Artisan Partners’ Brian Louko on His Credit-First Mindset Through a Value Lens

During the 2026 Value Invest New York (VINY 2026) Conference, portfolio manager Brian Louko of Artisan Partners presented his thesis for Montana Aerospace (OTCMKTS: MTASF) (SWX: AERO) and highlighted his strategy managing the Artisan Global Special Situations Fund.

We caught up with Louko following VINY 2026, and in an interview with Hedge Fund Alpha, he shared his view of special situations through a value lens. Louko also provided a deep dive into his credit-led, event-driven strategy that invests in catalyst-rich situations across the capital structure and focuses on dislocations between price and intrinsic value.

Background on Brian Louko

The son of a nurse and a building contractor, Louko grew up about 20 miles south of Boston. He attended Northeastern University, and his first job after graduation was in risk management at Fidelity where he experienced the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the Eurozone crisis firsthand.

As a longtime fan of Warren Buffett, Louko read all of his letters and decided to get his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Columbia Business School.

“During my time at Columbia, I really tried to learn as much as possible and become a good investor,” Louko said. “Having seen everything that went on through the GFC, I had a real affinity for the credit kind of distressed value investing.”

At Columbia Business School

While at Columbia, he took a bankruptcy law class with the late bankruptcy legend Harvey Miller. Louko’s MBA experiences allowed him to take a very non-traditional internship at American Airlines, which, at the time, had filed for bankruptcy protection and was merging with U.S. Airways.

“I spent the summer down in Fort Worth, Tex., working on the restructuring and working in corporate development,” Louko said. “It was a very formative experience for me as I got to see an organization restructuring their debt. Since [airlines] use a lot of financing to run their business, I got to see the ins and outs of an organization going through change.”