Mr de Sausmarez is a self-confessed “investment trust man through and through”, with no desire to work in any other investment field. In fact, getting into financial services was something he went out of his way to achieve.
After graduating from university with a degree in international history and politics, Mr de Sausmarez explained that his first job was as a graduate administrative trainee with the central electricity generating board, a position he described as “tedious”.
He added: “It was there that I trained as a company secretary, but also where I developed an interest in finance. Some of the papers that I did best in when I was studying were the financial ones. I didn’t want to stay in the nationalised industry, which I found rather uninspiring, so as soon as I qualified I looked at getting into the financial world.”
Mr de Sausmarez said that since successfully landing his first job in financial services at Touche Remnant, which he saw advertised in the Sunday Times, he has “never looked back” and has been a dedicated investment trusts man since.
He explained: “I joined Touche Remnant in 1986 as assistant group company secretary. Although I came in on the company secretarial side, I was always more interested in commercial issues and I rapidly got interested in the investment trust business. My company secretarial training, which included accountancy and law, was very valuable in the context of investment trusts, but I also took an interest in the marketing and business development side of things.”
Following the acquisition of Touche Remnant by Henderson Global Investors in 1992, Mr de Sausmarez stayed on at the merged company to run the joint business before leaving five years later to take on the position of chief executive at Colonial First State Investments.
Mr de Sausmarez said: “I learnt an awful lot about investment while I was there. I then had a couple of short stints with Govett and Deutsche Bank before I came back to Henderson in January 2005.”
Eight years on and Mr de Sausmarez was clearly as enthusiastic about the role as he was when he rejoined the company.
He explained: “I am heavily involved in the sales and marketing strategy, business development, and all corporate issues. I work very closely with the portfolio managers of each of the trusts, helping them where needed to smooth the whole process and making it all happen.”
In light of the RDR, talk in the market was that take-up of investment trusts by advisers was going to be on the up. Even though Mr de Sausmarez has said he thinks that the RDR can only be seen as “good news” for investment trusts, he added that take-up will be a “slow burn”.
He continued: “The RDR has been good news for investment trusts because it levels the playing field and takes away commission bias. But that doesn’t mean that advisers are all of a sudden going to want to buy lots of investment trusts. The process of advisers discovering investment trusts and deciding that they want to invest in them is going to be a bit of a slow burn. It will take time for them to realise it.”
Not helping the take-up of investment trusts according to Mr de Sausmarez is the “total lack of interest” of the major fund platforms.
He added: “I do find it surprising that platforms such as Fidelity, Cofunds, and Skandia are not showing any interest. They dominate the market and yet none of them wants to put investment trusts on the platform. But the whole idea of the RDR was that independent advisers should offer a whole-of-market service, and clearly it is difficult to offer a whole-of-market service if your platform itself doesn’t offer a whole-of-market service.”
Mr de Sausmarez continued: “So that’s the big gripe of mine, that these platforms should go whole-of-market. I believe that is where the regulators want the industry to go and that is where we all want it to go because you have got to give the clients of advisers the best products that are most suitable for them.”
So has Henderson spoken to the platforms about this issue? Mr de Sausmarez said that he has, but that it is the classic “chicken and egg” situation.
“The fund platforms say that they are not particularly interested in investment trusts because nobody is asking for them,” he explained. “And when we go and talk to the advisers they ask us if it is on the platforms and we say no and they say well never mind. So you can’t win. It shouldn’t matter whether the advisers are asking for it or not, the reality is that if you are a fund platform in a post-RDR world you should be offering a whole-of-market service.”
Despite this issue, Mr de Sausmarez said that there is still an education piece that needs to be done on the adviser side when it comes to investment trusts.
He said: “There is a lack of understanding when it comes to advisers because some have never really looked at investment trusts before. They are a bit more complicated and they are slightly further up the risk curve. In many cases those are all challenges that the adviser has to get over.”
But it is a very valuable thing for the adviser to get over according to Mr de Sausmarez: “The big wealth managers have been buying investment trusts for years – the most sophisticated private investors, the ones that are most knowledgeable about investments, will buy investment trusts. There is still a fair amount of ignorance around and it will take time for people to realise that. But advisers will come round to seeing the benefits of investment trusts.”
In the meantime Mr de Sausmarez said that in order for the investment trust businesses to get noticed, companies have to keep the pressure up.
“We all need to be doing sales and marketing in the old-fashioned sense and we need to be out on the road talking to advisers,” he said.
As far as the future is concerned, Mr de Sausmarez said that the outlook is “fairly rosy”.
He concluded: “There is a bit more confidence around markets at the moment – we have seen a nice rise since the turn of the year and that’s flowing in with a bit of confidence to investors. There are still risks about but nevertheless interest in equity investments is going to go up, particularly as interest rates stay low and bond yields stay low – investors are increasingly going to look at investment trusts.”
CV
1986 Touche Remnant
Assistant group company secretary
1992 Henderson Global Investors
Transferring with the Touche Remnant business
1997 Colonial First State Investments
Chief executive
2005 Henderson Global Investors
Director and Head of Investment Trusts – responsible for all aspects of Henderson’s investment trust and investment company business, including the relationship between Henderson Global Investors and the boards of the managed investment trusts, service delivery, primary and secondary sales and marketing and new business development
