Behind the Balance Sheet
We deconstruct the performance of world beating investors. A former Tiger Cub hedge fund partner interviews top hedge fund & long only managers & leading commentators. Past guests include John Armitage, Mario Gabelli & Bill Nygren. We explore how professionals analyse & value businesses, capital cycles, forensic accounting, pick stocks, construct portfolios, generate alpha & manage risk. For private investors, analysts, PMs & students who want serious financial education, sharper investing insights & to master equity research, fundamental analysis & value investing.
Episodes
#59 The "Permabear" - Jeremy Grantham on why he expects a market crash, navigating bubbles and giving away $1bn
Jeremy Grantham is known as a permabear and an expert on bubbles so you should not be surprised that he sees an AI-induced bubble today and thinks the market will fall by 50%. He points out that at peaks you always have high multiples applied to abnormally high profit margins and today is no different. We discuss his experiences at GMO, where they didn’t have a sales person for their first 22 year
#58 The Chart Guy - $4tn CIO Michael Cembalest on markets, AI and the impending rout in US Treasuries
Michael Cembalest chairs the Market and Investment Strategy group at JP Morgan Asset and Wealth Management and effectively oversees $4tn AUM. He is responsible for market and investment insights across the asset management business and has produced the famous Eye on the Market publication for over 20 years now. We discuss AI, which formed the bulk of his most recent annual edition, why he believes
#57 The Behavioural Scientist - Rory Sutherland on Marketing, What Analysts Miss and Behavioural Economics
Rory Sutherland is the Vice Chairman of advertising giant Ogilvy UK, a behavioural scientist, TED speaker, organiser of the Nudgestock conference and so much more. Most important, he is one of the most original thinkers around. In this wide ranging conversation, he explains what accountants and analysts miss, why he believes family-owned businesses are long term winners, two reasons to own Costco,
#56 The Sculptor - Jonathan Tepper on 16 Stock Portfolios, Moats & Buying Oligopolies
The title “The Sculptor” is a play on a quote “every man can be the sculptor of his own mind”, as Jonathan Tepper is uniquely self-educated. Brought up in the slums of San Blas in Madrid, partly home-schooled, he made it to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Tepper is a relentless learner, endlessly curious and in love with investing – as he sees it, you never stop learning and every day is an opportunit
#55 The Pugilist - Terry Smith on Quality, Valuation & Long‑Term Compounding
Terry Smith is the fund manager the professionals love tohate. A billionaire, he is in the third and most successful phase of a varied career. He trounced the index for years with a simple mantra of buy good companies, don’t overpay, do nothing. He thus built one of the largest funds inthe UK, made himself a fortune and moved to Mauritius. None of this made him popular with his peers and after 5 y
#54 The Innovation Fans - James Anderson & Morgan Samet on Finding the Next Ten‑Baggers
James Anderson, former Senior Partner of Baillie Gifford and early backer of Elon Musk, now runs the Lingotto Innovation Strategy with Morgan Samet. I interviewed them in front of a live audience at Italian Tech Week, hence this shorter than usual episode. We discussed AI of course, China’s role in a portfolio as a leader in many areas of tech but with associated geopolitical risk, the future of a
#53 The Plodder - Tom Gayner on Building Markel and the Art of Long‑Term Compounding
Tom Gayner is the CEO of Markel Group and has run its investment portfolio for 35 years, beating the index by an astonishing 1.5% pa. This makes him one of the most successful capital allocators in the US stockmarket, yet he is under the radar. He explains why he holds 140 stocks, although the top 40 represent 80% of the value; why there are so few imitators of the insurance/equity and business in
#52 The Traditionalist - Tim Guinness on Why Beating the Market is Easy
Tim Guinness is the founder and Chairman of Guinness Global Investors. He has been in business 5 decades and has been managing money for 44 years. He has built up two firms, the first he sold and the second now runs $11bn. Age 77, he is still thinking about how to grow the business and secure its future. Perhaps controversially, Tim thinks it’s not difficult for activemanagers to beat the index, e
#51 The Franchise Fan - Nick Train on Durable Franchises and 20‑Year Holding Periods
Nick Train is a seriously thoughtful growth investor with a highly impressive 40 year track record. He invests in eternal franchises and takes a 20 year view. He says his ideal holding period is forever. He was early to recognise that high quality consumer brands were great investments and accordingly his funds significantly outperformed their benchmarks. More recently, the last five years have be
#50 The Art Lover - Christopher Tsai on Growth Investing, Tesla & Collecting Ai Weiwei
Christopher Tsai is a deeply thoughtful growth investor. He became one of the foremost collectors of the works of Ai Weiwei, recognising their implicit value and deeply studying the artist. His concentrated portfolio reflects his attraction to growth stocks with Tesla his largest position. In our conversation, he explains why he believes Tesla has deep moats across multiple verticals; why he think
#49 The $50bn Man - David Samra on Global Value & 20 Years of 4% Alpha
David Samra has been in the investment business for over 30years. He specialises in international value and has beaten his index by over 4% pa for over 20 years, in a period when traditional value has been doing poorly. That may be why his fund, which has been closed to new investors for most of the last 14 years, has reached $50bn. In this conversation, David explains his focus on four factors: o
#48 The Independent Thinker - Dave Iben on Contrarian Value, Commodities & Emerging Markets
Dave Iben is the founder and CIO of Kopernik GlobalInvestors, a $6bn global value investment shop which prides itself on independent thought and is comfortable with contrarian positions.Steve invited Dave on the podcast because at a recent NewYork conference, Dave was cheerleading that value was back, and Steve wanted to discuss the rationale for his enthusiasm, given value’s massive underperforma
#47 The Relentless Improver - Gary Channon on 15‑Stock Portfolios, Half Price Stocks & Designing a Process for Better Decisions
Gary Channon is one of the UK’s better known valueinvestors. He runs a value fund, a closed-end fund and a private equity vehicle. He runs a highly concentrated portfolio. The top 5 positions are over 50%, and he holds no more than 15 stocks. I asked him on the podcast because he is really thoughtful about his process – he only buys stocks selling for <50% of intrinsic value, and if he can mon
#46 The Numbers Lady - Jennifer Wallace on Cheap Quality, Turnarounds & a 7.8x 15 Year Track Record
Jennifer Wallace is a value investor. She learned her tradefrom a series of luminaries, studying under Bruce Greenwald at Columbia, before going to work for famed value investor Bob Bruce (who used to hang out with Warren Buffett). Today she is the CIO of Summit Street Capital Management, and only invests in high quality companies with modest leverage when they are super cheap. This means she will
#45 The Chess Master - George Michelakis on Long‑Short Investing, Lifestyle Recession & Man Plus Machine
In his youth, George Michelakis, was a top 3 global under-20chess player. No surprise he is pretty good at investing too and runs a $2bn long short equity hedge fund out of London. Since 2006, he has compounded capital at a rate of 5.35x vs 3.43k for the MSCI world, on net exposure of 30-45%. That’s an impressive record but astonishingly, he entered his longest-running short position 10 years ago.
#44 The Think Tank Manager - Dan Rasmussen on Private Equity, Base Rates & Evidence‑Based Investing
Dan Rasmussen is the founder and CIO of Verdad Advisers, an unconventional quantitative investment boutique. In this conversation, Steve and Dan agree that private equity and credit look highly risky for the next decade. They debate the value of forecasting, where they have very different views. They similarly disagree on forecast horizons, with Dan favouring near term accuracy and Steve thinking
#43 The Growth Investor - Tom Slater on Scottish Mortgage, China & the Mag 7
In this episode with Tom Slater of Baillie Gifford, managerof the £10bn Scottish Mortgage investment trust, we cover a lot of ground. Of course, we discuss his current thoughts on China and the Mag 7, including why he has trimmed Nvidia but still likes Meta and his thoughts on Elon Musk. Tom explainshis investing philosophy, what growth managers do differently from traditional value managers and h
#42 The Credit Expert - Greg Peters on ZIRP’s Legacy, Bonds, Covenants, & Equity vs Credit Risk
When it comes to credit, few people have better credentials than Greg Peters, co-CIO of PGIM, with AUM of $700bn. In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the differences between investing in equities and credit, the legacy of the zero interest rate period, why PGIM uses scenario based forecasting in preference to single point estimates, why covenants have gone out of fashion and why that’s da
#41 The Composer - Anthony Bolton on 28 Years of 19.5% Returns, Mistakes & Staying Humble
Anthony Bolton is best known for Fidelity Special Situationsfund’s 19.5% pa returns, 6% above his benchmark, over a 28 year period. He was not only a highly accomplished investor but was both revered and liked by his colleagues. Pragmatic, unfailingly courteous, courageous, and universally popular, he exhibits none of the arrogance that is sometimes exhibited by successful investors with far infer
#40 The Chronicler - Lionel Barber on Masa Son, SoftBank, the FT & Wirecard
Lionel Barber is the former editor of the Financial Timesand probably the only journalist on the planet to have interviewed Presidents Obama, Trump and Putin. Under his stewardship, the FT metamorphosed from a newspaper into a digital subscription business, and was sold to the Japanese company Nikkei for 44xearnings. And as editor, Barber fully backed up former guest Dan McCrum in his investigati
#39 The Optimizer - Bill Nygren on Modern Value Investing, the Mag 7 & Mistake Management
Bill Nygren has been at Harris Associates for over 40 years and considers himself a value investor. Yet his portfolio has owned Netflix, Amazon and Meta recently, while Alphabet is his largest position. Bill explains his unusual but highly effective approach to value investing. Harris has also constructed a unique organisational methodology to handle investing mistakes – I have never encountered a
#38 The Cyclist - Peter Oppenheimer on Market Cycles, Secular Shifts & the Future of Equity Returns
Peter Oppenheimer is chief global equity strategist and head of Macro Research at Goldman Sachs in Europe and the author of two books on market cycles. His first book, the Long Good Buy is sub-titled Analysing Cycles in Markets. His follow-up book Any Happy Returns, is sub-titled Structural Changes and Super Cycles in Markets and looks at longer term secular trends and the future outlook for econo
#37 The Analyst - John Armitage on 30 Years of Outperformance at Egerton Capital
John Armitage is a giant in the hedge fund world and in the world of investing more broadly. His firm, Egerton Capital, celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. In this conversation, John explains how he started with $10m, and why you couldn’t do that today. He touches on his portfolio, talks about his approach to investing, explaining why he requires his analysts to follow more than one sector
#36 The Runner - John Huber on Concentrated Value Investing, Capital Allocation & Revenue Growth Sweet Spots
John Huber is an investor with a small fund managing his family assets and outside capital in a concentrated portfolio. John has written an excellent blog, Base Hit Investing, for many years, explaining his investing principles. We discuss these in this episode, including what John looks for in an investment, why he emphasises capital allocation even more today, where he sees the sweet spot in rev
E3 Carine Smith Ihenacho of Norges Bank IM
Carine Smith Ihenacho is Chief Governance and Compliance Officer at Norges Bank Investment Management, the Norwegian wealth fund. It’s the largest single equity owner in the world and sets out to be the most transparent. She is therefore likely the most powerful person in the world of ESG.
In our podcast episode, Huw van Steenis and I discussed:
How you can combine sustainability with the
pursui
#35 The 100 Bagger Hunter - Chris Mayer on 100 Baggers, Long-Term Compounding & Family-Owned Stocks
Chris Mayer is the founder of Woodlock House Family Capital and the author of 100 Baggers: Stocks that Return 100-to-1 and How to Find Them. He has written several other books and formerly wrote an investingnewsletter which led him to travel the world seeking investment ideas. Studying the universe of 100 Baggers has led Chris to a clear set of investing principles which mean his universe of inve
#34 The Letter Reader - Lawrence Cunningham on Warren Buffett’s Letters, Berkshire Hathaway & Corporate Governance
Lawrence Cunningham is the author of 20 books; an academic with over 60 publications; a legal expert; an accounting expert; a governance expert; a director on 3 quoted company boards; and a company adviser. His most famous book is the Essays of Warren Buffett in which he extracts sections from the sage’s letters over decades and orders them by subject. In our conversation, he tells how he first me
#33 The Stoic - Peter Cowley on Angel Investing, Resilience & Lessons from Life and Loss
Peter Cowley was a successful angel investor. He sadly died just months after we recorded. And it was histragic private life which prompted this interview. Two of his three children lost to suicide; their mother died unexpectedly; his sister lost to alcoholism; his brother died aged 21 from cancer; two decades in recovery from alcoholism; and he has now been diagnosedwith terminal Stage 4c cancer
E2 Barry Norris explains why offshore wind economics are unsustainable.
Steve Clapham and climate finance expert Huw van Steenis talk to Barry Norris, climate sceptic and founder and CIO of Argonaut Capital.
Barry explains why he believes the economics of offshore wind are unsound. He likens wind and solar to unreliable
workers and thinks nuclear and fossil fuel generation are the reliable workers. You can't have a factory staffed only by unreliable workers he argues
#32 The “Do-Gooder” - Jonathan Ruffer on Inflation, Yen Upside & Why the Equity Bull Market May Soon be Over
Jonathan Ruffer is the founder of the eponymous asset management firm, a bold and successful investor (a combination unusual to survive, let alone thrive) and considers himself a financial historian. He remains the figurehead of the firm although has stepped back somewhat from the daily combat with markets. In this episode, he explains why he thinks the Yen could double, why the equities age is be
E1 Emmanuel Lagarrigue explains the opportunity for KKR and private equity in the energy transition
Emmanuel Lagarrigue is the Co-Head of Climate at KKR and in this fascinating discussion, he explains why he joined the firm and what they are seeking to achieve in financing the energy transition. He explains how KKR sees a gap in the huge $7tn pa investment needed to fund the transition between the early stage investments and the mature infrastructure-like renewables area.
This middle area is no
Beyond the Balance Sheet Podcast Trailer
Explaining what to expect from a new series of podcasts focusing on the investment opportunities (and risks) in the energy transition. With co-host, climate finance expert Huw van Steenis.
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#31 The Justice Warrior - Sir Bill Browder on Hedge Fund Investing, the Magnitsky Act & Surviving a Hedge Fund Collapse
Bill Browder is a human rights activist who championed the Magnitsky Act, signed into law by President Obama. It not only sanctions Russians, but others around the world. Similar legislation is now in place in over 30 countries. He is also a bestselling author and former hedge fund manager.In this episode, we talk about his career, about how he coped with a 90% fall in the value of his fund, about
#30 The Japanophile - Grant Williams on Japan’s Opportunity, Bond Market Risks & Gold Investing
Grant Williams is a former hedge fund manager who now publishes the monthly newsletter Things that Make You Go Hmmm and a subscription-only investing podcast channel that incredibly is one of the top 0.5% of all podcasts globally. In this fascinating discussion, Grant explains his fascination for Japan and why we should all pay attention. We discuss US Treasuries, and why there is a risk that the
#29 The Plumber - James Aitken on Global Macro, Bond Markets & Financial System Risks
James Aitken is an expert in the plumbing of the financial system. We go on a world tour of the hotspots in global finance. You will learn why James is relaxed about the US; why the Japanese government will Make Japan Great Again and why this could have serious repercussions for global bond markets; and why China will likely muddle through, in spite of massive problems in its property sector.Show
#28 The Continuous Learner - Sebastian Lyon on Multi-Asset Investing, Downside Protection & Gold
Sebastian Lyon is a conservative investor who manages two highly successful multi asset funds. His motto is simple over complex and he is intent on protecting the downside. In this interview, we discuss his views on markets (spoiler: not super bullish); how he built Troy into a significant asset management business from scratch; how he has managed his fund to deliver only 3 down years in 20 and cr
#27 The Handicapper - Bill Smead on Demographics, Out-of-Favour Stocks & Long-Term Value Investing
Bill Smead has been in the investing business for over 40 years and has seen multiple cycles. He has an idiosyncratic investing philosophy which seeks to buy high quality stocks when they are out of favour.He has a concentrated portfolio of 26 stocks with 45-50% in the top 10 positions. Yet his holding period averages over 6 years. He explains why he thinks the stock market is going down over the
#26 The Pragmatist - Alec Cutler on Low‑Risk Global Value, Inflation & Grandma’s Investing Rules
Alec Cutler runs one of the best performing low risk global funds and has a pragmatic investing approach. In this interview, we discuss inflation and markets and what this means for stock selection. Alec explains his views on what makes for a successful investment team. And he explains the principles of investing he learned as a child from his grandmother, which still guide his investingframework
#25 The Celebrity Investor - Guy Spier on Temperament, Glacier Stocks & Lunch with Warren Buffett
Guy Spier is a successful value investor and has spentconsiderable time creating an environment which will protect him and his fund from making mistakes through his own temperamental idiosyncrasies. He talks much more about environment design than valuation which is refreshingly different.We discuss why the best ideas are simple, yet analysts always want to impress with their understanding of comp
#24 The Family Office CIO - Beth Lilly on Research Process, Meeting Warren Buffett & Managing Family Fortunes
Beth Lilly is a highly successful value investor and an amazing woman. She has set up two asset management firms, worked with and learned from some of the most famous and some of the most successful valueinvestors in the world, and now runs money for the multi-billion Pohlad family in Minnesota.We discuss the power of compounding, Beth’s research processand how she conducts company meetings. We di
#23B The Best Selling Author Part 2 - William Green on Munger’s Verdict, Interviewing & Why Being a Bit Weird Helps
William Green is the author of Richer Wiser Happier, an outlier in investing books as a best-seller. He is a craftsman and a perfectionist and having interviewed 40 of the world’s top investors for the book, has some fascinating perspectives on investing and on life. We split this interview into two parts. Last time we heard Green explain that the great investors are such thoughtful practical phil
#23A The Best Selling Author Part 1 - William Green on Crafting a Classic & Lessons from Investing Legends
William Green is the author of Richer Wiser Happier, an outlier in investing books as a best-seller. He is a craftsman and a perfectionist and having interviewed 40 of the world’s top investors for the book, has some fascinating perspectives on investing and on life.William spent five years painstakingly crafting the book and distilling his learnings from interviewing the world’s top investors. Th
#22 The Octogenarian - Mario Gabelli on 50 Years of Value Investing, Industry Fieldwork & Staying Driven in his 80s
Mario Gabelli is the billionaire founder of GAMCO and still managing money in his 80s. He believes in an in-depth research process, limiting his investments to the sectors he feels he understands. He believes in visiting companies – not just investees but their competitors and their whole value chain; in reading tradejournals; and in monitoring the results of the sector. The day after we spoke he
#21 The Economist - Gavyn Davies on Inflation, Markets, Streaming & Politics
Gavyn Davies is an economist and a former partner of Goldman, Sachs. He is the Chairman and co-founder of macro asset manager Fulcrum Asset Management and a co-founder of 3 other multi-billion asset managers. He is a former Government adviser and was Chairman of the BBC, the UK public service broadcaster. Of course we talk about economics, about investing, and about financial services; but we also
#20 The Data Scientist - Tian Yang on the Age of Scarcity, Super Cycles & Tactical vs Fundamental Views
Tian Yang was a fascinating guest and we covered a wide range of subjects. He explains why ChatGPT may be useful in solving accounting problems, but it produces gibberish when asked about investing. We talk about his work on the commodity super cycle, looking at rubber, whaling and fur. He explains how he applies quantitative techniques to the capital cycle framework championed by Marathon Asset M
#19 The Value Investor - Chris Bloomstran on Valuing Berkshire, Writing 100 page Letters & Thinking in Decades
Chris Bloomstran is best known for his incredibly detailed analysis of the valuation of Berkshire Hathaway. Not only is he an outstanding value investor, he is a highly accomplished analyst. His Semper Augustus annual letter runs at over 100 pages and in recent years, it has included an evaluation of Berkshire Hathaway – his analysis of the stock is the best I have read.In this interview, we discu
#18 The Distressed Damsel - Dominique Mielle on Distressed Debt, CLOs & Women in Hedge Funds
Dominique Mielle had an illustrious career as a distressed debt hedge fund manager, including building a $5bn CLO business from scratch at Canyon Advisors. She retired from hedge funds, wrote a book, amusingly titled Damsel in Distressed (it was too good not to borrow), about her story to inspire women to follow her lead. In this interview, she talks about why there are not more women in hedge fun
#17 The Writer - Vitaliy Katsenelson on Investing, Life Philosophy & a Scarcity Mindset
Vitaliy Katsenelson is an investor and writer. Born in Russia, he now runs an investment adviser in Denver which specialises in picking individual stocks and eschews the usual 60:40 portfolio with equities indexed. In this podcast we talk about investing, about his third book and about his life philosophy. Vitaliy has a wisdom beyond his years and his positive attitude can improve anyone’s life.An
#16 The Podcast Host - Barry Ritholtz on Masters in Business, 70:30 Portfolios & 450+ Interviews
Barry Ritholtz hosts Bloomberg’s Masters in Business, one of the most popular business podcasts in the world. He rather modestly says he was one of the first. Ritholtz not only has managed to interview investing heroes like Ed Thorpe, Ray Dalio (twice) and Michael Lewis (four times) but also has built a $3bn wealth manager in just ten years. In this interview, Barry explains why financial TV is ir
#15 The Short Seller - Carson Block on Finding Frauds, Europe’s Challenges & his Shorts Research Process
Carson Block is one of the world’s top short sellers, and one of few still managing a specialist fund.In this interview, Carson explains the business of short selling; the difference between fundamental shorting and his business of shorting and exposing frauds; how he spots these fraudulent companies; where to find frauds; and why it takes Muddy Waters 3 months to launch a short campaign. We discu
#14 The Coach - Sir Clive Woodward on Winning Cultures, 1% Gains & Building Elite Teams
Sir Clive Woodward is a winner. He is best known for managing the England rugby team, taking them from world #6 to a world cup win. In this revealing interview, he explains that there is no difference between managing a sports team, a business or an investment team. It’s all about managing people. Winning teams are made up of winning individuals - you can persuade the individuals in a team to str
#13 The Contrarian - Richard Oldfield on Cycles, the Madness of Index Trackers & Mastering Emotions
Richard Oldfield is a true value investor. Author of the delightful commonsense investing book, Simple but not easy, in this interview he recites several wonderful anecdotes from his long experience as a value investor. We even get a song (while Steve recites one of Richard's investment poems). Richard has an innate belief in the cyclical nature of markets and the madness of crowds. He is a cl
#12 The Value Architect - Chris Pavese on Left‑Brain/Right‑Brain Investing, Reading Widely & Concentrated Value
Chris Pavese, President and CIO of Broyhill Asset Management, is a seriously thoughtful investor. We talk about how investing straddles left and right brain thinking, about whether the advantage of being located outside the bustling environment of a New York or London will continue to confer the same benefit in the days of Zoom, and about the benefits and joy of reading widely. Chris explains his
#11 The Investigator - Dan McCrum on Wirecard, Money Men & Six Years Chasing a €25bn Fraud
We speak to Dan McCrum, the award winning FT journalist who exposed Wirecard as a fraud. Once a stockmarket darling valued at over €25bn, Wirecard crashed to worthless in June 2020, when its auditors could not confirm €1.9bn of cash. Dan pursued the story for six years and has now written a book about the saga. “Money Men” is an amazing account of how the company used every tactic possible to disg
#10 Mr BRICs - Jim O’Neill on Emerging Markets, Manchester United & Central Banks Behind the Curve
Former Goldman, Sachs partner, Jim O’Neill (more properly, Baron O’Neill of Gatley), is best known as the man who coined the term BRICs. He correctly identified that this group of emerging markets would drive global growth and published a paper on it over 20 years ago. In this wide discussion, we talk about the BRICs, about why for the first time in 30 years of close study of the country, he is pu
#9 Two Capital Cyclists - Russell Napier & Jeremy Hosking on the Capital Cycle, Financial Repression & Protecting Wealth
Russell Napier and Jeremy Hosking discuss how the capital cycle will become an even more important driver of equity returns as we move into an age of financial repression. This series of macro episodes focuses on the changes we should expect in the new era, as we exit a 40-odd year period of falling rates, globalisation, cheap energy and disinflation. In this fascinating interview, these two giant
#8 GREED & Fear - Chris Wood on Energy Stocks, The Fed’s Straightjacket & Long‑Term Equity Outlook
In this wide-ranging interview, recorded before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chris Wood, Global Head of Equity Strategy at investment bank Jefferies, talks about his route to success, why he is bullish on energy stocks, some of his fun trades (long Ryanair, short Zoom), why he doesn’t use Zoom, how the pandemic has altered his approach and why his multi-million air miles account won’t get built u
#7 A Scotsman and an Englishman - Dylan Grice & Rob Crenian on Markets, “Stupid” Winners & Calderwood’s Unconventional Strategy
In this interview, Dylan Grice and Rob Crenian discuss how markets work, how “stupid” investors have been winning of late but will not do so for much longer, how quants think, how real alpha will be more difficult to come by, and how this will likely be found not by being smarter but by doing something different; and they explain how they are seeking to preserve wealth with an unconventional inves
#6 The Existentialist: Hugh Hendry on 30% in 2008, Cockroach Mandates & Seeing the World Differently
Former hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry is best known as the man who made 30% in 2008, when others crashed, including many so-called hedge funds. He described his cockroach mandate as being a survivor no matter what. He closed the fund in 2017 after a period of lackustre but far from shocking performance and has become a property developer and landlord of upmarket rentals on the billionaire favourit
Bonus Episode - Financial Literacy
I interviewed Patrick Jenkins, Deputy Editor of the Financial Times, about the paper's new charity, the Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign. We discuss why Patrick decide to set up the charity, its aims and objectives, and why this is such an important cause. My take: this is less important than curing cancer, but it's a lot easier. This is one of Warren Buffett's one foot bars. We can easil
#5 The Pianist - Lucy Macdonald on Stock Picking, Leading Analyst Teams & Women in Fund Management
Lucy Macdonald is the former CIO of Global Equities at Allianz Global Investors where she worked for almost 20 years and managed £5bn or $8bn of assets. She is currently a NED on JP Morgan GEM Income Trust and taking care of a new puppy. Lucy has 30 years of experience in financial markets and is exactly the sort of guest we are hoping to have on the podcast – a wealth of experience, semi-retired,
#4 The Not Quite Trillion Dollar Man - Quintin Price on Leadership at BlackRock, Active Management & the Importance of Hard Work
Until 2015, Quintin Price was Global Head of BlackRock’s Alpha Strategies business where he was responsible for nearly $1 trillion of assets under management and was a member of the Global Executive Committee, working closely with Larry Fink. Quintin has 30 years of experience in financial markets and is exactly the sort of guest we seek to have on the podcast – a wealth of experience, retired fro
#3 Two UK Venture Leaders - Pete Davies & Spencer Crawley on Long‑Term VC, Academia Spin‑Outs & the New Tech Cycle
Pete Davies has long been widely considered one of the greatest long term thinkers in the hedge fund world. He was early to recognise the opportunities to provide venture capital to UK academia and his firm, Lansdowne Partners, was instrumental in setting up Oxford Science Innovation.Spencer Crawley is the co-founder of FirstMinute Capital, a UK seed investor which boasts an astonishing 111 unicor
#2 The Risk Taker - Stuart Roden on the 5 Keys to a Successful Fund & Building a $10bn Hedge Fund at Lansdowne
In this fascinating interview, Stuart Roden, former Chairman of Lansdowne Partners, explains the 5 keys to a successful fund, how his 25 year partnership with Pete Davies produced one of the most successful hedge funds in the UK and how now managing venture capital is a different, yet similar, game.I have known Stuart for over 25 years but I learned more in this hour about his philosophy than I ha
#1 Two Titans - John Armitage & Brent Hoberman on Hedge Funds, Entrepreneurship & Two Very Different Paths to Investment Success
Two investors who went to the same school, then to Oxbridge, and have been awarded the CBE (*). They are both titans in their fields but through very different routes. One has run his hedge fund firm for 27 years, has been incredibly successful as evidenced by $28bn AUM, yet is so under the radar that few have heard of him. The other has started multiple companies, is a business celebrity and is r
Podcast Trailer
Our new podcast is focused on equity investing. We shall meet leading investors and commentators and educate ourselves about the world of investing and the world.
Our mission is to remove some of the mystique around investing and improve our understanding of what makes a successful investment, or indeed an unsuccessful one.
We shall look in particular at the conjunction of venture and quoted stock
