All Strategically Speaking articles – Page 6
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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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Interviews
Strategically 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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Interviews
Strategically 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.
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Interviews
Performance built on research
Unigestion’s investment principles tell us that it is “not swayed by short-term trends or techniques which are in vogue”. At first glance that might seem a bit rich, considering its reputation for minimum-variance equities – about as “in vogue” as it gets.
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Interviews
Global expectations
“What makes businesses interesting is how they adapt to a global changing world,” declares John Calamos, founder, chairman, CEO and co-CIO of Calamos Investments. Having set up the firm in 1977, listed it on Nasdaq in 2004 and reached an AUM peak of $49bn (€36bn) in 2007, he is now overseeing a transformation that he intends will take it on a journey from a predominantly US focussed firm to a global fund management company.
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Interviews
Cautious, Swiss and international
As an institutional manager and provider of institutional-type investment management services to private banks, including within its own group, Pictet Asset Management (PAM) clearly stands apart from the private banking fraternity.