Acclaimed global investor Leah Zell, the founder of Lizard Investors, has quietly formed a bearish view on Woolworths, telling a high-profile conference in Chicago last month the company's restructuring might be too little, too late.

Ms Zell, regarded as a trailblazer in the field of small- and mid-caps investing, addressed the first Australian Sohn Hearts & Minds conference in Sydney on Friday, where she and Oaktree's Howard Marks were the only international guests to grace the stage. Her presentation promoted Turkey's BIM as her best stock idea, a low-cost grocer which Ms Zell described as having one of the strongest business models she had discovered in grocery retail.