Citywire: The Selection Show

In the first episode of Boutique Builders, we heard about what it means to be asked to take on a project and develop an idea, but what if you are the person driving that change. Where do you start? What do you do? And, perhaps crucially, what do you not do?

 

This week, Krystle Higgins speaks to Cesar Fernandez, who has swapped life as a Citywire AAA-rated emerging market debt manager at Julius Baer to develop his own idea – Alpha Credit Advisors. Fernandez talks about working away from the institutionalised thinking of asset manager, why it is important to learn how to lose and what previous experience running big projects on his own has taught him.

The future of asset management is one paved with consolidation. That’s if the PwC report is to be believed which forecasts one in six companies won’t exist by 2027.

 

So, what chance to smaller players have in this increasingly competitive landscape and what lessons could they learn from those that opted to go it alone?

 

In this new series, Boutique Builders, Citywire Selector has spoken to CEOs, founders and other architects of independent investment firms to understand what personally drove them to follow this path and what triumphs and tribulations they faced upon the way.

 

The first of this six-part series features Matthew Lamb, who was named chief executive officer of Pacific Asset Management in 2016 when the group accelerated efforts to turn a family-backed venture into a viable alternative to the ‘industrialised’ companies currently offering funds.

Columbia Threadneedle's head of responsible EM equities, Gokce Bulut joins Citywire’s Krystle Higgins to discuss the evolution of responsible investing over the past decade. As well as how he builds a balanced portfolio of performing companies, while considering the environmental and societal issues which could impact them.

Bulut also shared his views on how SFDR labelling must change, as well as why fund managers should not shoulder the responsibility of labelling funds.

Keeping on top of the turbulent and complex political environment in LatAm and broader emerging markets is no mean feat.

 

One person with a continual eye on this part of the world is Thierry Larose, a Citywire AAA-rated emerging markets debt PM at Vontobel.  

 

In the second of a two-part EMD in Focus series, he dropped in to speak to Citywire Selector news editor Ian Heath about managing political risk in South America, including the impact of the election of left-wing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) as Brazil’s president and the emergence of libertarian political outsider Javier Milei in Argentina.

Managing a host of local and hard currency emerging market debt funds for PGIM means Citywire A-rated Cathy Hepworth has plenty to think about.

 

In the first of a two-part EMD in Focus series, she dialled in from New Jersey to speak to Citywire Selector news editor Ian Heath about a range of topics in her specialist space, including why PGIM has recently moved into riskier EMD assets and which troubled countries/sectors she thinks are attractive or best avoided.

The hunt for investment grade emerging market debt will tie investors’ fortunes in very closely with the Federal Reserve and mean this miss out on meaningful returns in the final months of the year.

 

That is the view of Raphael Kassin, who returned to the EM Insider hotseat to share his views on the current market conditions and where he thinks it makes sense to allocate given the current macroeconomic backdrop.

 

The Brazil-based bond buyer outline lists some of the markets that those with a sterner stomach may consider allocating to if they want to break away from the pack. Kassin also touched upon how the overarching approach to EMD has changed in a short space of time.

 

‘In the old days, asset allocators would just say: “I want to put 5% in EM, because I think it’s looking like it will give me another 5% return this year, based on spreads and treasuries. That was a nice idea; but these days, it is a little bit more complex.’

The former governor of the Bank of England shares his views on inflation, independent economic thought, and the case for a genuine salary cap in soccer.

 

‘A big reform is easier to implement than a sequence of small steps’. Mervyn King sat down with Citywire Selector to talk about the current state of economics, as well as his thoughts on the Bank of England’s failure to spot a crucial misstep in its attempt to curtail post-pandemic inflation.

 

Having earmarked this as an ‘intellectual mistake’, King outlines two ways in which the BoE – and any central bank – can change course, which he said entails accepting now is not the time to tighten.

 

Also in this interview, he was asked whether markets have become increasingly short-term and how he, as a former governor, would respond to such scrutiny. Here he offers an example of how former ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet used to know when to add the word ‘extra’ to a statement to prompt a very different kind of response from markets and media commentators.

Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly one of the hottest topics for investors in 2023. But is this type of excitement over a revolutionary technology anything new?

 

Mike Coop, Morningstar’s CIO for Europe, Middle East and Africa, dropped into our studios to discuss this with Citywire Selector news editor Ian Heath. They talked about the history of game-changing ‘general purpose’ technologies, how AI-driven innovations might pan out and whether there are parallels with the dotcom bubble.

GIB Asset Management’s Kunal Desai joins Citywire Selector’s Krystle Higgins to discuss how after years of disappointing returns, and ‘balance sheet heartbreak’, India's moment has finally arrived, as well as his thoughts on the BJP’s internet shutdowns at a time when the country is experiencing a digital revolution.

Jacques-Aurélien Marcireau discusses how ‘super-aggressive’ marketing tactics, aped from the former US president, are permeating the corporate world and why this is muddying the waters for investors, including in the artificial intelligence space.

 

Marcireau, who is co-head of equities at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management and manages its Big Data fund, also discussed which companies he thinks will be the winners as AI gains momentum and how tech companies might fare in the tougher macro environment.