SRI International

SRI International

SRI International was founded in 2003 by Sheldon Kasowitz, a former lawyer who moved into investment management with a focus on distressed and event-driven situations. The firm operates from Menlo Park, California, with an additional presence in Hong Kong, reflecting a geographic bet on both US and Asian opportunities. SRI does not disclose its wealth origin, but its structure and strategy suggest institutional and high-net-worth capital rather than a single-family source. The firm runs a multi-strategy book spanning activist equity, private credit, real estate, and special situations. In public equities, SRI has taken activist stakes in small- to mid-cap companies, pushing for operational turnarounds or strategic sales. Its private credit arm originates and acquires performing and non-performing loan portfolios, often in Asia, where it has purchased distressed real estate debt from Japanese and Chinese banks. Known positions have included non-performing loan pools acquired from Japanese regional banks and Hong Kong real estate debt purchases during market dislocations. The firm also participates in secondary market acquisitions of LP interests and direct co-investments in restructurings. SRI operates with a lean team, anchored by Kasowitz as CIO and Kaveh Samie as Senior Managing Director overseeing portfolio strategy. The Hong Kong office primarily sources and manages the firm's Asian credit and real-asset exposures. In recent years, the firm has been quiet publicly, managing a portfolio that cycles through event-driven catalysts rather than maintaining a steady state of disclosed holdings. No philanthropic foundation or operating business is publicly linked to the firm. SRI's structural differentiator is the genuine integration of Asian distressed debt sourcing with US activist equity strategies — few firms of its scale run both a US proxy-fight capability and direct loan-purchase operations in Tokyo and Hong Kong. This cross-geography, cross-asset-class agility means the firm can deploy into whatever market segment is most dislocated at any given moment, a posture that typically peaks during credit cycles when both public equities and private debt become mispriced simultaneously.