Rowan Williams-Short, head of fixed-income at Vunani Fund Managers, was my special guest on the Investment Community podcast. You can listen to the conversation (part 3 of 3) with Rowan here.

In this episode, Rowan tells:

  • How he finds the selective amnesia of fund managers to be nauseating. Too often they make claims of investment skill when an outcome is really due to luck.
  • How the sell-side is incentivised to create an impression in the mind of the buy-side that the news is more urgent and important than it really is.
  • How being humiliated, rather than merely humbled, can be a catalyst for investment enlightenment.

We also discussed:

  • That when members of a team don’t fully buy into a shared investment philosophy, it is an invitation to investment accidents and interpersonal problems.
  • That confidence should never be conflated with competence, especially in the asset management industry.
  • That it’s disingenuous to claim that performance fees serve to align the interests of manager and client – these fees shift the risks to the client and the rewards to the manager.