Over the coming months, we're diving into the portfolios of some of the best performing investors of the last decade to see what ideas they're pursuing now and what might make sense for your own long-term strategy.
Some hedge funds chase headlines. Others chase size. And then there are the rare ones that just quietly compound capital year after year, avoiding the spotlight while building a track record that makes the professionals take notice. Slate Path Capital is one of those rare firms.
You won't see the name plastered across financial television, and that's entirely by design. Slate Path has never wanted to become a giant, and it has never chased the celebrity management game. What it has done is build a solid reputation for thoughtful research, concentrated bets, and a willingness to dig into complex situations when everyone else is too distracted to care.
The Backstory: Where Slate Path Came From
David Greenspan founded Slate Path in 2012 in New York after a successful run at Blue Ridge Capital. He brought with him the old school philosophy that made Blue Ridge a training ground for talented managers: deep research, long holding periods, and disciplined risk management. Before entering the hedge fund world, Greenspan spent time in the accounting and consulting trenches at Price Waterhouse, later earning his MBA at Columbia.
His Columbia connection runs deep. Greenspan became heavily involved with the Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing and even taught investment research at Columbia Business School. That academic grounding shows up in how Slate Path invests. This is a firm that starts with balance sheets and business models, not stories and hype.
The results speak for themselves. A simple strategy of owning the top holdings reported in Slate Path's regular 13F filings has crushed the stock market over the last decade. The firm marries credit thinking with equity research, blending value discipline with opportunistic risk taking. It's the kind of approach that appeals to investors who cut their teeth on balance sheet driven stock selection rather than momentum chasing.
In other words, Slate Path fits neatly into the lineage of managers who emphasize research first, conviction second, and asset gathering not at all.
What They're Buying Now
Here are some of the fund's top holdings that they added to or established new positions in during the third quarter of 2025. These picks offer a window into how Slate Path thinks about opportunity across different sectors and market conditions.
Union Pacific remains one of the most important freight railroads in North America, with a network that touches every major industrial supply chain. The company benefits from long lived assets, strong pricing power, and the irreplaceable nature of rail infrastructure. Its performance is tightly linked to economic activity and industrial demand, making it a reliable bellwether for the broader economy.
Amrize is a recently created industrial technology company born out of a strategic spinoff. It focuses on specialized materials and engineered solutions that serve multiple high growth end markets. The firm has attracted attention because the separation gives it a clean balance sheet and the freedom to pursue expansion on its own terms.
Rocket is still the most recognizable brand in the digital mortgage business, with a platform built on speed, automation, and direct to consumer marketing. Its fortunes rise and fall with the mortgage cycle, but the company continues to invest heavily in technology to prepare for the next wave of housing activity. The brand strength and consumer reach give it competitive advantages even in slower loan markets.
Cleveland Cliffs has transformed itself into a vertically integrated American steel producer with strong exposure to automotive and manufacturing demand. The company controls iron ore, steelmaking, and finishing assets, which improves its cost position and pricing flexibility. It's one of the more cyclical names in the materials sector and tends to outperform when industrial demand accelerates.
Nucor is widely regarded as the best run steel company in the United States because of its balance sheet strength and disciplined capital allocation. It uses a flexible electric arc furnace model that gives it cost advantages in both strong and weak markets. The firm has rewarded shareholders through multiple cycles by maintaining profitability when others struggle.
Enerflex provides energy infrastructure and compression equipment used across natural gas production and processing operations. The company is tied closely to global gas demand and the build out of midstream networks. It has been working to improve margins and generate more stable cash flows through service and recurring revenue opportunities.
GitLab is a modern software company built around a unified DevOps platform that helps developers automate and manage the entire software lifecycle. Its cloud native model has attracted rapid adoption from both large enterprises and fast growing technology teams. The company continues to invest heavily in AI assisted development tools to deepen its competitive moat.
EQT is the largest natural gas producer in the United States, with core assets in the Marcellus and Utica shales. The company has focused on disciplined drilling, efficiency gains, and free cash flow generation in recent years. Its fortunes are largely driven by natural gas prices and the long term outlook for power generation and LNG exports.
Upstart uses artificial intelligence models to evaluate consumer credit risk in an attempt to offer more accurate underwriting than traditional scoring methods. The company works with partner banks and credit unions to help originate loans while keeping most balance sheet risk with the lenders. Its results are highly sensitive to funding costs, credit conditions, and the performance of its risk models.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise provides servers, storage, networking, and hybrid cloud solutions to enterprises around the world. The company has been repositioning itself toward recurring revenue as a services driven provider. Its growth increasingly comes from edge computing, high performance compute, and partnerships that support large scale digital transformation projects.
Why It Matters
Slate Path isn't trying to be a household name. It doesn't need to be. It remains the kind of firm that serious investors pay attention to because the investment approach is familiar, disciplined, and proven. This is a firm that combines the rigor of credit analysis with the upside potential of equity investing, and it does so without the noise that comes with celebrity management.
For investors looking for ideas worth considering as part of a longer-term portfolio, studying what firms like Slate Path are buying can offer valuable insights into where smart money sees opportunity.
