Keeley Funds Market Outlook and Commentary - 2011 Year End Roundtable

JIM STAMPER: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us again and welcome to our year end roundtable discussion to discuss the second half of 2011 and the outlook for 2012. My name is Jim Stamper. I'm the Vice President of Client Services here at Keeley Funds. With me here today once again is John L. Keeley, Jr., President and CIO of the Keeley Funds; Bob Becker our Director of Research; Tom Browne, Jr., Lead Portfolio Manager of the Small Cap Dividend Value Fund; and Brian Keeley, an Assistant Portfolio Manager of our Small Cap Value and Small/Mid-Cap Strategies. After record setting levels of volatility in 2011, I hope some of our comments will provide clarity in our portfolio positioning and the outlook for the coming year.

After an extremely difficult third quarter, the market rallied to end 2011 on a very positive note. With that said, the S&P 500 was relatively flat for the year and a number of hurdles remain as we head into 2012. Can everyone take a minute to summarize the current macro-economic climate?

BOB BECKER: Bob Becker. I'd say this is an unusual, slow, maybe tepid recovery for this stage of recovery from a recession. I feel there's a record amount of cash in the hands of corporations. This gives us a great deal of comfort as to their strength versus their weakness in early 2009 when they were all scrambling to get financing. Now there's a surplus of cash. Many companies are debt free and they have the ability going forward to make strong investments in property particularly, machinery that we're interested in or to make acquisitions. So it's just a quiet recovery and we're looking for better things to come.

BRIAN KEELEY: I tend to agree with Bob. I'm cautiously optimistic in 2012. I think stocks are priced fairly at this point in time. We are seeing a good opportunities in restructuring. There are a number of companies coming to market that gives us a good view, a good crop of stocks to take a look at and to invest in, in the future.

JOHN L. KEELEY, JR.: There's no question that we had a lot of hurdles in 2011. I think that that has already been discounted in the marketplace, specifically the European problems and the probability of a recession in Europe which may modestly impact some of our companies with European exposure. But I believe that this has been discounted in the marketplace and we can look forward to a much better 2012.

TOM BROWNE, JR.: I would agree with most of what's been said about the macro-climate. On the other side, I do worry a little bit about what's going on in the U.S. The U.S. is currently undergoing a tepid recovery that seems somewhat fragile at the moment and we are in an election year so it's difficult to tell what's going to come out of that campaign that might impact stocks. As we speak, our senators and congressmen are trying to come to another agreement to raise the deficit ceiling. It seems like we said that 6 months ago when we were here but we're at it again. We'll have a presidential election cycle which you know is going to be very acrimonious I think and what comes out of that could impact stocks. Then at the end of the year we have a bunch of tax cuts which will expire and extending those seems like it's going to be a very challenging, very acrimonious process.

JIM STAMPER: Great, is there a key event or outcome that could change some of the comments you just made regarding the macro-climate?

BOB BECKER: I think you know the chance that some of these tax credits would be extended, it was extremely beneficial in the fourth quarter for a lot of companies as they rush to put some of this equipment in place and I think there's a sense that this could help the employment situation. I guess I see glimmers of light in spite of some of the political morass that Tom talked about in that I'm seeing many, many plants coming to the United States - Volkswagen, Daimler-Benz, Toyota has to bring plants here because they can't stand the price of the yen. We've had natural gas prices at such low levels and the benefit is we're opening chemical plants that have never seen the light of day so there is some industry coming back to the United States. China's suffered strikes. They're suffering 30% increase in wages so we've got some good economic activity perhaps coming back to the United States.

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