Inside the Rope with David Clark

Adrian joins the podcast again to discuss Merricks Capital's new agriculture fund. A senior secured loan strategy that provides lending to agricultural assets whilst targeting a return of the RBA's cash rate + 8% p.a. and sitting in a favourable position in the capital stack. As Adrian highlights in the episode, Merricks leverages the teams experience in Agricultural loans whilst taking advantage of the banks reduced capacity to lend in this space. As a non-bank lender, Merricks can procure and manage their loans on favourable terms without the need to service their balance sheet as required by banks. With regulators now requiring banks to be more conservative in their leverage, Merricks has the ability to be both patient and flexible with the loans they provide. Adrian is the CEO and CIO of Merricks Capital - He has 20+ years of experience across global financial markets including as Head of Pension and Endowment Strategy at Merrill Lynch and Head of Alpha Generation, Global Equities, at Citadel Investment Group. He is responsible for the overall running of the business and is a group director and Chairman of the Investment Committee.

Since it's inception in July 2009, Wavestone's Dynamic Australian Equity Fund has produced a respectable net of fee return of 11.5% to Aug 2021 compared to the ASX 300's 10.1%. In this episode, we discuss Cathrine's background, as well as her style of investing, and the metrics Wavestone use to value companies. With Cathrine a successful individual in the funds management industry, we were able to touch on some of the challenges facing females in the funds management industry today. Finally, Catherine provides her outlook on current markets, as we surpass record highs and continue to move forward. Catherine has over 20 years of investment management experience working for companies such as SBC Warburg, Prudential and Colonial First State. She holds a Bachelor of Economics (major in Japanese) and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment. Catherine’s background was as a bank credit analyst followed by stock analysis roles both for a stock broker and then a fund manager. Catherine became a portfolio manager for CFS in 2002 managing the Sector Neutral Fund as well as the Trans Tasman Share Fund.

In the special 100th episode of Inside The Rope, David is joined by Hamish Douglass of Magellan. Throughout the episode, Hamish references some of the world’s greatest investors such as Warren Buffet, Benjamin Graham, Phil Fisher and Peter Lynch and discusses the impact these legends have had on Hamish’s own approach to investing. Hamish highlights some of the key behaviours that lead some investors to be successful and offers thoughts on how we can leverage these behaviours throughout our own investing to achieve better outcomes. David and Hamish additionally discuss Hamish’s stance on cryptocurrencies, and reflect on Hamish’s previous prediction that it is inevitable Bitcoin will go to zero. Lastly, Hamish shares his current view on the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as his thoughts on the potential impact of inflation on financial markets. Hamish Douglass is Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Magellan Financial Group, and Lead Portfolio Manager of Magellan’s Global Equity strategies. Hamish is a former member of the Australian government’s Financial Literacy Board, the Australian government’s Takeovers Panel, the Australian government’s Foreign Investment Review Board and the Forum of Young Global Leaders – World Economic Forum. Hamish is a Director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.

In this episode, David is joined by Phil Green of The Alceon Group. Phil is generous in sharing his learnings over the years, including that as a CEO of Babcock & Brown, & now as a Founder of Alceon. Phil Green has over 30 years of experience specialising in structured finance and advisory, leasing, asset based financing, principal investment and funds management. Phil has extensive expertise in property, financial assets, infrastructure and other forms of asset backed finance including aircraft, rail and mortgages. Prior to joining Alceon, Phil was a partner of Babcock & Brown for 24 years and was appointed as Chief Executive Officer on its listing in 2004. Before joining Babcock & Brown he worked for Arthur Andersen specialising in taxation, cross border leasing and structured finance. Phil holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Law degrees from the University of NSW, is a Chartered Accountant and was admitted as a solicitor in NSW in 1978.

In this episode, David is joined by Emma Fisher, Portfolio Manager and Head of Research at Airlie Funds Management. To date, Arlie's flagship Australian Share Fund has returned 13.82% p.a. since inception in 1 June 2018 to 31 July 2021. Airlie is a specialist Australian equities fund manager which brings together some of Australia’s most experienced industry participants. Airlie has an active, value-based investment style that aims to deliver attractive long-term capital growth and regular income to its investors. Founded in 2012 by John Sevior and David Cooper, and headquartered in Sydney, Airlie manages a range of Australian equities strategies, primarily for institutional and high net wealth clients. Emma started her career in equity research in 2010 on the sell-side at Nomura, before joining Fidelity’s Australian investment team as an analyst. In 2016 she joined Airlie as an investment analyst, before becoming the portfolio manager of the Airlie Australian Share Fund in 2018. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Liberal Studies) from the University of Sydney.

David speaks with Andrew Rado, Managing Director & CIO of Longreach Maris. A strategy that aims to provide an ecologically sustainable investment by delivering a robust alternative income stream, through scalable investment in the wild-caught fisheries Individual Transferrable Quota (ITQ) sector. The total market capitalisation of Australia’s ITQs is estimated to be approximately A$22 billion, with the Australian wild-caught fishing industry a lucrative sector that operates within a highly regulated and sustainably managed framework. Individual fisheries are managed under a long-established quota system to achieve key sustainability and fishery industry management objectives. Andrew has over 20 years experience as a Seafood and Agri executive, with extensive large-scale seafood industry, processing, export and strategic restructure and financial turnaround experience, within the Australian wild-caught seafood sector. He holds a PhD from Murdoch University and an MBA from UWA.

In this episode, David speaks with John Murray of Perennial, an Australian Funds Management Hall of Famer. They discuss John's background and career to date, his investment outlook, the challenges that fund managers face, as well as the key areas that he identifies as opportunities in the current environment. John started his career like many successful Australian fund managers by obtaining his CA. He began within Price Waterhouse's (Now PWC) Auditing & Insolvency division and from there pursued a path as a credit analyst at Bankers Trust Australia before moving into funds management in the 1990s. Other key roles include Head of Equities at Perpetual Investments, Senior Portfolio Manager at Maple-Brown Abbott and Investment Director, Australian Shares at Westpac Investment Management. John founded Perennial Value Management and commenced business in March 2000. In October 2014, he was inducted into the Australian Fund Managers Hall of Fame.

In this episode, David speaks with Peter Cooper of Cooper Investors. Peter founded Cooper Investors in 2001. As Chief Investment Officer, Peter created and implemented the firm’s VoF investment philosophy which is applied across the international, domestic and Asian equities strategies. He is responsible for mentoring investment team members and the standardisation and integration of the process across the investment teams. Peter has over 30 years of investment management experience. In 1987 he joined the NSW State Superannuation Investment and Management Corporation as a specialist industry analyst and progressed to deputy portfolio manager of the $7bn portfolio. In 1993 Peter ran the Australian equities portfolios for BNP and then joined Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (formerly Mercury Asset Management) where he worked for 7 years, culminating in his position as Head of Australian Equities and Managing Director where he oversaw a team managing $7.5bn in Australian equities.

In this episode, David speaks with both Prasad Patkar (Head of Qualitative Investments) and Peter Brooke (Head of Quantitative Investments) at Platypus Asset Management. Prior to joining Platypus in February 2008 Prasad was the Chief Investment Officer with Audant Investments Pty Ltd, joining that company in 2001. The role carried executive responsibility for the performance of all asset classes for the Whyte Family Office including listed equities, alternative investments, property, operating businesses and private equity investments. Prasad’s career commenced in India in 1995 as General Manager for PNH Alloys Pty Limited. Peter joined Platypus in January 2008, and in addition to managing the quantitative portfolios, is responsible for all aspects of quantitative research. From May 2006, Peter worked as a Quantitative Analyst with MIR Investment Management. During this period, he worked on various research projects and in quantitative portfolio management.

Daniel Pickering is the CIO at The ListedReserve, a fund manager that runs several strategies that invest across the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Being at an important juncture in the history of cryptocurrencies, whereby different coins & protocols are attempting to validate both their utility and therefore their value; Daniel from The ListedReserve sits down with David to discuss cryptocurrencies as well as their future. Daniel and David also discuss the potential of government intervention and therefore the likely impact on the value of these assets. The ListedReserve is a fund manager based in Sydney, Australia that specialises in bitcoin and bitcoin derivatives. They believe that digital currency will drive significant global economic, technological and social change. Daniel is a Chartered Accountant that was trained at PwC who then spent almost 9 years as the CFO at William Hill before becoming the CIO at The ListedReserve.