When Haig Bathgate was a student, leafing through pages of economics and statistics text books, he got his first taste of the world of investing.
“Back then, I thought you could rationalise the world with formulas,” he recalls. “But within two years of being in the industry, I realised that was all nonsense. I learned that being an investment manager is all to do with psychology and behavioural finance and, actually, that was more interesting.”
Unlike other industry professionals who have been in and out of firms like a revolving door, Bathgate has had his feet firmly rooted in Edinburgh in the private client arm of the same law firm, Turcan Connell, for his entire career. Until recently, that is.
Personal approach
Almost two years ago, Bathgate and his joint-chief executive Alex Montgomery, whom he first met at Turcan Connell 17 years ago, bought out the managing partners at the firm, dislocating the discretionary business and setting out on their own.
Breaking away from their parent company was the best decision the pair could have made for the business, says Bathgate. Not least because it helped them hone their own identity.
“We had a fair degree of autonomy in terms of how we were running the business within Turcan Connell, but we wanted to bring in some external capital and perspectives, and we wanted to invest more in the platform, IT systems and the like.”
At the same time, “we weren’t ready to throw in the towel and merge with someone else”, Bathgate explains.
Nor did the pair want their longstanding client relationships to get lost in the reshuffle of combining with another business.
“At Tcam, we had basically grown up with a lot of the clients we act for. We are so close to these clients that they’re almost like friends now. We feel a sense of obligation towards them.”
Now, one management buyout later, the native Scotsman has uprooted from his homeland and is spending most of his time in London.
The bulk of the business, totalling 60 employees, remains in Tcam’s Edinburgh headquarters, where they continue to run the operational and compliance functions.
While the firm may not yet be a household name, it does have £1bn of discretionary funds, grown from £850m at the time of the MBO, and a new London office space overlooking St James’s Park. The duo isn’t doing too badly.
