Biography
Michael has 15 years of investment industry experience. He has just returned from London where he was a Partner at Eclectica Asset Management, a global macro hedge fund which won Lipper’s Top Performing Newcomer in Hedge Funds in 2004 and rewarded investors with a 31.2% return in 2008.

Michael joined NZ Funds in 1992 as an equity analyst. After completing an internship at Wellington Management Company in Boston, USA in 1997 he managed the New Zealand Property & Infrastructure Fund ($80 million) from 1998 to 2003. The fund won FundSource top performing New Zealand property fund in 1999, 2000 and 2001. Michael also managed the New Zealand Equity Income Trust ($200 million) which won FundSource top performing New Zealand equity fund in 1999 and 2000. Michael passed the last of three Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) examinations in 2003. Shortly thereafter, Michael left to work overseas spending time in New York, San Francisco and London.

Approach
Studying history, law and economics at Auckland University trained me to use history’s precedent to determine which course of action to take.

In contrast, the investment industry into which I graduated was obsessed with the “art” of forecasting despite its abject failure to correctly anticipate future events. My economics texts gathered dust whilst I studied to become a CFA charterholder in the hope that its syllabus would make me a better forecaster. It did not.

Despite my early success as an investment manager, the futility of forecasting and the New Zealand investment industry's obsession with quick gains and disregard for risk did not sit well with me. In 2003 I read Reminiscence of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre which is based on a series of interviews with the legendary Wall St trader Jessie Livermore. I realised, as Livermore had before me, that successful investing is not a talent with which one is born, but an art which must be learned. Wanting to learn more, even if that meant forfeiting my shareholding in NZ Funds, I set off for New York without a visa or job. While living in New York I spent many hours in the archives of the New York public library reading anything I could find on investing

Not everything can be learned from a book. In New York I compiled a list of ten world class investors whom I aspired to learn from. After two years of trying I was fortunate enough to secure an apprenticeship with the Chief Investment Officer of one of the names on my list. And shortly thereafter I became a partner in his business. It is thanks to his tuition that I now understand the futility of forecasting, the importance of risk management and significance of history.

Philip Fisher, an early pioneer in investment management and financial advice, articulated his role for clients by saying "The investor's work is so specialized and so intricate that there is no more reason why an individual should handle his own investments than that he should be his own lawyer, doctor, architect, or automobile mechanic."

We approach managing money like a business – because unlike many of our competitors it is our only business. We do not dabble in banking, insurance, share broking or investment banking. Our investment approach does not focus on any single investment but on the overall outcome of the continued application of the same investment system over and over again. We have established procedures and systems so that we can manage risk and compound our client’s returns over a long-term basis. And that is where our mental focus is: on the continued application of our investment process. I believe the depth of our advice process and rigour of our investment approach is - in New Zealand - without peer.