Larry Robbins is an intense fellow. He looks more like a linebacker than a financial guru, and answers questions in a logical, rapid, and comprehensive manner that leaves no doubt about his energy level, or his engineering background.

His responses suggest either that he’s been asked the questions a gazillion times before, and has memorized the answers, or that he really is one smart dude.

Mr. Robbins, founder of Glenview Capital, has built a $2.5 billion highly successful long-short fund over the past four years, and has recently launched a new multi-strategy fund called Little Arbor. His approach is heavily weighted toward elbow grease, and is based on fundamental research.

It is also based on humility. The cornerstone of his success, perhaps, is that he and his team of 11 professionals focus only on what they feel they can analyze with some degree of confidence. They don’t try to figure out the latest breakthroughs in biotech, or the ins and outs of “cartel” products like oil or gold.

Instead, they work on companies and industries for which they have a reasonable shot at determining value. Mr. Robbins defines their selections as fulfilling the “five minute rule:” If the story can’t be told in a just a few minutes, it’s out.

They plunge into their investigations with enthusiasm, conversing with managements, suppliers, customers, regulators, and every other possible source of information that could give them a competitive edge. He estimates that the firm has 75 management contacts per week.

Their aim? To know everything knowable about a company. This is a tall order, when you consider that the portfolio contains about 100 stocks. The trick is that the firm focuses on themes and looks at companies clustered around an investment concept.

For example, during the last three years, Glenview has done a great deal of work in the wireless communications field. The thesis has been that the industry’s underlying product – minutes of use – has been expanding at 30% per year.

Mr. Robbins bought into the industry’s prospects, which has been buoyed by increased rural penetration, data emergence, consolidation, and other factors.

The next quest was for the best possible investment vehicle. After examining dozens of companies in the field, including the national and regional carriers, Rollins honed in on those building the relay towers – clearly, not the most obvious.

The stocks have had outstanding performance. Overall, Glenview has made money in 20 companies in various aspects of the industry, and has also developed some good candidates for short sales along the way.

For obvious reasons, the Glenview team almost never invests in foreign stocks. Logistically, there is no way a small, young firm could muster adequate resources overseas to produce the kind of “no stones unturned” research that Glenview favors.

Mr. Robbins’s priority with Glenview has been high absolute returns, and he has produced them. He feels his industry has focused too intently on volatility reduction in recent years, as opposed to making money. He acknowledges that much of this push has come from a new class of institutional investor, which prizes preservation of capital and low volatility above all else.

He, too, has decided to woo that audience, by starting up Little Arbor Fund. While Glenview is described as an opportunistic long/short vehicle with a 20%-25% return threshold, Little Arbor has a multi-strategy approach with a lower risk/reward profile. It also has a minimum of $3 million, and a targeted standard deviation of less than 10%.

The move makes sense from many perspectives. Mr. Robbins is convinced that there is a maximum-capacity issue with his main fund. Though not yet at the point where sheer size will begin to impinge on returns, ultimately that day will come. Mr. Robbins thinks it reasonable to close the fund, and has scheduled that for the end of the year. If all goes well, the fund will grow organically for another three to five years before size constraints will become a serious hindrance.

Meanwhile, Little Arbor will be marketed to a more conservative clientele. At the same time, having the new fund will provide growth opportunities to new recruits to the firm – something Mr. Robbins is most concerned about.

He acknowledges that the most daunting of all the tasks confronting him as a newcomer to the industry has been the hiring and training of a topnotch team. He laments that while there are consultants to help with legal issues, real estate, risk management, and just about every other task taken on by a start-up firm, there is no one to tell you how to interview, hire, train, and keep good employees.

Is Mr. Robbins tough to work for? Perhaps. He clearly pushes himself, and expects the same level of energy and commitment from those around him. It is unlikely that he is the sort of taskmaster that he himself faced when working for six years at Omega Capital, run by Leon Cooperman.

Mr. Robbins learned a great deal from Mr. Cooperman – a highly successful and tough investor – including the ability to argue his case forcefully and search out possible flaws in an investment thesis before placing his bets.

Mr. Robbins makes no bones about the fact that he is in charge, and that he alone makes the final investment decisions. Given that responsibility, can he really take on a new fund? Evidently, yes. It will help that Little Arbor will be investing in many of the same companies already researched for Glenview.

The new fund may buy a different security of the same company, or invest at a different point in the company’s lifecycle, thereby changing the risk profile, but there is expected to be significant synergy between the two funds.

Also, though the funds hold a large number of names, there is not much turnover of stocks. That is to say, the portfolio turns over on a dollar basis perhaps eight times per year, but most of the trades are to add to or lighten up on existing positions.

About 70% of the portfolio’s biggest positions have been held for more than 12 months. In the hedge fund world, Glenview qualifies as a long-term investor.

What comes next? Mr. Robbins admires many in his industry, and is not shy about copying their formulas for success. Indeed, in his extremely logical way, he has a list of 14 hedge funds on which he would like to model his own. His plan would allow for steady expansion geographically and in terms of product line.

An ambitious program, but it would be foolhardy to bet against a fellow who is ably managing two funds and four sons under the age of 5. It appears that Mr. Robbins likes a challenge, and a certain amount of volatility.

Ms. Peek is a former managing director of Werthheim Schroder, now a part of Citigroup.