Inside the Rope with David Clark

John comes back onto Inside The Rope to highlight his views of the market, including the current volatility and headline-grabbing trades such as the Gamestop short squeeze; alongside other areas of the market that John believes could be in, or heading towards bubble territory.

He and David also discuss recent market performance and retail inflows into financial markets which John refers to as "Mass Mania", causing valuations of companies to move into areas that would have never been previously forecast creating bubble-like conditions.

John has been a financial markets professional since 1999 and is Chief Investment Officer, Founder and co-owner at Bronte.

John was Head of Financials at Platinum Asset Management and its youngest partner. After Platinum listed in 2007, John started Bronte Capital in 2009.

In this episode, David speaks with Chris about his current roles and background to date, in addition to how to pick fund managers along with how investors can use financial returns to support charitable causes and begin their philanthropic journey.

Commencing his career as a chartered accountant, Chris Cuffe entered the funds management industry in 1985. In 1988 he joined Colonial First State where he was CEO from 1990 until 2003. In 2003 he became CEO of the listed Challenger Group.

Chris is now involved in a portfolio of activities in the investment and non-profit sectors which include:

- Member of the Investment Committee of UniSuper, which provides superannuation services to employees of Australia's higher education and research sector;

- Chairman of Australian Philanthropic Services and Atrium Investment Management;

- Director of various listed companies including Global Value Fund, Antipodes Global Investment Company, Argo Investments and Class; and

- Founder, directors and manager of Third Link Growth Fund.

Steve Tucker former CEO of MLC, and current Koda Capital Chairman joins David in this episode to discuss the evolution of advice and the importance it carries for high net worth individuals. Steve and David also touch on the transition from vertically integrated financial advice business models into the independent advice firms of today.

As Chief Executive Officer of MLC until 2013, Steve was responsible for all of NAB’s Wealth businesses including MLC, NAB Private Wealth, and JBWere, with combined revenues exceeding $1bn per annum and over 5,000 staff.

Steve has extensive financial and investment advice experience and has been a vocal and effective champion of reform and cultural transformation within the wealth management industry. Additionally, he is a director of the Banking and Finance Oath, and the chairman of Urbis.

Rajeev Gupta of the Alium Alpha Fund joins David to discuss his career to date, the history of the Alium Alpha Fund, and the businesses that it invests in.

In what Raj calls a "Crossover Fund", he explains how the Alium Alpha fund focuses on investing in both private & public companies; with a particular focus on providing later-stage funding to Technology & Innovative companies intending to list on the ASX in the future. The fund targets an annualized return of 20-25%.

Rajeev has 20 years of experience analysing, investing & building technology companies. Rajeev began his investment career at Goldman Sachs, where he worked for almost a decade in the investment group in Hong Kong, Singapore & New York with a focus on listed & unlisted technology companies. Rajeev then utilised his technology investment experience as a portfolio manager at both Tribeca & Merricks Capital where he ran global technology funds. He then built his own 25-person technology startup called Geckolife, before establishing Alium Capital. Rajeev has an Honours degree in Finance & Econometrics from the University of Sydney.

Richard Quin of Bentham joins David to discuss the history of Bentham Asset Management, including its spin-off from Credit Suisse, along with the various credit strategies that it manages today.

Bentham Asset Management is a specialist global fixed interest and credit investment manager. Bentham actively manages a number of high yielding funds with varying risk profiles. The portfolios are designed to generate income while diversifying risk in global credit markets.

Richard Quin is the CIO & Principal for Bentham Asset Management. Prior to this, he was a Director and Head of the APAC division of the Credit Investment Group for Credit Suisse Alternative Investments. Richard spent nine years within the Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) fixed income team as a Credit Portfolio Manager, where he established and managed Bentham's current high yield, global income and syndicated loan funds.

Justin joins David again to provide an update on the Ibex Israel strategy, a strategy that has returned 13.4% to the year ending November 2020 (in USD).

Justin and David discuss the impact of COVID on Israeli companies, along with the restrictions on foreign investment and the opportunities that this provides.

Justin also touches on the opportunities being found across the Israeli Technology sector, such as cyber and enterprise technologies; along with the acceleration of their adoption as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Justin is the Founder and Managing Partner at Ibex Investors, a Denver-based investment firm. Prior to Ibex, Justin worked at Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. in both the private equity and investment banking groups in New York and London. Justin has served on the Board of Directors of several non-profits including the Anti-Defamation League and Colorado Public Radio.

David speaks with Paul Bassat of Square Peg Capital, a firm that invests in early-stage technology companies across Australia, Israel and South-East Asia, such as Canva, Fiverr & Athena Home Loans.

Before starting Square Peg, Paul was a corporate lawyer who went on to achieve well-known success in founding Seek, the marketplace and HR company, a company that now employs more than 1,000 people in Australia and over 10,000 people around the world.

Square Peg was launched in 2012 to fill the void in the Australian venture capital space. At the time of launch, there were minimal venture capital funds in Australia, however, there was a growing abundance of impressive entrepreneurs starting influential businesses that needed support. Since then, Square Peg has invested in around 40 companies and has between $1.4 and $1.5bn in funds under management. They are currently in the process of closing their 4th fund.

In this episode, David speaks with Chris Andrews, the Chief Investment Officer at La Trobe Financial. La Trobe Financial manages a book of mortgage-backed loans on behalf of investors aiming to receive returns over those provided by traditional cash alternatives in exchange for an acceptable level of risk.

David and Chris discuss La Trobe's flagship product the 12-month term account, which as at the 24th of November, offers investors a return of 4.35% p.a. net of all fees. This $3.5bn strategy is comprised of over 6,000 first ranking secured mortgages across Australia with a maximum LVR of 75% and as at the 24th November has an average LVR of 63%. Since its inception in 2002, the strategy has not lost any investor’s capital.

As Chief Investment Officer at La Trobe, Chris oversees $12bn of investment opportunities each year, of which La Trobe settles approximately $5.5bn to 6bn whilst maintaining a strict level of discipline.

John comes back onto Inside The Rope to revisit COVID-19 and discuss the things that he believes Bronte Capital miscalculated at the beginning of the pandemic, along with what else they could have done better.

He and David also discuss how society measures the risk vs reward benefit of returning to normal activities in light of COVID-19, along with how that is relevant from the perspective of investing in financial markets.

John also highlights some of Bronte's latest investments, which John places all in the "value bucket". Over the last decade, John believes that most of the underperformance of value investing can be attributed to rapid changes such as the internet which have swept the world.

Finally, John discusses Bronte's latest position in Tobacco, and whilst not shying away from the potential risks, he highlights the opportunities he believes it presents.

David and George discuss how investors can invest ethically in the fixed income space.

Impact investing allows investors to not only generate a financial return but also contribute positively to society and/or the environment. In George's words, impact investing is the way of the future.

The Regnan Credit Impact Trust is a strategy which aims to deliver returns of 1-3% pa over a rolling 3 year period whilst investing in opportunities that are assessed on both Regnan's ESG and MSCI sustainability analytics.

The strategy has an active tilt towards green (ie climate), social and sustainability bonds -- all of which support positive societal and/or environmental outcomes (including the advancement of UN's Sustainable Development Goals).