blue-Silver Football Booster Club and each season I travel to see my team play. In addition to having attended many home games at USAF Academy in Colorado, I have also traveled to see the Falcons play at TCU, Notre Dame, Tennessee, and Colorado State amongst others. In the upcoming seasons, I anxiously await traveling with the team when they visit Oklahoma, Florida State, Navy and Wake Forest.

I hope you enjoy my site and please let me know if you have any questions and/or comments.

I can be reached at agustinf.gonzalez@gmail.com.