Ceredex Value Advisors: A Cerebral Approach to Value Equity Investing
Ceredex Value Advisors is an investment management firm that has built its reputation on a distinct and disciplined philosophy of value equity investing. With investment roots tracing back to 1989, the firm operates as a specialized boutique, focusing on rigorous, bottom-up fundamental analysis to build its value equity portfolios. The name “Ceredex” itself, a blend of “cerebral” and “dexterity,” encapsulates the firm’s core belief: that successful, long-term value equity investing requires both deep intellectual analysis and skillful, adaptive execution. This post provides a factual, in-depth look at Ceredex Value Advisors, their strategies, history, and operational framework as a dedicated investment management firm.
A Foundational Overview of Ceredex Value Advisors
Ceredex Value Advisors defines itself as a team of dedicated value equity investors. The firm’s investment philosophy is grounded in the belief that financial markets are often inefficient in the short term, creating pricing disconnects. Their mission is to exploit these inefficiencies by identifying undervalued companies that present opportunities for long-term capital appreciation and income.
The firm’s approach blends “art and science.” The “science” component involves methodical screening for key quantitative factors, with a strong emphasis on dividends and valuation metrics. The “art” is the human element—the experienced team’s interpretation of the data, their deep fundamental research, and their ability to identify qualitative catalysts for change.
This philosophy is built on three key pillars:
Dividends: Ceredex Value Advisors favors dividend-paying companies, viewing a consistent dividend as a sign of management discipline and confidence in future cash flow.
Valuation: The firm employs rigorous absolute and relative valuation analysis to identify stocks trading at the lower end of their historical ranges, representing low-expectation opportunities.
Fundamentals: Purely quantitative screens are insufficient. The team conducts deep, bottom-up research to find companies with positive catalysts, such as new management, industry restructuring, or new product cycles, that are not yet reflected in the stock price.
This disciplined approach extends to risk management. Ceredex Value Advisors views a company’s business exposure as the primary risk factor it can control. At the portfolio level, risk is managed through deliberate position sizing—typically initiating positions at 1-5%—and daily monitoring to react to new information and price movements.
Tracing the History & Milestones of Ceredex Value Advisors
The value equity investing philosophy at the core of Ceredex Value Advisors was established long before the firm’s independent launch. The team’s investing roots trace back to 1989, operating within a predecessor firm.
Key leaders, including Chief Investment Officer Mills Riddick, joined this predecessor firm in 1989 and began formally managing value equity portfolios. Mr. Riddick was named head of the Value Equity Team in 1995, solidifying the process and philosophy that remain central to the firm today. Other senior portfolio managers joined in the following years, creating a cohesive and long-tenured team.
A significant milestone occurred in 2008 when the team led the transition to become Ceredex Value Advisors, an independently managed firm. This move allowed the firm to operate as a focused investment boutique while leveraging the resources of a larger partner. Ceredex Value Advisors is an affiliated manager of Virtus Investment Partners (NYSE: VRTS), a multi-boutique asset management company. This structure provides Ceredex with operational and distribution support while preserving its autonomous investment culture.
A Deep Dive: The Services and Offerings of Ceredex Value Advisors
Ceredex Value Advisors provides its specialized value equity investing strategies to a range of clients, including institutions and individuals. These strategies are offered through separately managed accounts and as sub-advisory services for mutual funds and collective investment trusts.
The firm’s offerings span the market-capitalization spectrum, but all adhere to the same disciplined, dividend-focused value philosophy.
Concentrated Large Cap Value Equity
This strategy represents one of the firm’s highest-conviction approaches to value equity investing.
Objective: Seeks long-term capital appreciation and income.
Universe: Focuses on U.S. companies with market capitalizations similar to those found in the Russell 1000® Index.
Portfolio: As the name implies, it is a concentrated portfolio, typically holding only 20 securities.
Positioning: This concentration allows the firm’s top ideas to have a significant impact. Positions are generally sized between 3% and 9%, reflecting a high degree of conviction in each holding. This strategy is designed for value equity investors seeking a focused portfolio of the team’s best ideas.
Large Cap Value Equity
The firm’s flagship Large Cap Value Equity strategy offers a broader, yet still focused, portfolio.
Objective: Aims for long-term capital appreciation and income.
Universe: Invests primarily in U.S. companies with market capitalizations comparable to the Russell 1000® Value Index.
Portfolio: This strategy holds a diversified portfolio of 30-50 companies. This holding range was intentionally reduced from a previous 40-60 in 2020 to sharpen the focus on high-conviction names.
Positioning: With more holdings, individual position sizes are typically in the 1%-5% range, balancing conviction with diversification.
Mid-Cap Value Equity
Applying the same rigorous process to the middle of the market, the Mid-Cap Value Equity strategy seeks to find overlooked opportunities in medium-sized companies.
Objective: Pursues long-term capital appreciation and income.
Universe: Focuses on mid-capitalization U.S. companies that the team believes are undervalued.
Philosophy: This strategy is particularly well-suited for a bottom-up, fundamental approach, as mid-cap companies are often less covered by analysts than their large-cap peers, leading to greater potential inefficiencies for value equity investors to uncover. The “Virtus Ceredex Mid-Cap Value Equity Fund” is one of the vehicles for this strategy.
Small Cap Value Equity
The Small Cap Value Equity strategy leverages the firm’s intensive research process in the most inefficient segment of the market.
Objective: Seeks long-term capital appreciation with a secondary objective of income.
Universe: Targets small-capitalization U.S. companies.
Portfolio: This strategy holds the broadest portfolio, typically consisting of 50-80 securities, to manage the inherent volatility of the small-cap asset class.
Philosophy: The strategy, which has an inception date of 2008, emphasizes the core Ceredex tenets: dividend-paying stocks with attractive valuations and identifiable catalysts for fundamental improvement.
Industry Classification for Investment Management
As an investment management firm, Ceredex Value Advisors operates within specific industrial classifications used by government and data agencies.
NAICS Code: The firm’s activities align with the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 523940 (Portfolio Management and Investment Advice). This code is designated for establishments primarily engaged in managing investment portfolios and funds (like mutual funds) on behalf of clients.
SIC Code: Under the older Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system, the firm’s operations would fall under code 6722 (Management Investment Offices, Open-End), which includes establishments that manage and issue open-ended investment funds.
Ceredex Value Advisors: Assets Under Management (AUM)
Assets Under Management (AUM) is a primary indicator of scale for an investment management firm. AUM figures for firms like Ceredex Value Advisors fluctuate based on market performance and client flows.
Based on public filings and firm disclosures, the AUM for Ceredex Value Advisors has been reported at varying levels:
Approximately $4.8 billion as of June 30, 2025.
SEC Form ADV filings from mid-2025 disclosed regulatory assets under management of approximately $5.16 billion.
Associated 13F filings (which track holdings in publicly traded U.S. securities) around the same period showed a market value of holdings around $4.57 billion.
These figures illustrate the firm’s substantial size as a specialized boutique focused exclusively on value equity investing.
A Look at the Key Metrics of Ceredex Value Advisors
Beyond AUM, several key metrics provide a clearer picture of the firm’s operational scale and structure.
Number of Employees: Ceredex Value Advisors operates as a lean, focused boutique. Recent regulatory filings indicate the firm has approximately 13 employees.
Investment Professionals: Notably, separate disclosures identify the firm as having 13 investment professionals. This suggests a flat organizational structure where nearly every member of the firm is directly involved in the investment process, from research to portfolio management. This structure supports the “cerebral” and “dexterous” culture the firm’s name implies.
Number of Clients: The firm serves a select client base. Recent filings reported approximately 28 accounts. This low number, relative to its AUM, is typical for an investment manager that primarily serves large institutional clients and sub-advises a few large pooled vehicles (like mutual funds).
Number of Offices: Ceredex Value Advisors centralizes its operations in a single domestic location. The firm is headquartered in Winter Park, Florida, and does not maintain international offices.
Technology and Research Infrastructure
Ceredex Value Advisors emphasizes a research-driven investment process that is human-centric, blending quantitative screening with deep qualitative analysis.
While the firm does not publicly detail proprietary software, its “science and art” methodology provides insight into its infrastructure:
Quantitative Screening: The “science” aspect of their process involves technology for screening large datasets of financial information. This is used to filter the investable universe for key factors, particularly dividend payments and specific valuation metrics, to identify a preliminary list of research candidates.
Fundamental Research: The firm’s primary “technology” is its experienced team. The value equity investors and analysts conduct intensive, bottom-up fundamental research on each company. This includes analyzing financial statements, assessing management quality, understanding competitive dynamics, and identifying the specific catalysts for value realization.
Risk Management: The firm employs risk management protocols that involve daily portfolio monitoring. This requires systems capable of tracking position weights, sector exposures, and fundamental news flow in real-time to ensure alignment with the firm’s “one to get out” sell discipline.
The firm’s approach is not described as being driven by AI or machine learning, but rather as a classic value equity investing framework augmented by modern data-screening tools.
Key Partnership: Virtus Investment Partners
The most significant strategic relationship for Ceredex Value Advisors is its partnership with Virtus Investment Partners (NYSE: VRTS).
Ceredex is not a standalone entity but rather an affiliated manager (or “boutique”) within the Virtus multi-boutique model. This structure is central to Ceredex’s operations:
Investment Autonomy: Ceredex retains full autonomy over its investment philosophy, process, and decision-making. The investment team, led by its own CIO, is not directed by the parent company.
Sub-Advisory Role: Ceredex serves as the sub-adviser for several mutual funds offered by Virtus, such as the “Virtus Ceredex Large-Cap Value Equity Fund” and “Virtus Ceredex Small-Cap Value Equity Fund.”
Operational Support: Virtus provides Ceredex with centralized operational support, including distribution, marketing, compliance, and back-office functions. This allows the 13-person Ceredex team to focus almost exclusively on value equity investing and research, rather than on the day-to-day logistics of running a large asset management business.
Awards and Industry Recognition
As a specialized investment management firm, Ceredex Value Advisors has received industry recognition for its expertise in value equity investing.
One notable award includes:
CFI.co: Best Mid-Cap Equity Investment Team United States (2016)
This award highlights the firm’s research-intensive process and its ability to generate results in the mid-cap space. While focused on a specific strategy, it reflects the firm-wide culture of deep, fundamental analysis.
This detailed examination of Ceredex Value Advisors reveals a firm with a clear and unwavering identity. For decades, the team has remained committed to a single, disciplined craft: value equity investing. By blending quantitative screens with intensive, human-driven research, Ceredex has built a differentiated investment management firm that prizes conviction, discipline, and a long-term perspective. Their strategies, from the Concentrated Large Cap Value Equity portfolio to the broader Small Cap Value Equity offering, all originate from this central, value-driven philosophy, executed by a focused and experienced team of value equity investors.
Ceredex Value Advisors Leadership & Teams
Mills Riddick – Chief Investment Officer / Executive Managing Director / Senior Portfolio Manager
Don Wordell – Managing Director / Senior Portfolio Manager
Jennifer W. Graff – Managing Director / Senior Portfolio Manager
Profile Structure
Name: Ceredex Value Advisors
Industry: Investment Management (NAICS: 523940 – Portfolio Management and Investment Advice)
Founded: 2008 (Investment roots trace back to 1989)
Headquarters: Winter Park, Florida
AUM: Approximately $5.16 billion (as of mid-2025 regulatory filings)
Employees: Approximately 13
Client Segments: Institutions and Individuals
Specialization: Value Equity Investing
Website: ceredexvalue.com