Guest Profile
Matthew Feshbach
Matthew Feshbach began his entrepreneurial career directly out of high school. After working for more than 30 years as an investor, he co-founded a clinic to provide stem cell procedures to those with congestive heart failure who have exhausted available treatment options from the current standard of care.
Jumping from investments to healthcare might seem like quite a tremendous shift of gears, but this transition—the reason for which may not be immediately obvious—will make sense to those friends and associates who know him well.
In 1982, along with his brothers Kurt and Joe, Matthew Feshbach founded the first short-only hedge fund, Feshbach Brothers. Starting out, Matt leaned on the only formal training he had—a mail-order course on securities analysis from the New York Institute of Finance.
Intuitively, he knew that to succeed as an investor with limited background and training that he would have to work differently than those competing for investment ideas. Thus was born the idea of going short instead of long, and not relying on Wall Street analysts but rather doing intensely deep “scuttlebutt” research—a term coined by Matt’s investment hero, the late Philip Fisher. And, most importantly, maintaining the courage of his convictions.
Matt learned a great deal in 30 years about the highs and lows of investing, and along with his brothers built a billion dollar hedge fund. He also learned to spot executive team members who had the “right stuff” in communication, leadership and management styles, and he became a keen student of what it took to successfully run a company. Though the market changed and short-only was no longer a viable strategy in the 1990s, his time spent analyzing enabled him to be able to boil down all the complexities and fluff in business to the simple facts—the ones that mattered.
Matt’s interest in the potential of stem cell procedures began in 2009 when a fellow investor introduced him to a public company in the field. After recognizing the regenerative and restorative potential of stem cells, a deeper look into clinical research showed that the most abundant source of stem cells comes from one’s own body fat (medically known as adipose tissue.)
Adipose-derived stem and regenerative cells (or ADRCs) have been seen in clinical trials to initiate new blood vessel growth in tissue that lacks blood flow, or “ischemic tissue” as doctors refer to it. He connected with top cardiologists in the belief that this science could be applied to the largest unmet healthcare need in the Western world: heart disease.
Through the effort to help people with heart disease, he honors the memory of his brother Joe, who shared the vision of tremendous benefits to the individual, the family and society in providing cardiac and other cell therapies to those who need them. Matt lives in Clearwater, FL with his wife Kathy, and they have three grown children. Matt is passionate about helping other people attain their goals, and he is very involved in his community. He enjoys swimming, and also long walks (with his telephone, of course.)
