Far from the fast-paced life of the City, up a quiet country road, is the office of Invesco Perpetual, ensconced in its own village-like office complex.
It’s a world away from the conventional financial services image of a busy, aggressive trading floor, and one that suits European equities expert Stephanie Butcher down to the ground.
It is amid the tranquility of Henley-on-Thames that I meet with Butcher, but it’s clear that being away from the hub of the capital doesn’t have any weight on how exciting she finds the industry.
“I didn’t want a job where I ever felt I knew what the next day was going to bring, and fund management is emphatically not that,” she says.
Being a fund manager responsible for monitoring the goings on in a bloc as wide-ranging and changeable as Europe was never going to be boring. European equities has been one of the biggest stories of 2017.
In June this year, the sector saw its largest monthly inflow since September 2015, according to the Investment Association. But while some investors have only just caught on to the potential in Europe, Butcher has been optimistic about the continent’s prospects for much longer.
She believes it is imminent that Europe will have its time in the sun as the trials and tribulations of the past have given way to a pretty promising set-up.
“I think the reason we’ve been so positive since the tail end of last year is we knew if France went the right way then for the first time in a decade you had economics, politics, valuation, earnings and, at the time, ownership all going the right way,” Butcher says.
“I think it’s only right that Europe has done as well as it has, and it still feels like there’s more upside there.”
