It takes a special type of person to be a contrarian investor. Few people are willing to buy companies while others predict doom. It means accepting that you won’t always get it right, and the ability to put aside preconceived ideas about a company and focus only on the fundamentals.

One investor who’s made a career of this approach is Simon Mawhinney, Chief Investment Officer at Allan Gray Australia. It was this contrarian streak that saw him buying banks and retailers in middle of the COVID-crash, a decision that turned out better than anyone could’ve expected at the time.

But it doesn’t always go so smoothly, as was the case with his investment in the now-defunct Arrium, which we discuss in this episode of The Rules of Investing. We also discuss two current investments from the Allan Gray portfolio, and one former market darling that he’s investigating currently.