FAHMI QUADIR

Quadir started as an analyst, not a fund founder. In 2015, while at Krensavage Asset Management, she pushed her bosses to short Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

Valeant then fell from about $257 to under $30, losing more than 90% of its value. That single call made her name.

Netflix put her in its 2018 documentary series Dirty Money, where she explained Valeant's playbook to a mass audience. In 2017 she left to launch her own firm, Safkhet Capital, a rare short-only fund focused on spotting fraud.

She later shorted Wirecard, the German payments company that collapsed in 2020 after admitting nearly 2 billion euros on its books did not exist. Institutional Investor reported her fund was up 24% in a single year, unusual for a strategy that fights the market's natural upward drift.

Safkhet Capital, Krensavage Asset Management

She is short-only, which is the hardest way to make money in markets. When you buy a stock, the most you can lose is what you paid.

When you short a stock, your losses are theoretically unlimited if it keeps rising. Quadir picks a handful of targets she believes are committing fraud, then does deep forensic research to prove it.

She reads filings, tracks numbers that do not add up, and looks for the tell of a company posting results that are too good for its industry. Then she holds through the pain, because frauds can stay propped up for years before they crack.

Her edge is patience plus a stomach for being called crazy in public.

Valeant. In the summer of 2015 she argued the drugmaker's model of buying up drugs and hiking prices was unsustainable and likely fraudulent.

Over the next several months Valeant lost more than 90% of its value as regulators and journalists tore into its pricing and accounting. She was in her mid-twenties and mostly right when far more experienced investors were still long the stock.

Wirecard was the encore. She shorted the German payments darling before it admitted in 2020 that almost 2 billion euros of cash simply did not exist.

The honest struggle of her career is not one bad trade, it is the whole decade she chose to fight. Short-only investing was punishing during the long bull market of the 2010s, when almost everything went up and staying short meant grinding losses while waiting to be proven right.

Being early is the short seller's curse. You can nail the thesis and still get squeezed to death before the truth arrives.

Quadir has said most companies exploit something, so if she chased them all she would never sleep. Picking which frauds to bet against, and when, is where the job can quietly go wrong.

Quadir believes markets are full of exploitation and that most companies cut corners somewhere. Her view is that short sellers are not there to fix problems.

They exist to shine a light on them so the market can price the truth. She argues that fraud will keep happening until there are real consequences for the people who commit it.

In her world, being early and being wrong look identical for a long time, so conviction has to come from the research, not the price.

Quadir keeps her personal life private, which is understandable given the enemies her work creates. She has spoken publicly about harassment tied to her investigations rather than about family details.

Quadir trained in analytical, numbers-heavy work before moving into finance, and her forensic style leans on that rigor. She has not made a point of publicizing her schooling, letting her track record speak instead.

As an Amazon Associate, Netfigo earns from qualifying purchases. Book links above may be affiliate links.