What is your main achievement since you joined Jupiter from Columbia Threadneedle just over a year ago?
My primary achievement is being able to come in and integrate myself into the business without disrupting it. One year in, I’m not going to be taking credit for what we did in Q3 from a sales flow perspective.
I have been getting an understanding of the business, working out where there were things that needed attention and focusing on enhancing what we are already doing and how we continue on this journey.
My main achievement is coming up with a strategy, which is around evolution, not revolution, and a way that I think the company feels comfortable. I am very lucky to have inherited a strong, effective strategy from my predecessor, Maarten Slendebroek, who is now our CEO.
Maarten would not have hired someone who had significantly opposing views to himself in terms of how to grow the business. After having been here now for a year, and having understood it in a lot more detail, I feel very passionately the strategy that Maarten embarked on is the right one.
Can you highlight a strand of this strategy?
The key focus is very much on diversification. Historically, the Jupiter business was a UK retail one and within that there was a primary focus on the fund of funds business – the Merlin fund range.
Maarten came in and said, ‘That’s great and we are never going to lose sight of how important the UK is but we’re of the size and breadth of capability now that we should be looking to diversify’.
Diversification is a key way of immunising yourself against the slings and arrows that get thrown, and it means we are not reliant on a single product, marketplace or channel.
What is different about Jupiter compared with other businesses you have worked for?
I was at Columbia Threadneedle for about eight years and, prior to that, at Northern Trust for 10 years. There are some very distinct differences.
I could talk about size – Columbia Threadneedle has $350bn in assets – but it doesn’t make a real difference.
First, the key thing that strikes me about Jupiter is it has a very different type of approach to investments and investing.
I am used to working in an organisation where there is a house view that drives asset allocation. You may even get so far as to have preferred stock lists, which fund managers are then expected to buy into. It is a central research function that people leverage off.
Jupiter doesn’t work like that. It employs really talented fund managers, giving them all the support they need in terms of analysts, and then allows them to utilise their discretion as to what they buy and sell, and when they buy it and when they sell it, without regard to what someone else might think who maybe runs a different portfolio. All this is within the constructs of what the mandate allows, within compliance.
I feel quite passionately about this. In a world where you are seeing continuing polarisation between active and passive, if you are going to play in the active space then what is the best way to add value?
I believe that high-alpha, high-conviction managers do best in an environment where there isn’t a house view trying to drive some form of consensus, because consensus equals compromise.
We allow our fund managers discretion, we employ fund managers who are very comfortable in taking risk within the construct of the portfolio and the perimeters of what is allowed.
Another important difference is the fact that Jupiter only does active investment management and is not part of a broader financial services organisation. We do answer to our shareholders and the regulator, so we have natural checks and balances, but in reality it is all about active asset management.
That is very empowering because it means we can come up with a plan, we can challenge it and we can validate it, but once we’ve made our decision we can get on with it without any other factors getting in the way.
