All Strategically Speaking articles – Page 7
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Interviews
Building bridges
They do not come any more Australian than AMP Capital. Its parent company started life as a mutual insurer in Sydney in 1849, and is today headquartered in the city’s first skyscraper, which it financed, and which stands on the site of AMP co-founder and pastoralist Thomas Mort’s wool store. Its commanding views of the famous harbour are the backdrop to board and client meetings.
-
Interviews
Operating in the market shadows
Harald Espedal has a party to get to. It is October 2013 and he is in London to celebrate Skagen Funds’ twentieth birthday with the firm’s growing UK team and a host of colleagues from Stavanger in Norway.
-
Interviews
Not corporate governance police
Poor governance may have been catapulted into the headlines in recent years, but to-date few asset managers in Europe have been trying to make money through activist strategies. One that does, as part of its range of products, is London’s RWC. In 2013, RWC’s assets under management grew from $5bn (€3.7bn) to $7.5bn, which its CEO Dan Mannix attributes to “a normalisation of opportunities within the equity markets” and a general improvement in investor sentiment.
-
InterviewsDrawing a virtuous circle
A number of prominent bank-owned asset managers have been put up for sale at various times since 2009 – a process that has not always been straightforward for the banks or the asset managers. Pioneer Investments’ proposed sale by its parent Unicredit was finally called off in April 2011, which allowed it to focus on a new set of strategic priorities.
-
Interviews
Low fashion, high durability
As Thornburg Investment Management’s fourth employee, Brian McMahon arrived in Santa Fe in 1984 around the same time as the firm acquired a second-hand fax machine from the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Walter Mondale.
-
Interviews
M&G Fixed Income: Shining a light in the cracks
IPE editor Liam Kennedy sits down with M&G chief executive Simon Pilcher
-
Interviews
Bradesco AM: Taking local global
Surprisingly, for its size, Bradesco has spent most of its first 50 years as a resolutely local firm
-
Interviews
Beyond US sub-prime
If Philip Weingord, co-founder and CEO of Seer Capital Management, isn’t ‘Mr Structured Credit’, then co-founder and CIO Richard d’Albert would be just as good a candidate.
-
Interviews
Of orange blood and quieting storms
It has been a stormy four years at ING Investment Management – but the skies are finally starting to clear.
-
Interviews
An emerging markets coup
After a burst of acquisitive growth during its years as the investment division of Lehman Brothers, Neuberger Berman’s time as an independent asset manager has instead been spent redefining its brand, building track records and expanding its global reach.
-
Interviews
Degrees of freedom
It has been a busy Q1 for Artisan Partners. At the time of writing, the 19-year-old firm was on the brink of its IPO. Aiming to raise almost $330m with which to clear its loans, buy back shares and reward its pre-IPO partners, the event feels like the foundation for the firm’s next stage of growth.
-
Interviews
Emerging markets, changing world
Julian Mayo, co-CIO at emerging markets specialist Charlemagne Capital, has a memory from the early 1990s that serves as a corrective to the idea of ‘de-coupling’.
-
Interviews
Focus and flexibility
One can tell from the name ‘Alternative Investment Group’ that this is a more venerable fund of hedge funds, pre-dating the post-dot-com stampede: it’s not exactly ‘Google-search optimised’.
-
Interviews
Enjoying a Renaissance
Renaissance Asset Managers (RAM) has had a great run since it was founded as part of Renaissance Group, the Moscow-based financial services firm, in 2003.
-
Interviews
Boutique ambition
Natixis Asset Management (NAM) might be less well known than other firms in the Natixis Global Asset Management (NGAM) empire, such as Boston’s Loomis Sayles or Chicago’s Harris Associates. But the Paris firm is by far the largest asset manager in its parent’s multi-affiliate structure in asset terms, in part thanks to its historic ties with France’s Caisse d’Epargne and Banque Populaire network, and its strong local roots.
