Adrian Gosden, the 47-year old equity income investor who jointly ran £10bn across a range of mandates at Artemis, spoke to FTAdviser about why he left that firm after 13 years to launch a new franchise at GAM.
Mr Gosden joined GAM as investment director in September, in what he said he expects to be his last job in the industry.
As a partner at Artemis, he said he could have chosen to “sit on my backside and earn an absolute fortune running £10bn”.
But a desire to reproduce his previous track record of building businesses prompted his exit in June 2016.
He said: “I have been doing equity income for 20 years. In that time I have learned how to build something from zero to scale.
"I worked at Societe Generale with Nicola Horlick doing that. When I joined my last employer, the equity income franchise was tiny, and we worked to build it to £10bn of assets. That is what I want to do again, build something to scale.”
He jointly ran funds at Artemis with Adrian Frost, and Mr Gosden said it was a “50-50 partnership” between the two, though Mr Frost is the older of the duo.
Mr Gosden’s new office is just a few yards from that of his previous employer. He said he “made a lot of money” at Artemis, and has many friends there.
He had been offered the chance to take over and “mend some broken income funds” at other firms, “but that tends to take a long time and it doesn’t interest me. I want to build a new franchise”, he said.
He is keeping the specific details of what the new product he launches at GAM under wraps until at least next month.
At Artemis he worked on the £6.4bn Artemis Income fund.
Darius McDermott, managing director at Chelsea Financial Services, said the big question about any new product Mr Gosden launches will be whether he can replicate his previous success without the assistance of his previous colleagues.
David.Thorpe@ft.com
