Conversations with Institutional Investors

Tobias Carlisle is a deep value investor and founder of Acquirers Funds. He is author of the best-selling books 'The Acquirer's Multiple', 'Deep Value', 'Concentrated Investing' and 'Quantitative Value'. Tobias has extensive experience in activist investment, company valuation, public company corporate governance, and mergers and acquisitions law. He has also worked as an analyst at an activist he...

Lucas White is the lead portfolio manager for the GMO Climate Change Strategy and a member of GMO's Focused Equity team. Together with the firm's co-founder Jeremy Grantham, Lucas has developed a strategy to invest in companies that are likely to profit from climate change mitigation and the transition to a low-carbon economy. In this episode, MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli asks Lucas some pret...

Michael Recce is Chief Data Scientist with Neuberger Berman and is leading the firm's effort into incorporating data signals into the investment process. When working on predictive algorithms for the advertising industry, he realised that these applications would work just as well in finance. After all, if you know which products customers are interested in then you know which companies are winnin...

Ivka Kalus is a veteran of the investment management industry, having worked as a senior international equity portfolio manager for the likes of Boston Advisors, Pax World Management and State Street. She has been named among the top three female investors in the US by Citywire. In April 2019, Kalus launched Promethos Capital, a majority female-owned asset management shop that focuses on responsib...

Daniel Grioli is the voice behind many of our podcasts, but he is also a professional investor and adviser himself. Having worked within Australian pension funds, in his last capacity as deputy CIO, Daniel understands the issues institutional investors are facing. In this podcast, [i3] Insights editor Wouter Klijn delves into these issues, not only from an investment point of view, but we also add...

Gus Sauter is the former Chief Investment Officer of Vanguard for 10 years and was instrumental in the company's venture into exchange traded funds. He talks to [i3] Insights editor Wouter Klijn about his early career, Jack Bogle's questioning of ETFs and his current role as adviser to Australian pension fund Sunsuper. Podcast overview Gus Sauter: 1:00 You started a bank at age 8, is that true? 3:...

Simon Russell is a specialist in the area of behavioural finance and decision making processes in asset management. He is the author of the book: 'Cyborg – How to Optimally Integrate Human and Machine Investment Decision-Making'. In this podcast, he speaks with Daniel Grioli about psychology, how to deal with noise and gaps in our understanding of behavioural finance. Overview Simon Russell podcas...

Paul Castran is a Senior Consultant with Australian real estate firm Castran Gilbert. He is a veteran of the industry, having conducted over 2,000 auctions. In this frank interview, Paul looks back on his career, the Australian real estate market with its ups but also its downs and answers some tricky questions about the business, including about underquoting, starting auctions below the reserve p...

Richard 'Rich' Pzena is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Pzena Investment Management, a value-style investment firm. Unlike what some investors believe, technological disruption is not destroying value-style investing, but is creating opportunities for them, Rich says. This because history tells us that ultimately it is the incumbent that benefits from innovation, not 'the next guy on t...

Geoff Warren is Associate Professor at the Australian National University and a former asset manager. He has done extensive research on equity fund capacity, insourcing asset management functions and investing for the long term. [i3] Insights editor Wouter Klijn speaks with Geoff about is past and upcoming research. Overview Geoff Warren podcast: 2:00 Why switch from a well-paid investment job to...

In this podcast, MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli speaks to John Coombe, executive director with asset consultant JANA. John is one of Australia's most respected asset consultants, advising some of the largest pension funds in the country. He is known for his outspoken, but always insightful comments and this time is no different. He speaks about the impact of Choice regulation on the end benefic...

Tim Hodgson is Head of the Thinking Ahead Group, a pension and asset management think tank originally established by Willis Towers Watson with the aim to tackle some of the systemic problems within the industry. As it works towards creating better outcomes, not just for its clients but also for society as a whole, the group has tackled some big questions, including what the asset owner of tomorrow...

MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli sits down with Mike Cantara, Senior Managing Director, Global Client Group, at MFS Investment Management to talk about Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) issues. Mike emphasises the importance of striking the right balance: "Companies that pay attention to material issues add value over time, but companies that pay attention to immaterial issues...

Alva Devoy is Managing Director Australia for Fidelity International. Alva started out her career as a molecular engineer, developing vaccines, but the Iraq War made her change her mind about her path and she switched to asset management. She talks to MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli about the business of asset management, robo advice and the quest for the retirement holy grail. Overview of podca...

Tadas Viskanta is among the first wave of successful investment bloggers, starting the Abnormal Returns blog in 2005. Rather than providing its readers with forecasts and other crystal ball-gazing exercises, Tadas focuses on education, writing about best practice in both investing and personal finance. MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli speaks with Tadas about the early days of blogging, what it ta...

In this podcast, MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli speaks with Research Affiliates founder and chairman Rob Arnott about his research into factors and addresses the criticism that AQR founder Cliff Asness had on his factor timing paper. He makes the case you certainly can time factors and that to sell out of value now, while it is the only factor that is cheap, seems not the best thing to do. He a...

In this [i3] podcast, we take a look at India. [i3] Insights editor Wouter Klijn spoke with Mugunthan Siva, founder and managing director of India Avenue Investment Management, about the Indian economy, what Modi's reforms mean for institutional investors and changing attitudes towards ESG issues. Siva spent a large part of his career as an asset allocator with the investment arm of Dutch bank ING...

Former Future Fund Chief Investment Strategist Stephen Gilmore has had a career that is both impressive and dramatic, dealing with warlords in Tajikistan, working at AIG during its bail out and finally at Australia's sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund. MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli asks for his insights. Overview of Stephen Gilmore Podcast: 2:20 You started your career in academia, why did...

After successfully founding several businesses of which comparison website Finder.com is probably the most well-known, Fred Schebesta immersed himself in cryptocurrencies to see what all the fuss was about. He realised that the crypto space had many similarities to the early days of ecommerce and now runs a crypto exchange called HiveEx and is planning to launch an Australian crypto bank. Overview...

Alex Waislitz is the founder and Chairman of Thorney Investment Group, one of Australia's most successful private investment groups. After being lent $1.15 million, he went on to invest in micro and small caps and ultimately gathered a fortune of $1.39 billion. In this interview, Daniel Grioli takes Waislitz back to the start and dissects how he went about creating his wealth. Waislitz discusses t...

Rob Prugue is probably known best for his 15 years at the helm of the Asia-Pacific business of fund manager Lazard Asset Management. A role he left at the beginning of this year to 'hang up his boots', as he called it. Before Rob joined Lazard, he spent time at pension fund SAS Trustees amongst other roles and at this pension fund he was part of the internal investment team. He witnessed first han...

In this podcast, MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli speaks with Sue Brake, Senior Investment Consultant for Willis Towers Watson, about the importance of governance in asset management and the real cost associated with bad governance. Daniel also manages to get Sue to play a game in which he asks her to respond to quotes by David Swensen, CIO of Yale, about asset consultants. Overview of podcast wi...

Investment consultant and MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli speaks with Mike Aked who has just established the first Australian office for Research Affiliates in Melbourne. Mike speaks about the reasons behind coming downunder, asset allocation issues and responds to criticism from quant investors on the CAPE ratio. He also discusses the importance of simplicity over complexity. 5:00 Cultural diff...

Corey Hoffstein is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Newfound Research, as well as an ETF Strategist. Hoffstein and his colleagues have produced some of the more innovative research papers in recent years, venturing into debates such as using style factors at a sector level, combining leverage and trend-following to reduce the scope of drawdowns and admitting that investing will often...

Australia is unique in the sense that pension funds pay tax on their investment earnings. Yet few funds look at how they can maximise after-tax outcomes. MarketFox columnist Daniel Grioli speaks with Raewyn Williams, Managing Director of Research at Parametric, why it is important to give this area the attention it deserves and also addresses a few taxation myths, including the tax efficiency of p...