Unlike some fund groups that have purposely sought after big names to run their flagship portfolios, Aird says Investec Asset Management prefer to develop their talent from scratch and build high quality teams.
“If you look at football clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea, they are forming a squad of superstars with big egos and even bigger wage packets – paying them even before they’ve delivered,” he explained.
“They may do well initially, but they haven’t got the same dressing room spirit as a team like Manchester United, who are long term high performers that have developed quality players.”
“It’s a similar way of thinking with Investec – we don’t rely on a couple of individuals to drive our performance. We have seven investment teams managing 27 funds, which all very different in their own way, split between a managed solutions and specialist range. The individuals from these teams haven’t been imported – they’ve been developed over many years.”
“In the past we’ve seen what happens to firms that rely on one or two managers, which is something we don’t do here.”
All four of Investec’s FE Alpha Managers – Philip Saunders, Philip Rodrigs, Bradley George and Peter Eerdmans, have been at the firm for more than five years. Investec’s longest standing managers include Saunders, who joined the group in 1998, and the highly popular Alistair Mundy, who has headed up the Investec UK Special Situations and Investec Cautious Managed funds since the early 2000s.
Mundy has returned 117.99 per cent since beginning his career in July 2000 - more than twice as much as his peer group composite.
Performance of manager versus peer group since 2000
Source: FE Analytics
Investec, which was only founded in 1991, currently manages close to $100bn in assets, split 60/40 between institutional and retail money. According to FE data, at the end of January 2012, the group’s 27 funds in the unit trust and OEIC universe have combined assets under management (AUM) of 9.6bn.
“In 2000 our IMA funds had just £280m, which shows how far we’ve come,” said Aird. “At present we have a market share of around 3 per cent. Our next aim is to emulate the likes of Jupiter and Schroders, who are closer to 5 per cent. That’s the benchmark at the moment.”
Aird hinted that the team plans to launch a multi-asset income fund in the near future, which will be run by Saunders; however, details of the launch are yet to be confirmed.
“I’m often asked why Investec hasn’t launched an income fund,” he said. “However, we don’t like the ‘me too’ attitude, and see the area as extremely overcrowded.”
“If we were to launch of an income fund, it would have to be something very different to what’s on the market at the moment,” Aird finished.