Jean-Marie Eveillard

Jean-Marie Eveillard, who beat 99 percent of rival equity fund managers last year by hoarding cash instead of borrowing it, is loading up on Japanese insurers and Hong Kong developers. "Leverage eliminates your staying power,” said Eveillard, whose $16.8 billion First Eagle Global Fund beat the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index every year this decade. “If things go well, you look even better, but if things go badly, you end up doing worse,” he said in an interview. “You could blow up if big leverage is being used."

Making money now, with Jean-Marie Eveillard, of the First Eagle Fund Global Fund; Marty Whitman, of Third Avenue Management; and Charles Royce, of The Royce Funds

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Many investors think a seat in the bleachers is the only way to watch NASCAR racing, but a TV or radio is just fine for enjoying the popular American sport -- and possibly for boosting the stock price of race track operator International Speedway Corp. It's a classic page out of the playbook of value investors, something that comes naturally to de Vaulx and de Lardemelle, who worked for years under one of the best: Jean-Marie Eveillard.

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The managers of First Eagle Overseas -- a fund that's never had a losing year -- aren't finding cheap shares of battered financial companies appealing.

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Mutual-fund manager Jean-Marie Eveillard is a veteran buyer of value stocks, and when he surveys the global investment landscape nowadays, years of experience make him a cautious shopper.

"This is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression," Eveillard, who runs First Eagle Overseas Fund  (SGOVX) , said in a recent telephone interview. Unlike many of his peers, Eveillard does not believe the storm is over. "The transition to a better economy may take quite a while and be quite painful," he said.

Jean-Marie Eveillard's First Eagle Funds/Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder Advisers have been very active in acquiring stakes in Japanese companies over the past six months from their filings with Japanese regulators.

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Eveillard has compiled an outstanding record since he came to New York in 1978 to take over the management of the First Eagle Global Fund. It was, at the time, a tiny mutual fund owned by Société Générale, with $15 million in assets. Today the fund has nearly $22 billion in assets, has earned a four-star rating from Morningstar, has been ranked no. 1 by Lipper in its category for more than 10 years running, and has returned on average more than 15% annually since its inception in 1970.

Jean-Marie Eveillard, who runs the $21.3 billion First Eagle Global Fund, talks with Bloomberg's Betty Liu in New York about Visa Inc.'s initial public offering, the outlook for gold prices and the banking industry, and his investment strategy, including the recommendation of American Express Co., Home Depot Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc.

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Consuelo Mack WealthTrack interviews Jean-Marie Eveillard, Lead Portfolio Manager of First Eagle Funds.

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Jean-Marie Eveillard, who helps oversee $35 billion as a portfolio manager at First Eagle Funds at Arnhold & S. Bleischroeder Advisers, talks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar in New York about his investment strategy and the outlook for financial stocks, the impact of Federal Reserve monetary policy on the economy, and his recommendation of Cintas Corp.