Chatfeild-Roberts agrees with the message propagated by the passives industry that good investors are hard to come by and mediocre managers are a dime a dozen.
“The good investors, wherever they happen to be, there just aren’t that many of them,” he confessed.
“There are lots of people who try, but as the passives industry will tell you, there are lots of people who don’t seem to be very good at it.”
Among the “select number” of managers who he considers true standouts in the field is James Findlay of Findlay Park.
Chatfeild-Roberts has been a supporter of Findlay’s boutique operation since it opened in 1998.
In particular, his Findlay Park American fund has allowed Chatfeild-Roberts to tap into the variety of solid, entrepreneurial companies the US has to offer.
Chatfeild-Roberts is also partial to Hugh Yarrow’s Evenlode Income fund, another fund and manager he has backed since it was a fledgling £50m fund.
The Evenlode Income Fund has since rapidly expanded to £1.2bn and Chatfeild-Roberts owns roughly half of it.
“We currently run approximately £8bn so You possibly would expect us only to invest in only large funds but we’re happy to back smaller funds as well.”
“Generally speaking, the people that we like appear in more than one of our five unit trusts,” he explained.
