Henderson was very nice to me however I was a refugee from New Star’s demise. They were by far the nicest lifeboat that we could think of.
It wasn’t my natural habitat. I’ve always worked for smaller operations with John Duffield either at Jupiter or New Star and so Crux is like coming home.
I would never have done this had I not had an unusual contract which allowed me to take the fund I’d started at Henderson, Special Sits. I like to think that was good for everybody.
I’m not particularly ambitious and I’m not an entrepreneur; I’m probably a bit lazy. I don’t change much, I never move house, I just like to be ‘there I am, that’s what I do’.
I can always promise a bad three months. But over any reasonable timeframe our approach hopefully works and doesn’t frighten the horses.
People are frightened but I find it hard to be pessimistic. I can’t really see why what we’re facing today is as bad as the financial meltdown in 2008 or industrial meltdown 2009.
Unfortunately in our world someone can say, “You idiot, you could have bought that 5 per cent more cheaply.” It will always be true and the only answer is “Wait and see.”
I’m always prepared to be patient if I know that over three to five years the direction of travel is fine. Whether this quarter is great or not couldn’t be less important.
I like going to shops when there’s a sale on. And there is a sale on.
Special Sits means you can do what you think is right rather than having to stick to a remit which might not always give you the flexibility. It’s a good name for that reason.
We’ve never paid any attention to the benchmark. Obviously I’m judged on something that tends to be the benchmark but it’s never been something we spend a lot of time worrying about.
We are denominated as a fund in euros but it’s not really about euros. I mean I could put it in Zimbabwean dollars, but it’s about the underlying assets.
I allocate by ideas. We can invent a good theme afterwards.
I don’t think I’m a rock star. The trouble is fame and fortune is such a fickle mistress. You’ve got to be a bit of a tart to get the initial money.
We have to have a bit of a profile simply because otherwise you get forgotten. We don’t want to be silly about it and endlessly be in the headlines, but it’s helpful to have people occasionally mentioning us.
Peter Lynch said he likes to buy a company that any old fool can run because at some stage any old fool does. It’s obviously very helpful if you have management who are very aligned.
We’d far prefer to have the good guy running it rather than have to kick somebody. In another life I can be kickass, but unfortunately in this one I’m a bit of a mouse and I have to pick the guy who’s doing a good job rather than somebody I want to remove.
What worries me is how ill prepared a lot of people in their 50s are to retire. The whole Isa revolution has been helpful but unfortunately not enough people have been able to do it.
It’s important for the FCA to be tough. It’s very important for the public to have confidence in the financial institutions.
If you went into Europe 30 years ago, you had much less information, much less transparency and a lot less protection from people who were being unscrupulous.
It is difficult to steal from shareholders in a major way. You can do stupid things but just being dishonest is more difficult.
I learned early, but the hard way, that it was important to buy into companies where management had the same shares and a lot of them. Then somehow things always seemed to work a bit better.
You want something that compounds away and is regularly in double digits and won’t necessarily become a hero overnight but is a tremendous long-term investment. That sounds a bit boring but I’m afraid that’s what we’re trying to do.
