Simon: Whenever I ask for the
backstory, when I ask for the
origin story to kick off a meeting,
some people are quite good at it.
Some people have, obviously, you
know, it's quite natural to them, but
other people will reel off the cv.
They'll say, oh, you know,
2010 hours at Georgia Bank.
Then I left and I went to X company.
And you think, oh no, that's
not, why are you in the industry?
Why did you become an
investor, not a shepherd?
Why did you, uh, join Li company?
Why are you a value manager,
not a growth manager?
You know, were you born thinking that
or did you make a load of mistakes
and actually realize that actually
you should have done it the other way?
That's what I want to hear because I want
to hear that you're running a process that
you've come up with and that you believe.
Stacy: Hey, my name is Stacy Havener.
I'm obsessed with startups,
stories, and sales.
Storytelling has fueled my
success as a female founder in the
Toughest Boys Club, wall Street.
I've raised over 8 billion that
has led to 30 billion in follow-on
assets for investment boutiques,
you could say, against the ads.
Yeah, understatement.
I share stories of the people behind
the portfolios while teaching you
how to use story to shape outcomes.
It's real talk here, money,
authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales
and marketing are all topics we discuss.
Think of this as the capital
raising class you wish you had
in college mixed with happy hour.
Pull up a seat, grab your notebook,
and get ready to be inspired
and challenged while you learn.
This is the Billion
dollar Backstory podcast.
You might think the investment
industry is filled with left brain
logicians, math minds, quant jocks.
I mean, you wouldn't be wrong.
I believe it's also filled with
right brain creatives, too.
Writers, artists.
In fact, they're often one and the same.
My guest today challenges the
idea that we are one or the other.
Left brain or right brain.
Instead, we are one and the other.
After all, being a mathematician or a
scientist or an artist is something we do.
Not necessarily something we are or is it?
Maybe it's both.
Maybe we are both.
Simon Evan Cook is a fund
manager and a creative thinker.
He is a scientist and an artist.
His journey from economics and accounting
major to a financial writer to portfolio
manager is inspiring for all of us.
Who at times feel like the crazy
ones, the misfits, the rebels,
the square pegs in round holes.
He's an entrepreneur who went from
startup fund to scaling over 5
billion in assets at Premier mi,
and he's ready to do it again.
Simon is now a fund manager at
Downing Fund Managers building the
next generation of multi-manager
portfolios, comprised of specialists.
How does he identify the
boutiques he wants to invest in?
What differentiates the managers he
allocates to versus the ones he passes on?
Why does he believe.
Disagreeable fund managers
make better investors.
Today's episode is a deep dive in the
science and art of portfolio management.
It's alpha plus authenticity,
it's edge plus story.
I'm so thrilled to invite you
into the conversation with
my friend Simon Evan Cook.
Let's get started.
Simon, thank you so much for being here.
I have enjoyed our conversations
one-on-one, and this is an awesome
opportunity to invite our listeners to
be the proverbial fly on the English
Garden Studio wall, so to speak.
Thank you so much for being
Simon: here.
It's a pleasure being here.
I'm looking forward to it.
I've always enjoyed our
conversations in the past.
Uh, I'm sure this will be no different.
Stacy: Yes, it absolutely will because
of course we're gonna start with my
favorite part, which is your backstory.
Your backstory.
Love it.
We've gotta start there.
You've had a, a really interesting
career, so I obviously wanna get to
that point, but I'm gonna encourage
you to kind of start from wherever
the journey really did start for you.
Like, did you always know you wanted
to be in investing or did it have a, an
interesting trajectory along the way?
Simon: I think it had an interesting
trajectory and I guess it depends
how far you wanna take it back.
And I interview a lot of fund managers and
it's always the question I ask them first.
And I like you.
I always encourage them to
go back as far as possible.
Even if that was to birth.
Totally.
Like if you are born
with it, totally story.
Totally go for it.
Go to that place.
Cause I wanna know what you're about.
So.
I reckon the interesting bit for
me probably starts at university.
The answer to your question, was
I destined to be an investor?
Absolutely not.
I was somewhat interested in it as a
kid, but I did not ever think or believe.
That I'd become an investor.
I didn't even really understand
that it was a job that was
open to me and that I could do.
So I did a university, a degree in
economics and accounting, and I now know
with hindsight that one of the modules
of that degree was financial management.
So it was teaching you all about
fund management, but at no point.
In that module and that degree,
did I actually understand anything
about what they were teaching me
or that it was about investing?
So they taught you stuff about, you know,
the Greek heavy equations about, you
know, alpha minus beat or equals returns.
I had no idea what any of those three
things were, and I left university
having passed that, still not
knowing what any of those things
actually were in the real world.
And it was only years later when I
became an investor that these terms
popped up again and I thought, All right.
Someone tried to teach me that stuff.
Yeah.
Back at university, they weren't very
good at teaching it, and I wasn't remotely
interested at that point in my life.
So I wasn't simply, I was interested in
a lot of stuff and I guess it's useful to
understand the way that my brain works,
and I recently read a book that I think.
Perfectly summed up my career and
it's, uh, ranged by David Epstein.
I dunno if you've come
across it or read it.
I have not.
Okay.
It's a fantastic book.
He uses the example, he compares Tiger
Woods to Roger Federer to obviously
legends of their own sports, but the
difference being that people model
themselves on Tiger Woods because
Tiger Woods picked up a club at the
age of two or something ridiculous
like that, and was focused on
that one career from the age of.
Nothing, and that's why
he's so amazing at it.
But what people don't know is that Roger
Federer actually tried around with loads
of different sports up until the age of
8, 9, 10, tried loads of different stuff
and he found what he liked, which was
eventually tennis, but became to it maybe
in his early teens, that sort of level.
And then once he got that, he knew he'd
got the right sport and then majored
on that and then became amazing at it.
So it kind of counters that story.
And that's very much been the journey
of me and the first 10 years of
my career were all over the place.
I was doing loads of different things.
I was doing jobs, which, some of
which I did like and some of which I
didn't, and parts of which I didn't.
I mean, fast forward to probably
the epiphany moment if you like.
I think when I finished university,
when I started working, I was aiming to
try and earn as much money as possible.
That was my aim.
And because I was focusing on trying
to get a high paying job, I took jobs
that I wasn't necessarily interested in.
In fact, I wasn't interested
in because I wasn't.
Interested in them.
I wasn't very good at them, and because
I wasn't very good at them, I wasn't
actually being paid very much money.
So I was not, basically, I was failing
on both of the important things.
I was getting jobs that I hated and
I wasn't being paid for it, so it was
just not worth on any level at all.
But she said just
disastrous at that point.
And at that point, luckily I kind
of woke up and I thought, look.
I've aimed at money and that hasn't
worked, and I've got a job that I don't
like and I'm not being paid very much.
So I may as well aim at a job
I enjoy doing now and then if
I get paid okay for it, fine.
But even if I don't, then at
least I'm doing something I enjoy.
Right?
So at that point, I realized the
thing that I really enjoyed in
the job that I was doing then.
Was the writing part of it.
So it was for a development job.
At that point, it was
quite dull, quite dry.
But I did like the bits where I was
writing communications to people, or
I was explaining complicated stuff.
So that was the bit where I said,
right, I'm gonna focus on writing now.
Whichever way I do it,
I'm gonna become a writer.
So the obvious thing to do is to
become a financial writer to start
with, but if that trajectory had taken
me out of the investment industry.
To somewhere else entirely.
I would've been quite happily to go down
that river, but as it happened, I got jobs
within the industry, financial writing.
I ended up doing a fair few jobs
there within marketing, within
financial writing, within product
specialism, which is where you
talk on behalf of a fund manager.
So I ended up eventually getting a job
at Premier, now Premier Martin as an
investment specialist to start with.
So I was someone who wrote and
spoke on behalf of a fund manager,
and because I was good at that.
The halo effect of being good
at that meant they assumed that
I'd be good as a fund manager.
Now, that's probably not necessarily
a great way to make a decision, but as
it happened, they offered me the job to
become a fund manager, a funder funds
manager, as it happened, and I loved it.
I absolutely loved it.
And the thing with me is that I'm
only good at stuff that I love.
I cannot be taught or cannot be interested
in anything that I'm not interested in.
Uh, you try and teach me about chemistry
or you try and teach me about a
subject in which I have no interest.
You cannot force that
information into my head.
If it's something I'm interested
in, then it sinks in and I
suck it up like a sponge.
And it just was lucky for me that when I
got that job in fund management, which by
all rights I probably shouldn't have got.
I loved it.
It was me and suddenly I was able
to run at this to explore it.
Look at all the different ways you can
be a multi-asset, uh, multi-manager,
fund manager, and just attack it.
And I absolutely loved it and I read
everything I could read about it and
beyond, and I learned everything I
could learn about it and made lots
of mistakes in the early days and had
theories, which proved to be crack pop.
But eventually we went through to
the sort of financial crisis time.
So that was when I got my first.
Financial management job was
just before the financial
crisis, so the baptism of fire.
So I learned a lot in that time,
and I reckon, yeah, it took me about
three or four years to find my thing.
If you like to realize what didn't
work and to realize what did work.
Okay,
Stacy: so I mean, first of all, as
a writer, I am so here for this, and
second, as a rebel, I am also here for
this because it's really unique to find
somebody that has both sides of their
brain sort of in tune the way that you do.
You're an incredible writer, and we'll
talk about the writing a little bit later.
You were studying, you know, sort of
economics and finance and accounting.
And so to have those two skill
sets, those two unique abilities
going at the same time is very rare.
You don't find a lot of portfolio
managers or fund managers who would
fashion themselves super talented,
uh, communication or writing.
So it's really unique combination.
Simon: I wouldn't say super
talented, but thank you.
Any for the compliments?
I'll always, I'll always take them.
It is rare, but I think it is, to
your point, I think it is one of the
problems the industry has at the moment
is that it is becoming a bit like the
Tiger Woods model, where you have to
decide at the age of 12 that you're
gonna become a portfolio manager.
Yes.
And you have to work and work
and work and work at that.
And then you become a, you get your CFA
at the age of 21 and maybe you don't
get any life experience outside of that.
That then Yeah.
Informs that and.
With farm management, particularly
when you get your ticket, you
get your chance to sit in the big
seat and be the portfolio manager.
Yeah, you pretty much get one chance at
that, and if you come at it too early
and you don't have the life experience,
so I've traveled around the world a bit.
I've done different jobs.
I've kind of had a chance to make the
mistakes that everybody makes in their
twenties, but I didn't do it in a place
that damaged my fund management career.
So I was.
About 28, 29 when I first sort
of was put into a position where
I was starting to manage money.
And by that stage I think you've got a
lot of the mistakes out of your system.
Not all of them.
Yeah.
But you've got a lot of
them out of your system.
So it was, yeah, it's doubly, but I think
the industry is weaker for the fact that
it's screens out people who maybe have
a slightly different approach, different
path to it, and it seems to be getting
worse and going that way, I think as well.
Stacy: Yes, I think so too.
Gosh, we could totally sidebar
on that because, you know,
diversity of thought is real.
Diversity of experience is real, right?
And so if it's just, we all had the
same journey, we all have the same path,
we all had the same life experience.
The outcome of that.
In terms of thought, critical
thinking, portfolio composition,
all of it is probably gonna have
some very, very similar threads.
And I'm not sure that's where
the magic is to your point.
But I wanna go back to your story though,
because you were very humble there.
Cuz I know what you built at Premiere and
I want you to share that with us so you
get this chance to be a fund manager and.
Take that a little bit further cuz
you are vetting other managers, right?
You're building a collection Yeah.
Of fund managers.
So talk that through, even though I'm
a, a words girl, I want you to talk
about the numbers of what you built.
Okay?
Simon: So if you call what I discussed
before, the first epiphany as in don't
chase the money, chase the, yeah.
The stuff you're good at and you enjoy.
Yes.
Epiphany number two was the investment
management epiphany, where we had been
going down a route of increasingly making
our funds and what we did more and more
complicated, we were adding in more and
more different products, different stuff,
and none of it had particularly worked
very well during the financial crisis.
I guess the epiphany I had was, So we're
now into about 2010, and when I thought
back to the financial crisis, and I look
back, I just wondered and I thought, you
know, because we are multi-manager, we
hold a portfolio of the fund managers
where we can hold passive, we can
hold structured products, we can hold
alternative ass, all sorts of stuff.
I thought back and I thought,
well, hang on a minute.
What would've happened during the
financial crisis if we had simply
held the 10 go-to fund managers who
at the time we knew were the best?
What they did.
They were the best at European equities
or Asian equities or US equities.
Get rid of all the other stuff, all
the other bits and pieces, you know,
all the marginal managers you were
taking a bit of a, a guess on, or some
of the complicated stuff that we'd
started to add into the portfolio.
What did that look like?
So I went back and back tested it and
made the portfolio, no as allocation
decisions, no changes, no claiming that
you would've bought at the bottom and
sold at the top, and just put these 10
to 12 amazing fund managers together
in a portfolio, and it looked amazing.
Up to the crisis.
It looked amazing during the
crisis and it looked amazing
coming out of the crisis as well.
And that was when the
penny dropped for me.
And I just thought, why are we making
this more complicated than it needs to be?
Why are we not just finding
the best investors we can find?
And then just leaving them to it.
And that in a nutshell was my crazy idea.
Now the thing with crazy ideas
is quite often you have them and
you back test them, and you'll
know about back test, right?
As soon as you've done a back test.
Yes.
And you get the product launched
that used the back test, it fails
horribly because the back test
everyone I spot at the same time.
Totally.
Right.
It always, always, always happens.
Yeah.
The joy of this one was I had the
crazy idea and I got a chance to
certainly implement it on a large part
of the portfolios, and particularly
the two funds I was running premier.
And it worked like a dream.
I mean, the performance was amazing.
Uh, performance was amazing.
And rising markets, it was
amazing in falling markets.
It just was great and it
wasn't very complicated.
And on that, you then
build on that philosophy.
You've, you work out what's
working well and you build on that.
And so yeah, that's when the success
really started to kick in when we got
rid of a lot of the other stuff that
wasn't working and focused on what did.
And so, yeah, at Trough and the
financial crisis, the team I was
a part of was running about 300
million or so, that's Sterling.
Uh, so I guess that's probably
about 500 million US dollars.
By the end of the decade, we were
up to about 5 billion US dollars,
and that was all based on the
performance, the track record, because.
Premier as it was, premier Martin,
as it is now, is not a big company.
There is no reason why anyone
would feel obliged to buy a fund
from a company of that size that
they've never, never heard of.
Mm-hmm.
So it was all performance based.
We won a lot of the prizes.
The two funds I was running within
the team won four consecutive Fund
Manager of the year awards in the
uk, which is based on performance.
And you're up against, you
know, in each case and each
sector and you're up against.
Whatever it is, 200 funds
run on a similar basis.
So the success was
there and, and tangible.
And so we were probably, you know,
in terms of asset gathering and
performance, you know, the UK's
big multi-asset franchise of.
The last decade.
So yeah, that's the trumpet blowing done.
That doesn't come easy to me
as a brick, but there it is.
Stacy: No, I know it doesn't.
And I wanna take it to where you are
now, but I think there's so many fabulous
lessons in this, and you can see, I
mean, we're just like riffing off of your
story in so many different directions.
And I wanna pause and show
listeners how that can happen.
So I think there's a perception when
you start talking about backstory that
it's just like you give somebody the
platform and they just list bullet points
of all the places they've ever worked
and all the successes they've ever had.
That's, and then when it's over, you move
on to the next topic and that's miserable.
No one wants that.
What they want is to understand you.
They don't, but they wanna follow
the threads, follow the threads, just
like talk about different things.
So I wanna challenge you on one piece
of your story on the success part,
because I'm glad that you've, you know,
used the data to back up the narrative.
But I wonder, yes, the performance
was a driver for your growth.
And I'm biased here, but I wonder too.
If there was more to the story than
that, you know, the types of managers
that you gravitated to then and
still do now is very differentiated.
Yes, yes.
And so something tells me, or maybe
I'm just talking my own book here,
that that had to play a role in it.
It wasn't like you had a collection of
all the bigs in one fund and then, you
know, someone looked at it and said, well,
I could just go replicate that myself.
Why do I need Simon and his team?
So can you speak to that part?
Simon: Yeah, there's
lots of threads there.
In terms of the bigs, what effectively
I did was look at what the bigs were
doing, the legends of the day, how did
they invest, and that's where I did
my study and that's where I learned.
And then I took that, and then I applied
that to finding new versions of those
fund managers, people who are doing
something different, but who are maybe
at a different part of their journey.
Because one of the.
Worst kept secrets of the industry
is that once a fund gets big and the
manager maybe loses their edge a little
bit, then that is no longer gonna
be the fund of the next 10 years.
It was the fund of the last 10 years.
So one of the things that I am hot
on and certainly was hot on, was
finding new funds who are doing that.
New fund managers who
were running funds in.
Not in a crazy way.
I mean this is classic
fund management stuff.
It's the same way that Warren
Buffett ran or Peter Lynch
or in the uk, Anthony Bolton.
It's trying to find fund managers who are
doing that, but who were younger maybe
running a smaller fund and they were
just about to build their track record.
So you are right.
It's no use me going off and finding a
fund that everybody knows about that's 20
years old and is already probably passed.
You've gotta do it again from the start.
And so that is absolutely what we did.
And we honor some amazing funds over
the last 10 years, which are now coming
towards being household names in the
uk or close to being household names.
And we're doing it again now.
So, uh, the new place, and maybe
we'll talk about that in a bit,
but that is what, let's do that.
So I've joined a company called Downing.
Now.
There's many reasons why I joined Downing,
but in terms of what I'm doing it is to
take what worked like a dream at Premier,
which was the fund selection and trying
as hard as possible just to let the
fund managers generate the returns and
trying to basically remove anything.
Out of the way, the macro asset
allocation, mistakes of timing out of
the way so that you get the returns
from those amazing fund managers.
So I've joined Downing to do that and
I'm setting up funds currently going
through the process of setting up those
funds and, and we're getting close
to a point where we're doing that.
So
Stacy: I love that.
I mean, in many ways it's a similar
journey of the managers that you
gravitate to, isn't it your own journey?
Simon: It is, absolutely.
Uh, to your point, and I completely agree
by the way, about the power of stories.
Whenever I've been presenting or
doing conferences in the past, and
obviously the marketing is an incredibly
important part of building up.
The track record, the reputation.
There's no point in just creating a
track record and then never going out
and never being able to talk about it
and never, because even if you've got
that, very few people will buy it.
You certainly don't get that.
Quantum of assets from just sitting in
an office and producing the numbers.
I've met fund managers in the past
who have done that and have been
very quiet and they've stayed small.
Maybe they've stayed very happy
being small, but you know, you
don't build it that way at all.
But yeah, I've always spun stories.
I've always enjoyed that.
And I mean, in the UK at the moment,
and to your point, because you,
this is obviously the billion.
Backstory.
The biggest fund manager in the
UK currently is a guy called Terry
Smith, runs a fund called Fundsmith.
Now he's a bit of a Maite character.
Okay.
I dunno if you know what Maite
means in the us, but it's, no,
Stacy: I don't.
What is that?
You have to
Simon: explain it.
So, right.
Maite is this product that we have
in the uk, which is a spread which
you spread on your toast and okay.
It's basically, it's like a salty.
Savory spread and it's famous for being
something that a lot of people love,
but a lot of people hate to the point
where Maite, the brand, ah, owned this
a few years ago and even did a massive
advertising campaign where they would
literally show people retching about the
thought of eating their product because
they were just saying, look, it's so now
a British person just says something.
It's Marmite.
You love it.
Or you hate it, it's,
there's nothing in between.
Oh, you hate it.
So anyway, back to Terry Smith is a
Marmite kind of character, but his
one story, and I, I've never heard
him tell the story, but everybody
kind of knows the story about him.
So this is a guy who runs a, I think it's
about 24 billion Sterling Global Fund now.
So he is immensely successful.
He's Stu, he built and fund, I
think he launched about 2010.
So in.
What are we, in 13 years,
he's built up 24 billion.
Mm-hmm.
Of assets.
The one story that sticks with him was
that he used to work at Barclay's and he
was famous for when he was at Barclay's,
the bank, putting out a cell note.
Mm-hmm.
Recommending that people
dump the shares of Barclays.
That's as far as the story goes.
But to your point, that's
an amazing story, right?
Because yeah, you've got a PowerPoint
deck together saying, I'm honest.
I look after my clients already.
I'm not listening.
I'm bored because I don't believe you.
But anyone could say that
in your PowerPoint deck.
But that one story, he puts
their sums all of that up, you
think, my God, that's amazing.
He's brave.
He's prepared to go alone.
He's prepared to be different.
He's prepared to stand up for
what is right for his clients.
All of that in that 22nd.
Not even that 22nd
story just tells it all.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Yeah, it's incredible.
Stacy: Gosh, you, I love that.
So it is incredible.
And also it's, don't talk
about it, be about it.
Right.
Simon: I'm gonna send you a jar
of Maite, which you are gonna
Stacy: love or help.
Okay.
Please do.
And I'm a savory person,
so this'll be interesting.
But that attraction repel is really key.
And I think it's something that.
People in this industry
are terrified of doing.
Terrified of doing because they think
if I'm gonna grow something sizeable,
if I'm gonna cross a billion dollars
and keep going, then I have to be
for as many people as possible, I
have to appeal to the widest possible
target market, a k a, everyone.
And then, just because I'm a math
person, I'm gonna come up with some low
conversion rate percentage, and then boom,
there's my multi-billion dollar fund.
And the reality is that
will never play out.
You try to do everything to everyone.
It's the worst thing you can do.
You're gonna mean nothing
to anybody at all.
I wanna talk about target market, but
before we do, one last point on kind of
where you are at Downing and what you're
building, because as you said, I'm a
big believer that people want different.
Not necessarily better, right?
Yes.
They want a collection of different,
whether that's in a portfolio or
who knows, you know, kind of broad
application here, a portfolio of
different, and so when there's so many
funds and so many fund managers, I
guess my somewhat challenging, and it's
not meant to be question is why does
the world need another fund of funds?
Like why do it?
Why build it again?
Simon: Yeah, that's a great question.
The answer is, I think when you look
at what my mission is, I passionately
believe in active management.
I don't believe in that.
The average fund manager is great.
I actually agree with
the passive camp on that.
I do think for the average fund
manager is not worth holding.
But I'm not interested in
the average fund manager.
I'm not interested in being the average
fund manager, and I find that quite a
depressing message that you can't, I mean,
imagine telling your kids that, right?
That.
You'll never be any better than average.
Be average.
So, so just settle for slightly less than
average and that'll be enough for you.
I mean, that has just kills my soul
level, and it's not that hard, I
think, to be better than average in
the, there's simple things you can do.
So completely believe that, and I've seen
it happen so, The trouble is when you
find these exceptional fund managers.
Warren Buffet is one example.
Peter Lynch with is another example.
Bailey Gifford in the uk.
Another example recently have done
a, a good job up until very recently.
They're amazing.
They are very, very good at at
what they do, however, They are
extremely hard to hold if you are
a kind of retail based investor.
If you are a nurse or a doctor or a vet
or a teacher, you know, you've got a lot
of stuff on your plate to worry about.
And the thing that somewhat slightly
irks me about professional fund managers
sometimes, Is that they can be highly
critical of people who don't hold
their funds, who kind of buy their
funds when they're doing well, and then
sell them when they're doing badly.
But it's all very well for them to
say that because they've been trained
in markets all their life, they fully
understand that if they are doing a
niche type of investing, so if they
are a value investor, deep value,
or a, a high growth investor, they
might well outperform over 10 years.
But over any given one year,
it might look horrific.
Like the performance could be horrible.
Mm-hmm.
Because it won't be a straight journey
if you are doing something very specific.
But the retail investor Yes.
Is not trained in that.
Right.
They can't.
Handle that performance.
So my mission with the funder
funds I'm doing is I want to find
all of these amazing investors.
That's the key skill number one.
Skill number two for me is putting
them together into one single portfolio
so that they're blended in such a
way that it becomes much easier.
To hold so that when the high
growth manager is having an absolute
nightmare year, I've got a value
manager who's having an absolute
purple patch who's balancing that out.
So you don't need to go through
the pain, but you still get the
incredible result at the end of this.
Now, Stacy, I've gotta thank you at
this point because I've been planning
this for years, but I listened to your,
you were on a podcast a few months back
and you talked about the heroes Yeah.
Journey.
That's now how I describe
what I do, right?
Because what I do is I only buy within
my funds heroic fund managers, right?
So I will only buy fund managers who are
on that incredible journey and who will
go through periods that are amazing.
And it will go through
periods which are terrible.
So just for the listeners who don't
know about the hero journey, that is the
template that writers use and it's what's
used in Star Wars or in the Matrix, or
in any Marvel movie or any Disney movie
where a hero sets off on there journey.
And along the way they experience
challenges and at some point they'll
come very close to death or something
like it, and then they'll be kind
of survive and they'll be bored and
they'll come back and they'll triumph
again and, and that is an amazing
journey and that's an amazing story.
But for a financial advisor or
a client, that is a disastrous
business model, right?
If you are dragging your clients
on that heroic journey, You are
gonna lose a lot of them on the way.
So what I do that's different than the
focus I have is I only buy those heroic
investors, but I make sure that while one
of those heroic investors is going through
their tr has being locked up in a dungeon,
I've got another heroic investor who is
slaying the dragon and who is triumphing.
And when you take the average of those
journeys, What I'm doing is taking
my investors on an on heroic journey.
So that's how we describe what we do.
We are all about the un heroic
journey, but you still get the
heroic outcome at the end of it.
So that's where we're
focusing on That's different.
And my market.
Yeah.
Well, there's a lot there.
Right.
But my market is financial advisors
in the UK and financial advisors do
not need to have their clients dragged
through the black gates of Mordor.
Right.
They do not need their clients.
Wow.
On an adventure.
They need them to be taken and they're
handheld all the way through it,
but they still obviously want to get
somewhere good when they're retired.
And that's how you do it is you still
pick the amazing investors, but you
pick a few of them and you make sure
that you're not getting the extremes,
and that seems to be what's missing.
Okay.
Stacy: That was so good, and
also that was a super interesting
twist on the hero's journey.
I have to really kind of go
back to everything you said.
There's so much to love there.
Also, when you start working on your
presentation and your materials, if
you haven't yet, please re-listen
to everything you just said.
Oh, it's already there.
Couple things I loved about it.
The first is, I had a thought as
you were talking that, gosh, it's so
interesting how we tell fund managers,
you're the guide and the investor is the
hero, and you have to think about that.
And, but then it's also exactly true
that you, Simon, Are the guide to the
investors and also the fund managers.
So it's interesting, depending
on whose story you're in.
Yeah, you could be a hero and
a guide at the very same time.
So tell me that.
I loved that.
That's just like a twist I've never
really contemplated and I will.
Thoughts on that?
Isn't that fascinating?
Cuz you said I'm buying these heroes
and I thought that's so interesting.
I'm telling them they're not heroes.
They are.
I
Simon: think they're, and a good thing
about what I do they to a lot of.
My competitors is instead of maybe trying
to discourage fund managers from taking
too much risk, I'm the exact opposite.
I need those fund managers
to be Yeah, absolutely.
Maximizing their power.
Right?
So if I want a value manager and
that value manager stops being a
value manager, cuz maybe they got a
little bit scared or they got a bit
burned, then I used to be anymore.
I need them out on their limb.
Doing their value thing because when
their time comes, they're gonna be
balancing out the growth manager
who was balancing them out before.
So I need my fund managers to stay
heroic and when I'm monitoring them,
yes, that's what I'm looking for.
I'm looking for managers who've
lost the edge and are maybe not
doing what they said they should do.
That's when they're out of the portfolio
and I'm finding the new hero, but
I do consider them to be heroic.
I do consider what I'm doing to
be, do even slightly cowardly
because I've been through.
That journey myself a little bit.
I had a value bias for the
last 10 years of success.
But yeah, for the two years at the end
of 18 to 20, when it went parabolic
and it was just high growth, the
performance was boring during that time.
So I've kind of done that.
Yeah.
And also know how it feels,
and I don't want my investors
to have to go through that.
So I will try my hardest so they
don't have to go through it,
but I wanna make sure my fund
managers go through that help.
Yes.
I want them working that.
Stacy: That was incredibly well said.
And the other thing that's
super interesting about
it is, You are the guide.
You're not a coward.
You're the guide.
Because what you're doing is
saying it's a much better word.
This narrative in this
movie over here at Downing.
Here's how it plays out.
I don't want you to dull your edges.
That's what I'm gonna do as the guide.
I loved your phrasing, even though
it really makes you think I'm
gonna create the un heroic journey
with a collection of heroes.
Because you'll all compliment each other,
and it reminds me of Marvel in some ways
because it's like, oh yeah, if one of
those Avengers tried to take this super
power of another Avenger and say, well,
I don't wanna just be, I actually don't
watch those movies, so I don't even know
what their skills are, but I don't wanna
just be throwing lightning bolts around.
I'm gonna take someone else's
skill and try to learn it.
You'd be like, no, no, no, no.
Don't do that.
Don't do it.
That's
Simon: not your team.
You don't want 10 hawks.
Don't No, no, no.
You absolutely don't.
And I'm glad you've, you've, you've
mentioned that because, cause
I'm happy to describe it as I'm
putting together the equity part
of my fund is Avengers assemble.
Right.
I'm looking for the best investors and
there's nothing, there's no passive in
there, there's no benchmark huggers.
And that is a fun job for me.
Right.
I am just looking for what I consider
to be the best investors and it's
unambiguous and it's very clear.
And it makes my job fun.
Right.
You know, I'm just getting rid
of the guff in the middle of it.
That's sta and it's uninteresting
and it's only interesting
people in, in the funds I run.
But the outcome is
good, but it's not wild.
Stacy: What I also love about the target
market, cuz we were chatting and I was
saying you really have two target markets.
And I relate to that cuz in the
seat you're in, you do, right?
You have the managers and
you have the investors.
And what's interesting is every manager
who has felt misunderstood or been
told that like, I can't take your
volatility, or why can't you be more?
In the middle or more
vanilla or more whatever.
Every manager who's ever been
told that is right now raising
their hand, I don't know.
They don't do the running man, but
I would be doing the running man
if I were them, because I'm like,
this is somebody understands me and
somebody's encouraging me to do me.
To lean into my unique ability.
Absolutely.
So I just thought that was epic.
It's not really a, a gear switch
as much as it's just maybe diving
deeper into some components of
how you're finding these heroes.
And you wrote a piece, so going
back to your writing, you're still
writing, which I think is awesome.
And it, and I love
reading, love it writing.
But you wrote a, yeah, you wrote a piece
about three paradoxes and, and one of the
three was around qualitative research.
And that's something that I think.
That I have seen, you know,
get downplayed significantly.
And then of course my friends at Kaya
did a study where they interviewed
allocators and said, how important
is qualitative research and what, lo
and behold, it's kind of important
the people who don't believe it is.
As important as it is,
or actually the managers.
The managers think the allocators
don't care about qualitative
and as it turns out they do.
And I know you do.
And so can you speak to that,
your research process and
how qualitative plays in?
Let's put it
Simon: this way, if I could have one
or the other qualitative or quant, it
would be qualitative every single time.
I think probably in terms of
fund management, the one skill.
That I do have is the ability to interview
fund managers and sniff out the good ones.
And so that might be it as far as me
as an investor, that that is enough
of an edge that you can find these
amazing investors and then again,
just unleash them that that's enough.
So yeah, for me, the important
bit is the fund manager interview.
I absolutely.
I love doing that.
I enjoy doing it.
I'd certainly prefer doing it
face to face rather than on Zoom.
So that's something that's been
more of a challenge of late,
but we are going back to that.
But it is so important and for me, what
I'm trying to do in that interview is I
can look at the track record and I do look
at the track record and I can look at the
portfolio and read the marketing bump.
I'm just trying to work out if they're
true to what they say they are.
If, if.
There's a process that they're describing.
Is that process sensible to start with?
That's quite easy to work out, and you
could probably do that by reading the D
D Q, the kind of due diligence stuff that
the marketing department have put out.
I'm trying to work out that are
they capable of running that?
Have they got the character.
To run it, is it within their nature?
So I heard another great backstory.
Mm-hmm.
Again, another quick one, and it's
a, a Japanese farm manager that
I'm about to buy and he kicks off
with this message straight away.
I always ask what the backstory is.
Anyway, so he would've told me he is
a twin, so he is one half of twins.
Oh.
So it's a company called NSE
in Japan, and it's a fund.
I'm just about to buy maybe
just because of the story.
And he says, look, I spent my entire
life wanting to differentiate myself.
From my brother.
I always wanted to do the opposite to
him, and now I run a contrarian value
fund because that is so natural for me
to look at what everyone else is doing.
Go, Nope, I don't wanna do that.
I wanna do this.
And you think, right, I get it.
That is, I understand why
you're running that process.
I get why you're doing it.
It's obviously gonna be easy for you.
And to take it back to my early career
where I was doing jobs badly, you
find someone who's doing the right
job that fits with their nature,
then it's easy, it's play, right?
It's fun, right?
They're gonna beat the person who's done
the cfa, but perhaps should have gone
and been, uh, lumberjack because maybe
that's what they would've loved in life
rather than being a, a fund manager.
But their parents told them they
should be a fund manager and.
Or the money dragged them in,
they're gonna get beaten every time
by the person who loves the job.
And immediately you could tell with
that guy that he loves the job.
He's naturally doing something that fits
with his nature, but it's not always that
easy to tease that out of a fund manager.
You have to work at it.
Whenever I ask for the backstory, when
I ask for the origin story to kick off a
meeting, some people are quite good at it.
Some people have obviously,
Yeah, it's quite natural to them.
But other people will reel off the cv.
They'll say, oh, you know, 2010
hours at Georgia Bank, then I
left and I went to X company.
No, that's not, why are
you in the industry?
Why did you become an
investor, not a shepherd?
Why did you, uh, Join this company.
Why are you a value manager,
not a growth manager?
You know, were you born thinking that
or did you make a load of mistakes
and actually realize that actually
you should have done it the other way?
That's what I want to hear.
Cause I want to hear that you're
running a process that you've come
up with and that you believe, I guess
the hardest ones to winkle out the
ones where you come out thinking,
well, there was nothing wrong with it.
But I didn't love it.
Uh, probably people who've been given
a fund by the marketing department.
The marketing department said, you
know what, we need an AI based thematic
fund who's available to run it, right?
And they grab a guy who's sort of wants
to run a fund but has no particular
interest in an ai, and then they run
the fund and they sound feasible.
The idea sounds feasible,
but there's no love in it.
There's no passion, there's no
kind of, it's their life's work.
There's a word and it's just
popped back into my head and it's
a word I'm think you gonna love.
It's a Japanese word called kori and the
ko Dari refers to people who are artisans.
And it's not about fund managers.
It might be about people who make leather
satchels or people who make sushi.
But it's their life's work and they focus
on every single part of making this thing
great and wonderful, whatever it might be.
They just go to sleep thinking about it.
They dream about it.
They wake up in the shower
thinking about it, whatever.
That little part of.
Life might be, and those are the
fund managers that I want because
they found their thing and they
think about it on the drive home.
They think about it at the weekend
while they're, you know, washing
the car, whatever it might be.
They are just driven by it.
And those are the people who
will win at fund management.
And you can't pick them out with
Stacy: quant.
I mean, can I take this mic and throw it?
Can I like mic drop this?
That was so good.
I hope you turn that into a white paper.
Simon: It's one of the ones
that's bubbling around my head.
Yeah, it's gonna happen.
Yeah.
Stacy: I'm a plus one on that.
That is a really, I.
Fascinating thread.
Great story I think.
I think so, yeah.
Great framework.
Yeah, I would definitely
turn that into something.
That was awesome.
So that was the second paradox that you
recently wrote about the, the other one
that really hit for me, I mean, this is
one of my things, this is one of my jams.
So it was like, ah, kindred spirits was.
And you touched on it here, authenticity
and not being afraid to stand out.
And you had a quote or there was a
quote that really resonated to me
around Agreeability and you said,
agreeability is necessary to get and
keep the job, but you must also be
disagreeable to then excel at it.
And it's no wonder that so few do.
I'd love for you to talk
Simon: about that.
We've touched on it a little bit.
So to become a fund manager, which
is obviously a very desirable
job, it's very well paid, it's
got a kudos attached to it.
So because of that, it's become
harder and harder to get.
You need to have got
great grades at school.
You need to have got a
good into a great college.
Got a good degree, come out of that,
got an internship, whatever it might be.
It's very, very hard to get to do that.
You need to have jumped
through the right hoops.
So that might be you need
to work hard at school.
You need to study 10 different
subjects and excel at them all,
and you need to narrow down, but
you need to pass these exams.
So you need to do what you
are told to a certain extent.
You need to be good at passing exams.
You need to be a diligent
student at school to get into
that fund management job.
So the fund management
industry selects for people.
Who are quite good at
doing what they're told.
Not everyone is good at
doing what they're told.
One of my sons is terrible at
it, but he is a very, very smart
kid, but he doesn't love and I
recognize a lot of myself in it.
If he's not interested in that
subject, you can't teach it to him.
He's like, why am I doing it?
Try to give him an exam, and he
says, What's the point of this exam?
I'm never gonna use it in real life.
And let's be honest, most exams
that we did as kids are of
no practical use whatsoever.
He's smart enough to have spotted
that, which is annoying because
I would love him to pass exams.
Yeah.
But to try and get the kid to revise stuff
and to work is very, very, very difficult.
But he is very, very bright, and as
soon as he is interested in subject,
he's often away and running at it.
So the problem is fund
management screens out.
People like that.
People who don't necessarily get
to university because they couldn't
see the point of doing in an exam.
The trouble is once you've then got a
selection of people who are agreeable,
very good at doing what they're told, the
trouble is to be an amazing fund manager.
You have then got to go out there
and do the exact opposite of what
everyone's doing or be very, very
different to what everyone's doing.
So you've immediately gotta say, Done
what I'm told, done what I was told,
done what I was told, got the job.
Now I'm not doing what I'm told.
You've gotta start rebelling
almost against Yeah.
What everyone else is doing.
And that is not gonna be in your nature.
If you've spent your entire life
doing what you're told and being the
good student, and suddenly you've
gotta say, Nope, you know what?
The market says this.
And the market is basically everyone,
and I disagree with everyone.
I'm gonna go and do it this way.
That's why I think it's vanishingly
rare because that sort of
character gets screamed out.
So there's a very.
Diminishing number of fund managers, I
think, who've got that chutzpah, that
ability to rebel a bit, that ability
to, once they've got the job, then
to think, right, I've worked so hard.
You know what?
I'm gonna risk it all by being
extremely different to the market.
And they're vanishing, but they're
out there if you can find them.
Wow.
But it's becoming increasingly
hard to find them.
So yeah, that.
Agreeably disagreeable, but
it also spin it back again.
I think, you know, when you're working,
you also need to be agreeable as a
fund manager because it's increasingly
complex what you need to do.
You can't just be a one man or one
person or one woman band anymore.
It used to always be
a one man band, right?
Yeah.
Because you need the help of analysts.
You need the help of other PMs.
You need the help of your marketing
team, your compliance team,
your risk team, your sales team.
You need to be part of a team.
It's no use being an alpha male anymore.
So again, that agreeability has to
work there, but you also need still
that ability to know when to go,
Nope, I'm not doing what you tell me.
And it's a rare, rare yes.
Combination.
I think.
Stacy: And I like what you said there
too, because it's not giving people
permission to be jerks about it.
Right.
It's not taking, not be
disagreeable, b and a hole.
It's just like, be willing to think
for yourself and go against the
grain and buck the trends or, you
know, challenge the status quo.
Still be a good person,
still be a good teammate.
You need to partner all of those things.
So it
Simon: definitely doesn't give you a
green light to go out and be a dick.
Absolutely not.
So I wrote a piece on my median website.
Well maybe we'll put it in the show notes.
And it is by a factor about five or
10 times the most popular thing I've
ever written called What Separates
a competent manager or an excellent
manager from a competent manager.
And I had to invent a new word, okay, to
describe the trait that you need to have.
The word I invented was a word called
delicious, which is a mashup of
belligerent and conscientious, right?
And that's what you need.
You need the ability to just
stick up, stick to your guns.
You need to stick and believe in
what you're doing, but you also
need to be quite hardworking enough.
To be able to, you know, have a
conscience as well, to work hard, to
have a conscience, to understand how
other people work, to not treat people
badly, it doesn't excuse that at all.
This question there, there's a lot of
characters certainly in the past who have
done that, and I think that's inexcusable.
It's not anything I'd ever want to
be associated with and I would never
invest for the manager who was No,
just one of those kind of can kicking
desk, tipping types, absolutely no way.
Stacy: No.
And for people who aren't in the
industry that think that that's
everybody here, it's not every
industry I'm sure has bad apples, but.
We get a bad wrap over here sometimes
and no, there are some amazing things.
I think that's great
and that's great advice.
Yeah, there's some very amazing
people and so that's amazing.
Vice, say the word again.
Simon: Delicious.
So meets conscientious.
Stacy: Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Delicious.
Okay.
That's so good.
I will put that in the show notes.
It's dalicious.
So that's obviously one piece of advice
that you'd have for somebody who's.
Maybe embarking on an entrepreneurial
journey, a fund manager setting up
their own shop embraces this concept
of malicious, which is super cool.
What's a piece of advice or something you
learned that's maybe surprising being an
entrepreneur or building something, right?
I mean, you built this fund at Premier
and now you're building it Downing.
What advice do you have?
Simon: I like what you were saying about
Yeah, pick your niche and go with that.
Yeah.
I think that is such, such good advice.
So for me, the active passive
debate has always been one that's
been roaring throughout my career.
And a lot of people, I'd say most
people sit on the fence on that
maybe cuz that's what they believe.
But I've always been very happy.
Largely cuz almost entirely
because of what I believe.
But any thoughts I had that, maybe I
should temper that a little bit and
maybe I should give a little bit of
ground and say, okay, we'll do a bit
of passive, we'll do that would've
been completely wrong because what I
do believe in is active management and
there are enough people out there who
agree with me and maybe it's only one in
every a hundred people who agree with me.
But you know what, that's.
Enough if someone out there
thinks, you know what?
I agree.
Active management should be the way people
should be trying to be above average,
and it's not that hard providing you do
the stuff that worked 30 years, 50 years
ago, 20 years ago, and you do it well.
So yeah, absolutely.
Pick your niche.
Be prepared to appeal to a smaller number
of people, will make sure that those
people really believe in what you do.
Really, you know, prefer you Yeah.
To the guy who's out there or the girl
is out there, whoever is saying, yeah,
we do a bit of everything because that's
just, yeah, it's not gonna say anything.
So, yeah, I completely agree
with your advice there.
I think it is.
I love that thing.
And, and, and Max it.
Yeah.
Stacy: Be a, uh, a meaningful
specific, not a wandering generality.
Right.
Yes.
I love that.
Completely phrasing.
Yeah.
That's Seth Goen.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what a conversation this has been.
Awesome.
I wanna end with a version of
proof's questionnaire, cuz of
course, shouldn't every conversation
end with some version of that?
Um, in my mind it should.
Simon: I think you're right.
Stacy: It should do.
Yeah.
This is, I mean, So if you've ever
watched inside the actor studio, and
I don't know, is that a US thing?
Did you even know
Simon: that one?
It was a US thing as far as,
I've watched a lot of tele.
I haven't heard of that, but I will check
it out now that you've recommended it.
Stacy: I'll, I'll have a look.
Okay, so it's not on anymore, and I
think the host of it has passed, but
it was James Lipton and he would sit
with these actors and he would just
have this very honest, very much like
what we're doing, kind of backstory
conversation about their journey as a.
Actor, producer, whatever it might be.
And then at the end, you would ask them
a version of Bruce's questionnaire with
the idea being that there's certain
questions you can ask to sort of let
you see and get to know the real person.
So I have some of his question.
I'm on bold, some of my own.
We start with an easy one, and
you gave us a book already.
It's okay if you wanna repeat
it, but what book inspires you?
Simon: I'm gonna say any
Human Heart by William Bord.
So I've gone with fiction.
Rather than factual.
I love factual books, but fiction's
good as well, simply because I
think it's a reminder that it's
never too late in life to have an
adventure, and I'll leave it at that.
It's a fantastic book, but read it.
Oh, wonderful.
It's
Stacy: amazing.
Okay, that's great.
I have not even heard of
this book, so I am on it.
So taking it from book to
place, what place inspires you?
What's your happy
place?
Simon: Uh, Rayley Beach in
Thailand is my happy place.
I'd love to go there more often.
It's a bit far away, so I don't get there.
It is the place I would love
to have proposed to my wife.
It's one of my regrets in life
that we were on, that it was
one of the most romantic and
beautiful places you could ever go.
So we were going back a long time now.
I felt like popping the question
cuz it was just the perfect moment
because I'm not an impulsive person.
I thought, no, I should have a ring and
I should do it properly, and I didn't.
And that.
I kind of regret it, but yeah.
It's such a wonderful
heavenly place on earth.
Stacy: Oh, that is in a
fabulous story right there.
That's awesome.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
I have never been to Thailand, so Oh,
Simon: you, you've gotta go.
Yeah.
It is the most amazing place.
Yeah.
Stacy: Oh, that's wonderful.
Okay.
All right, so now we're going to pretend
you're actually a rockstar and you are
at whatever stadium you wanna be at,
and you're about to walk out on stage.
And they're gonna play just,
you know, kind of some hype
music while you walk out.
What's your walkout anthem?
Simon: My walk out anthem
without any shadow of doubt
whatsoever, is how you like me.
Now, by the heavy, it is impossible.
I would challenge you don't
know the song, put it on.
After this.
I would challenge you not to
walk out and feel like you're
10 feet tall with that song.
Blasting Away.
Amazing.
Is that song your name?
Have you heard it title?
Stacy: I don't think so, but
sometimes I don't know names,
so I will email you after.
That's the first thing I'm
enjoying when we hang up.
That is epic.
How you like me now?
Simon: All right, list you up.
You'll be in an incredible
mood afterwards.
Stacy: Okay, good.
I, I'm here for it.
Okay.
What profession, other than your
own, would you like to attempt?
Simon: I would love to
have been a movie director.
So while I was at school and
university, not thinking about
school and university stuff, what
I was thinking about was movies.
I loved them growing up.
I was a sort of younger kid in
the eighties, so it was the era
of ET and the Spielberg movies,
Raiders of the Lost Art Style.
So you're absolute big fan of movies and
I've written a few pieces financially.
I've imagined characters like Indiana
Jones or as fund managers, and I've
recommended whether you should invest with
these characters or whether you, whether
you should avoid them like the plague.
So it's always gonna be something
that's with me and, and sticks with me.
So it runs through everything
I do is the love of movies.
Stacy: I love that.
Wait, you wrote those pieces just for
yourself or in a place that we can read
Simon: them?
Oh, they're out there.
Yeah.
I've done three from memory.
Yeah.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid, Indiana Jones, and then
a Star Wars one as well.
So they're out there if you wanna check
Stacy: in.
Okay, so I need those links too.
Yeah, let's put those in the show notes.
I'll send them.
That's amazing.
Okay.
All right.
So that's the profession.
That's awesome.
On the flip side though, what
profession would you not like to do?
I've
Simon: just had a friend who's become
a train driver and I thought it
was an interesting example, right?
Cuz supposedly all young
boys wanna be train drivers.
I should never be a train driver.
Okay?
It would be frankly, reckless and
dangerous of anyone to make me a train
driver because I'm not good at staying
awake when I'm bored and I can't think
of anything more for me, boring than
having to sit in a, and having spoken
to, they're not even allowed headphones.
They're not allowed to listen to podcasts.
They just have to sit there, wait for
the red light, and it's not like you
can even steer the thing either, right?
It's not like there's
even a steering wheel.
It's just stop and go.
And for me, I love that there are
people out there who can do that.
That's part of the great tapestry of life.
But you should never, if you see me
driving a train that you're about
to get on, don't get on that train.
No, we do not.
Don't get
Stacy: on it.
That is amazing.
Also, I mean, everything you just
described for reasons why you wouldn't
want to be a train driver, like you
can't listen to podcasts or listen
to, you know how you like me now.
I mean, that's what you
want your train driver.
To, you don't want them
to be doing all that.
Right?
You want them to be the person who doesn't
even care about that kind of stuff,
Simon: so that is, yeah.
They're just loving driving the train.
Yeah.
That's what you want.
You want the expert.
That's what they,
Stacy: yeah, that's right.
Okay, and last question, what do you
want people to say about you after
you've retired or left the industry?
Simon: I would like them to say
he was really good at what he did,
and we loved working with him.
Oh,
Stacy: that's an amazing sentiment.
I love the twist at the end there.
I think you captured something that
is very near and dear to my heart,
which is people do business with
people and it's true everywhere.
Even in this
Simon: industry.
It absolutely is.
And you don't wanna have left and
then have people talking about,
you know, he was quite a good
investor, but thank God he's gone.
I mean, that would be the worst.
I think.
I'd prefer to have been a terrible
investor, but someone who is nice
to work with than the opposite.
But if you can be both,
then that would be amazing.
I think
Stacy: you're doing it, my friend.
I hope so.
You really are.
Thank you so much for spending
time with us today, Simon.
It's been a pleasure and can't wait
to watch what you build from here.
I think it's, you're doing
work that matters for sure, and
Simon: I've loved it.
I've enjoyed it.
And keep up your good work as well.
It's, uh, you're doing an amazing job.
Thank you
Stacy: so much.
This podcast is
Simon: for
Stacy: informational purposes
Simon: only and should not be relied
upon as a basis for investment decisions.
The information is not an offer,
solicitation, or recommendation of
Stacy: any of the funds,
services, or products,
Simon: or to adopt any
investment strategy.
Investment
Stacy: values may fluctuate and
past performance is not a guide to
Simon: future performance.
All opinions expressed by guests on
the show are solely their own opinion
and do not necessarily reflect those at
Stacy: their firm.
Manager's appearance on the
show does not constitute
Simon: an endorsement by Stacey
Haner or Haven or Capital Partners.