Inside the Rope with David Clark

Following on from their discussion last quarter, fellow Koda Partner Frank Macindoe joins David in another episode of Inside the Rope to provide an update on the recent performance of the Koda Enduring Equities Portfolio (KEEP), along with his outlook on markets, broad market concerns such as inflation, economist forecasts, and company valuations. Frank flags his concerns regarding the recent strong performance of financial markets, and notes their mean-reverting nature, in which periods of strong performance often preceded periods of mean reversion. Frank highlights the often inaccurate economic forecasts that are distributed throughout the media, however, he does confirm that he has an eye on inflation, and that all positions currently held in the KEEP portfolio are able to pass on any cost pressures to consumers should inflation become persistent.   Over the twelve months to 30 Sep 2021, the Koda Enduring Equities Portfolio is up 38.83% compared to the ASX200's return of 30.56%. Over 10 years, the reference portfolio has returned 19.91% p.a. compared to the ASX200's return of 10.79% p.a.

In this episode, Michael joins David to discuss his career and path into investing for purpose. They discuss Michael's involvement in several investments, including ABC Learning Centres (Now Goodstart Early Learning) that went into liquidation in 2008; as well as the social impacts that were derived from these investments. As Founding Chief Executive of Social Ventures Australia, an organisation offering innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems, Michael is a wealth of knowledge in the impact investment space. He ultimately stepped down as CEO of Social Ventures Australia in October 2014, taking on an Executive Director role. Prior to this role, Michael spent 15 years as a Co-Founder and Executive Director of Macquarie Bank's private equity arm, Macquarie Direct Investment. In his time there, Michael invested in 43 businesses generating a gross rate of return of 32.3%. Michael chairs Australia’s largest charitable foundation, the Paul Ramsay Foundation, is a Director of Sunsuper, MH Carnegie & Co., For Purpose Investment Partners, Australian Philanthropic Services and Hearts & Minds Investments and was previously Chair of Goodstart Early Learning.

Yasmin joins David in this episode to define what creates good governance in businesses as well as her thoughts on the future of work. Yasmin has an extremely diverse background, currently acting as the Chairman of several organisations including Advance, Digital Skills Organisation and the Harrison Riedel Foundation. She is also a non-executive director at ASX Limited, Cochlear, Santos, National Portrait Gallery and The George Institute for Global Health. Her previous directorships include IAG Limited, EFIC (Australia’s Export Bank) and she is the former Chairman of Macquarie Group’s Global Infrastructure Funds. Prior to her directorships, Yasmin also had an extensive career in investment banking, including as Vice President of Deutsche Bank, Director of ANZ Investment Bank in Sydney and Director with HSBC in London. Yasmin has a Bachelor of Commerce from Melbourne University and in 2015 was awarded the Melbourne University Alumni of Distinction. Yasmin is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a member (and former council member) of Chief Executive Women.

Adrian joins the podcast again to discuss Merricks Capital's new agriculture fund. A senior secured loan strategy that provides lending to agricultural assets whilst targeting a return of the RBA's cash rate + 8% p.a. and sitting in a favourable position in the capital stack. As Adrian highlights in the episode, Merricks leverages the teams experience in Agricultural loans whilst taking advantage of the banks reduced capacity to lend in this space. As a non-bank lender, Merricks can procure and manage their loans on favourable terms without the need to service their balance sheet as required by banks. With regulators now requiring banks to be more conservative in their leverage, Merricks has the ability to be both patient and flexible with the loans they provide. Adrian is the CEO and CIO of Merricks Capital - He has 20+ years of experience across global financial markets including as Head of Pension and Endowment Strategy at Merrill Lynch and Head of Alpha Generation, Global Equities, at Citadel Investment Group. He is responsible for the overall running of the business and is a group director and Chairman of the Investment Committee.

Since it's inception in July 2009, Wavestone's Dynamic Australian Equity Fund has produced a respectable net of fee return of 11.5% to Aug 2021 compared to the ASX 300's 10.1%. In this episode, we discuss Cathrine's background, as well as her style of investing, and the metrics Wavestone use to value companies. With Cathrine a successful individual in the funds management industry, we were able to touch on some of the challenges facing females in the funds management industry today. Finally, Catherine provides her outlook on current markets, as we surpass record highs and continue to move forward. Catherine has over 20 years of investment management experience working for companies such as SBC Warburg, Prudential and Colonial First State. She holds a Bachelor of Economics (major in Japanese) and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment. Catherine’s background was as a bank credit analyst followed by stock analysis roles both for a stock broker and then a fund manager. Catherine became a portfolio manager for CFS in 2002 managing the Sector Neutral Fund as well as the Trans Tasman Share Fund.

In the special 100th episode of Inside The Rope, David is joined by Hamish Douglass of Magellan. Throughout the episode, Hamish references some of the world’s greatest investors such as Warren Buffet, Benjamin Graham, Phil Fisher and Peter Lynch and discusses the impact these legends have had on Hamish’s own approach to investing. Hamish highlights some of the key behaviours that lead some investors to be successful and offers thoughts on how we can leverage these behaviours throughout our own investing to achieve better outcomes. David and Hamish additionally discuss Hamish’s stance on cryptocurrencies, and reflect on Hamish’s previous prediction that it is inevitable Bitcoin will go to zero. Lastly, Hamish shares his current view on the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as his thoughts on the potential impact of inflation on financial markets. Hamish Douglass is Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Magellan Financial Group, and Lead Portfolio Manager of Magellan’s Global Equity strategies. Hamish is a former member of the Australian government’s Financial Literacy Board, the Australian government’s Takeovers Panel, the Australian government’s Foreign Investment Review Board and the Forum of Young Global Leaders – World Economic Forum. Hamish is a Director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.

In this episode, David is joined by Phil Green of The Alceon Group. Phil is generous in sharing his learnings over the years, including that as a CEO of Babcock & Brown, & now as a Founder of Alceon. Phil Green has over 30 years of experience specialising in structured finance and advisory, leasing, asset based financing, principal investment and funds management. Phil has extensive expertise in property, financial assets, infrastructure and other forms of asset backed finance including aircraft, rail and mortgages. Prior to joining Alceon, Phil was a partner of Babcock & Brown for 24 years and was appointed as Chief Executive Officer on its listing in 2004. Before joining Babcock & Brown he worked for Arthur Andersen specialising in taxation, cross border leasing and structured finance. Phil holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Law degrees from the University of NSW, is a Chartered Accountant and was admitted as a solicitor in NSW in 1978.

In this episode, David is joined by Emma Fisher, Portfolio Manager and Head of Research at Airlie Funds Management. To date, Arlie's flagship Australian Share Fund has returned 13.82% p.a. since inception in 1 June 2018 to 31 July 2021. Airlie is a specialist Australian equities fund manager which brings together some of Australia’s most experienced industry participants. Airlie has an active, value-based investment style that aims to deliver attractive long-term capital growth and regular income to its investors. Founded in 2012 by John Sevior and David Cooper, and headquartered in Sydney, Airlie manages a range of Australian equities strategies, primarily for institutional and high net wealth clients. Emma started her career in equity research in 2010 on the sell-side at Nomura, before joining Fidelity’s Australian investment team as an analyst. In 2016 she joined Airlie as an investment analyst, before becoming the portfolio manager of the Airlie Australian Share Fund in 2018. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Liberal Studies) from the University of Sydney.

David speaks with Andrew Rado, Managing Director & CIO of Longreach Maris. A strategy that aims to provide an ecologically sustainable investment by delivering a robust alternative income stream, through scalable investment in the wild-caught fisheries Individual Transferrable Quota (ITQ) sector. The total market capitalisation of Australia’s ITQs is estimated to be approximately A$22 billion, with the Australian wild-caught fishing industry a lucrative sector that operates within a highly regulated and sustainably managed framework. Individual fisheries are managed under a long-established quota system to achieve key sustainability and fishery industry management objectives. Andrew has over 20 years experience as a Seafood and Agri executive, with extensive large-scale seafood industry, processing, export and strategic restructure and financial turnaround experience, within the Australian wild-caught seafood sector. He holds a PhD from Murdoch University and an MBA from UWA.

In this episode, David speaks with John Murray of Perennial, an Australian Funds Management Hall of Famer. They discuss John's background and career to date, his investment outlook, the challenges that fund managers face, as well as the key areas that he identifies as opportunities in the current environment. John started his career like many successful Australian fund managers by obtaining his CA. He began within Price Waterhouse's (Now PWC) Auditing & Insolvency division and from there pursued a path as a credit analyst at Bankers Trust Australia before moving into funds management in the 1990s. Other key roles include Head of Equities at Perpetual Investments, Senior Portfolio Manager at Maple-Brown Abbott and Investment Director, Australian Shares at Westpac Investment Management. John founded Perennial Value Management and commenced business in March 2000. In October 2014, he was inducted into the Australian Fund Managers Hall of Fame.