Dragged through the mud by ex-employee and ‘bond king’ Bill Gross’ venomous lawsuit, the Californian funds giant hit back with its new line-up of luminaries, including the heavyweight political muscle of Gordon Brown, Ben Bernanke and Jean Claude Trichet.
A bit like one of those rock supergroups, these Traveling Wilburys are the Cream of the crop of the last decade in macroeconomic decision-making, with Pimco presumably putting its Blind Faith in keeping them together for as long as feasibly possible before any egos are let lose.
Think you’re immune to being blinded by the bright lights and pearly whites? What about the way in which star fund managers dominate our industry?
Tilney BestInvest fuelled the fire this week with its Top 100 Fund Managers report; its criteria for inclusion based on performance versus benchmarks, consistency and experience.
Among those at the top of the pile were Angus Tulloch, Neil Woodford, Mark Barnett and Alex Wright – if I included these names in the headline of this story, I’d probably get double the readership!
Of course as a journalist who has sustained a career writing about these talents, I can’t really complain. In many ways, it’s great to work in such a sociable and people-focused industry.
Indeed, if I am honest I gain much more satisfaction writing about the human element – managers’ successes and failures – than I do covering black box passive strategies.
In some ways, however, the industry is changing its focus. The rise of the process-driven team approach behind multi-asset vehicles such as Standard Life GARS, Aviva AIMS and Invesco Perpetual Global Targeted Returns, as well as the popularity of controlled volatility risk-rated solutions, often puts individuals to one side.
I would also argue that a general maturity in the mantra of the post-RDR world of financial services, i.e. capital preservation over excess returns, has also blunted the winner-takes-all mentality of some stockpickers.
Short-termism in investing is no longer tolerated to the same degree as it was before the financial crisis, though arguably the pressure on individuals – and turnover of managers – is higher now than it ever was.
I’ll be taking a closer look at individual fund manager styles in the forthcoming January edition of Portfolio Adviser, including identifying those that fall into the ‘dogmatic’ and ‘pragmatic’ investing camps. As always, let us know your views.
