Biography
Mark is responsible for the overall management of the cash and credit portfolios at NZ Funds. Mark rejoined NZ Funds in 2008 after four years in the United Kingdom. During this time he was a senior portfolio manager at Credaris, a London-based credit hedge fund with over NZ$2.6b in assets under management.
           
Prior to his time in the United Kingdom, Mark spent eight years at NZ Funds where he was involved in the management of the cash and credit portfolios and was responsible for the development of the currency overlay program.

Approach
As head of the Income team at NZ Funds I have built a process that reflects two lessons learnt over my time managing clients investments.

Firstly when accessing credit risk you should always keep things simple. The best way to do this is by asking very simple questions. Questions such as – who is borrowing the money, what are they borrowing it for and most importantly how will a debt be paid back? If you cannot answer these questions easily then you should tread very carefully.

The second reflects my experience that investment market participants have a habit of forming strong consensus views and these views can persist for a long period of time. Strong widely held views lead in turn to market prices moving in long trends – an example of this is the current period of US dollar weakness. In contrast, when there is a change in the consensus it can be abrupt and violent. Consequently as an investment manager I should not attempt to fight the consensus, but I do need to constantly question it and ensure that I build portfolios that are nimble and can be positioned appropriately when the market consensus changes.