All Strategically Speaking articles – Page 6
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: RBC Global Asset Management
We ask Damon Williams, co-chief executive officer of RBC Global Asset Management, what sets his company apart from other asset managers
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Pictet Asset Management - Starting from scratch
As in other walks of life, things go in and out of fashion in institutional investment. Multi-asset investing is a case in point. Once, a few balanced managers held centre stage in pension fund management in countries like the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Then, in the 1990s and early 2000s, the orthodoxy was for manager diversification using segregated mandates or multi-manager approaches. Faith in the equity market premium was high, as was the thesis espoused by Gary Brinson that asset allocation is the primary driver of portfolio returns, ahead of market timing or stock selection.
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Principal Global Investors - A glimpse into the future
At least no-one dies as a result of what the investment management industry does or does not do. Unlike technological companies considering drone pizza deliveries or driverless cars, and where real issues of safety and liability may arise, asset management executives only have a set of financial outcomes to consider.
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Amundi
Perhaps one of the greatest lessons of the 2007-08 period for institutional investors was about liquidity. Equity markets dropped precipitously and credit spreads widened, while liquidity in safe-haven assets dried up and other instruments became impossible to trade
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Terra Firma Capital Partners
“The private equity industry is in the midst of a far-reaching structural change that is leading to a bifurcation of the industry,” says Guy Hands, chairman and chief investment officer of Terra Firma
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Oaktree Capital Management
Howard Marks is the co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, known in the investment community for memos to clients which detail distressed debt, credit and other investment strategies, insights into the economy, as well as for his distinctive investment philosophy
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InterviewsStrategically speaking: NN Investment Partners
The rebranding of ING Investment Management, a well-recognised name in European asset management, is the epilogue to an intricate story that began during the financial crisis of the late 2000s
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Astellon Capital Partners
Responding to a reporter’s question about what he most feared could blow his government off-course, the British prime minister Harold Macmillan is supposed to have said: “Events, dear boy, events.”
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Kames Capital
Edinburgh-based Aegon Asset Management UK made a nod to its home city when it changed its name to Kames Capital in 2011
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Candriam
“It was difficult to find a name,” recalls Candriam CEO Naim Abou-Jaoudé, a year after Dexia Asset Management needed a rebrand for its acquisition by New York Life Investments. “All the good names are taken!”
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Thriving on independence
“Our life at AXA was very good,” concedes Ardian’s Vincent Gombault, one year since the private equity firm completed its management buyout of a 52% stake from the insurance giant.
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InterviewsStrategically speaking: Aberdeen Asset Management
The timing of Aberdeen Asset Management’s £600m (€757m) acquisition of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) at the start of 2014 could not have been better.
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Grandmaster Capital Management
“Under no circumstances should you play fast if you have a winning position,” advised Hungarian chess Grandmaster Pal Benko. “Use all your time and make good moves.”
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Interviews
Strategically speaking: Assicurazioni Generali
It has been just over two years since Generali CEO Mario Greco took the reins of a company whose governance was in disarray, and whose performance was reflected in a loss of almost 75% of its stock-market value. His appointment immediately stemmed those losses, and the market has since been proved right.
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Interviews
Strategically speaking - Majedie Asset Management: Global, naturally
Before this year, Majedie Asset Management had rolled out just five products since it was established in 2002 – one of which was a concentrated version of another. By those standards, 2014 has seen riotous activity, with the summer launches of a US equities fund and two global funds adding to the existing line-up of UK equity and global long/short funds.
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Interviews
Experience, leveraged
Babson Capital immediately springs to mind for institutional investors around the world seeking global fixed-income managers, but that is a key goal for CEO Tom Finke. Having raised $5bn (€3.9bn) from European investors alone in 2013 it certainly looks well-positioned to one day be ranked among the market leaders.
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Interviews
Three years of the 300
Liam Kennedy spoke to Alan Brown and Saker Nusseibeh, two architects of the 300 Club of investment professionals who seek to challenge mainstream investment practice
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Interviews
Success assured
When Russell Büsst was coaxed from Amundi in 2011 to head Conning’s expansion into Europe, he had three objectives: break even and hit $10bn (€7.38bn) under management within three years; use the firm’s insurance-industry relationships as a platform to build the pan-European business; and balance property-and-casualty (P&C) with life-and-pensions (L&P) assets.
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Interviews
An artisan with solutions
Where one still finds asset managers attached to banks, the former tend to be junior partners. Not so at William Blair, whose founder always had an ambition both to finance and invest in small growth companies from day one in 1935.
