In the Company of Mavericks (Jeremy McKeown )

Back in March this year, David Seaman of Alpha Cygni Asset Management joined me for a conversation with Adam Rackley, the founder and fund manager at Cape Wrath Capital.

Adam epitomises the philosophy of doing things differently when it comes to investing in UK equities. He has pursued his unique approach since founding Cape Wrath in 2016 using what he describes as a behavioural value strategy. 

He looks to identify market capitulation events and narrative shifts to cycle capital into shares when they are driven by emotion more than rationality. He then looks to exit positions when narrative shifts lead to equity revaluations to his appraised fair value.

Adam runs his fund according to what he calls the Rules of Wrath, not the established conventional rules of thumb that seek quality companies and long-term holding periods that try to avoid volatility. 

No, for Adam it is a marketing strategy designed to discourage investors who can’t stomach the journey into the deep value that exists in the UK market. He wants a band of loyal investors who understand and back his strategy, a strategy he is fully committed to and invested in.    

While he has all the credentials of a conventional equity fund manager, Adam is anything but. Previously an army officer, Adam has degrees in PPE and law and the CFA qualification. 

He has also rowed the Atlantic, written a book, swam the channel, cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and lived and worked in India for several years. He is now based in North Wales. 

According to Morningstar, only one of 72 smaller company funds outperformed the UK small-cap index last year. That fund was Cape Wrath. A one-year wonder? Well, not exactly. 

As of the end of May this year, Cape Wrath has significantly outperformed its benchmarks over one month, six months, one year, and five years by sticking to and evolving its rigorous investment strategy and process.  

This is a fascinating conversation in which Adam delves into some examples of how his strategy has played out and how he hopes to develop his process further. 

He then looks forward to closing the fund to new investors, switching off his LinkedIn account, and retiring to his library to do what he enjoys best: picking undervalued shares. 

Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick investor, Adam Rackley.

Made possible by Progressive Equity. 

A few weeks ago, Tom Like of Singer Capital Markets joined me for a fascinating conversation with Nick Prest, the Founder and Chairman of defence technology provider Cohort.

Nick provides a wealth of anecdotes and knowledge of the defence industry, the geopolitics that drives it, and how it will likely change in the years ahead.

Coming soon on all good podcast apps.

Made possible by Progressive Equity Research   

Jeremy McKeown and Gareth Evans discuss the main market trends from last year and the outlook for 2024. They discuss the October pivot on rate expectations, the rise of the Magnificent Seven AI wonder stocks, the outlook for Chinese and UK equities, and will a recovery in China be inflationary or deflationary. Will Trump win the US election, and what are the market implications? What about the UK? Can it be the best-performing market in 2024?

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Brought to you by Progressive Equity. 

This episode is made possible by Progressive Equity Research, providing freely available engaging research & opportunities to hear from a wide range of small & mid-cap UK-listed companies.

For today’s episode, David Seaman of Alpha Cygni Investment Management joins me for a conversation with James Wilson, fund manager of The Huginn Fund. The Huginn Fund applies the value investing principles of the wider Phoenix Asset Management team to international markets. However, James has his own very distinctive approach to investing. 

David and I have attended the Phoenix Annual Investor Meetings together for the last couple of years and have been impressed by James’ presentations of his top picks, last year of French champagne house Laurent Perrier and this year's US onshore gas producer CNX. 

James talks about his investment philosophy, why he seeks to invest in leaders rather than managers and the difference leaders can have on their organisations. He gives us insights into what he regards as the hidden value in three companies covering the French luxury goods industry, the US natural gas market, and the UK floor coverings market. 

James dives into his holdings in Laurent Perrier, CNX and the UK’s Likewise Group. 

James leaves few stones unturned in his approach to getting insight and understanding of the companies he invests in. He gives us a masterclass in value investing, the importance of doing the work, and the insights it can yield.  

I learnt a lot from this conversation. I hope you do too. 

Renowned stockpicker Rosemary Banyard joins me for a fascinating conversation with Julie Lavington and Ali Hall co-founders and co-CEOs of online women's fashion brand Sosandar. Julie and Ali met in 2006 working at Time Inc. They launched the successful women's high street fashion magazine Look, which had a 300 000 weekly circulation. They identified an opportunity in the online fashion market and set up Sosandar in 2016, reversing the business onto AIM a year later. They have since strongly grown revenue and have been vindicated with the brand being carried by large UK retailers, M&S, Next and John Lewis. Julie and Ali talk openly about the challenges they have faced including raising equity, working with suppliers, and becoming a PLC. They also tackle head-on the question of operating as co-CEOs and demonstrate utter conviction about their plans to become an internationally recognised household name. Julie and Ali both have a rare authenticity and a refreshing approach to teamwork and shared responsibility which sets them apart from the norm, true maverick credentials.        

In today's episode, I am joined by Ben McKeown of Dowgate Wealth and we learn about the UK water buffalo, the importance of family values in company culture, what Gandhi said about customer care and how regular exercise stimulates creative thinking. Oh yes, we also learn about the amazing story behind the Amazon of cream cakes and how naughty but nice is returning to a high street near you after an absence of 30 years and some humbling examples about the importance of giving back. Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Sukh Chamdal.

Sukh Chamdal https://www.linkedin.com/in/sukh-chamdal-226a751b5/  Cake Box https://www.eggfreecake.co.uk/
Ben McKeown https://dowgatewealth.co.uk/our-team/ben-mckeown/
Jeremy McKeown https://hypernormaltimes.com/about

Dominic Frisby is an author, comedian, singer-songwriter, voice-over artist, self-taught financial commentator and the creator of the popular Substack, The Flying Frisby. 

The main pillar of Dominic’s investment philosophy is based on gold and Bitcoin, and he has written extensively about both. 

He was an early adopter of real asset protection, writing a book on the role of Bitcoin ten years ago. 

I wanted to get his view on the role of real assets in investment portfolios and how investors might like to consider protecting their capital from fiat currency debasement.  

Dominic didn’t disappoint and added plenty of thoughts on politics, the prospects for liberty and some valuable health tips for the over 50s. Have you tried hanging from a high bar? It works for me. 

Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick, Dominic Frisby.

Brought to you by Progressive Equity. 

Please subscribe to the Weekly Market Call on your normal podcast app.

For this week's Market Call Gareth and Jeremy are joined again by Scott Evans of the London Business School and the Deutsche Numis Equity Indices. Scott talks about market performance in Q1 2024. Where have markets come from, how have they performed in Q1, and where are they going? Bond yields have risen, inflation is sticky, and rates are higher for longer. Equities have had a good quarter, albeit the Magnificent Seven have not been quite so magnificent. The UK, by comparison, has been lacklustre. Gold has been the Q1 showstopper, and the main buyer seems to have been China's central bank, the POBC. Are they about to devalue the Red Cabbage or launch a military campaign?

In Q1, small caps underperformed large caps in Q1 in UK and US. The UK IPO market remains moribund. There have been more deaths than births in the UK market YTD. Is the UK stock market just a dumpster fire, or can it recover? Gareth is hopeful for a recovery.

Jeremy highlights the Middle East conflict, its limited impact on financial markets, and what to look for going forward. The big news is UK inflation, but he remains sceptical that the UK will cut rates ahead of the Fed.

Gareth discusses the week's company news, highlighting the Severfield results with a strong order book and a share buyback.

In next week's news, Jeremy highlights US PCE inflation data and the Bank of Japan's interest rate decision.

Made possible by Progressive Equity.  

I sit on the Investment Committee of the AIM-listed Onward Opportunities investment fund managed by Dowgate Wealth. I have a personal investment in Onward. Dowgate Group owns 9.26% of Transense Technologies PLC, of which Onward Opportunities owns 6.96%. 

Last year, Onward's fund manager, Laurence Hulse, proposed an investment in Transense Technologies. My initial reaction could best be described as having a Victor Meldrew moment. Those with stock market memories may recall that Transense has a history of failing to meet its ambitious plans and targets and repeatedly returned to investors to back its innovative sensor technology. 

In 2007, Transense had a market cap of £60m and forecast revenue of £300,000. Its exciting disruptive technology, Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW), was destined to achieve widespread adoption in the automotive industry. However, this didn't happen, and instead, Transense developed a well-earned reputation for serial stock market underachievement.   

As Sir John Templeton said, the four most dangerous words in investing are, This Time It's Different. With these words in mind, on today's episode, I am joined by Laurence to hear how Executive Chairman Nigel Rogers and Managing Director Ryan Maughan have repositioned this failed AIM-listed, blue-sky growth stock of the early 2000s. It is a fascinating case study of how UK-listed microcap companies can become forgotten and ignored as recovery strategies are implemented and latent value is created. As Nigel mentions, the AIM market is far from perfect. 

Today, Transense has a market cap of just £15m and is only now beginning to exploit SAW's true potential in areas like motorsport, EVs, aerospace and robotics. Following an innovative licensing deal with tyre giant Bridgestone that has effectively underwritten the business's foreseeable future, Transense today is led by a combination of Nigel's experienced financial nouse and Ryan's proven engineering credentials and entrepreneurial instincts.
 
In this episode, we learn how Transense Technologies has been right-sized and can face the future on a firm financial footing, giving it time to exploit opportunities in SAW and its tyre-measuring device business, Translogik.   

Please enjoy our conversation with Nigel and Ryan of Transense Technologies and why this time, it's different.       

Brought to you by Progressive Equity Research.     

Today I am joined by two young active UK equity fund managers with distinct investment styles. 

Alyx Wood is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Kernow Asset Management. Kernow is a contrarian investor using fundamental analysis and catalyst-driven mean reversion investing. Alyx is a long-short investor.  

Laurence Hulse is a Director of Dowgate Wealth. He is the fund manager of the recently launched investment company Onward Opportunities Ltd. 

Onward Opportunities' strategy is to pursue inefficiencies in the UK market for small and micro-cap companies. It is a long-only strategy.  

Laurence explains his background and how he fell for the style of investing, which he describes as engaged activism, using a velvet glove, not a boxing glove. 

He gives us examples of how this strategy has been effective in the past, and we talk about the current UK market conditions in which Laurence is launching this new vehicle. 

Alyx and Laurence are maverick investors among today’s market participants who are often passive trackers, index huggers, or trend followers. 

This was a fascinating discussion about how professional investors seek to outperform with strategies that Alyx describes as suiting their personalities. 

In Alyx’s capacity as a family office manager, he describes why he likes the strategy of Onward Opportunities and how it compliments his investment style. 

I greatly enjoyed this chat. I learnt a lot. I hope you do too. 

James Crawford UK MD of Naked Wines talks about his decision to join the unprofitable business in 2014 after the relative security of Diageo. He explains why his love of wine and his love of Naked's unique business model attracted him to take the plunge. He talks about the challenges of navigating the acquisition by Majestic and then the later sale of that business which allowed Naked to focus its resources on the biggest prize, growth in North America. Gareth Evans is the Founder and Managing Director of Progressive Equity Research.
Jeremy McKeown Inthecompanyofmavericks 

For this episode, I am joined by Tom Like, an analyst at Singer Capital Markets, for a conversation with Nick Prest, the Founder and Chairman of the defence services and technology company Cohort PLC. 

Prior to founding Cohort, Nick worked in the Ministry of Defence before joining United Scientific Holdings, later renamed Alvis. A few years later Nick became CEO. 

Alvis was eventually acquired by BAe, and Nick, along with several former Alvis colleagues, set up Cohort in 2006. With a market value of £26m, Cohort aims to provide technical services to the defence industry in the UK and abroad. 

Today, 18 years later, Cohort is the parent company of six operating businesses, providing a wide range of services and products for British and international customers in defence, security, and related markets. Its market capitalisation is £335m. 

In a fascinating discussion, Nick talks about the changing nature of the defence industry over his long career, why he decided to establish Cohort, how he has gone about making acquisitions and the decentralised operating model for the Group, how the listed defence industry has changed, and how our rapidly changing geopolitics is likely to change the operating environment for Cohort in the coming years. 

With defence spending rising up the priority list for all Western countries, the outlook for Cohort and the rest of the defence industry hasn’t looked this good for decades. As he says the expansion of the Chinese navy over the last 20 years is a source of considerable concern to other countries in the region, such as Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, all of which are Cohort customers. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has radically changed perceptions about the need to fund defence budgets further in Europe.    

I began by asking Nick about his background and how and why he came to establish Cohort in 2006.

Made possible by Progressive Equity Research. 

Tony Brewer of Likewise Group 

Guest co-host James Wilson of Phoenix Asset Management, manager of the Huginn Fund. 

Have you ever wondered why small independent carpet shops can survive competing against the major multiple retailers?

In a previous episode, James Wilson of Phoenix Asset Management talked about Tony Brewer previously of Headlam and now the founder and CEO of AIM-listed Likewise. 

Coming soon I am rejoined by James for a fascinating chat with Tony, about his life in carpets.  

This episode gives a behind-the-scenes look at the complexities of the world of floor covering distribution, one man’s life’s passion for it and how a professional investor rates his chances of delivering long-term value from a business he founded in 2018. 

Made possible by Progressive Equity Research.

A few months ago, I chatted with Adam Rackley, the SVS Dowgate Cape Wrath Focus Fund manager featured in Episode 39, Market Capitulations & Narrative Shifts. 

We were reading a great new Substack called Sweet Stocks, which featured weekly in-depth write-ups of some fascinating quality compounding growth stocks. Not only were we impressed with Sweet Stocks’ quality, but the weekly publication cadence also meant it was the work of a highly experienced and disciplined analyst.   

A few weeks later, we chatted with Alex Sweet, the man behind the Substack, about what motivates his work, his investment philosophy, his analytical rigour, and, crucially, some of his UK stock ideas. 

Alex didn’t disappoint. He gave a masterclass on investing in quality compounding companies capable of “beating the fade” and on how he uses his fundamental analytical approach to find these anomalous gems globally. 

This episode teaches how Adam and Alex use similar, in-depth fundamental frameworks to derive different strategies. Adam focuses on contrarian deep value, while Alex focuses on growth at a reasonable price.

These two investors illustrate the type of discipline involved in professional investment analysis. They also share an interest in the crazy world of Ultrarunning. Alex talks about his newfound passion for the Backyard Ultra, an offshoot of the Barkley Marathons, an event he hopes to run 300 miles in three days later this year.

The stocks we cover in this episode are 4imprint, YouGov and Loungers. 

I must just tell you that the people on this podcast might own shares in the companies mentioned, but nothing you are about to hear is investment advice. The opinions expressed are purely the contributors' personal views and do not represent the views of Progressive Equity or any other organisation mentioned in this podcast. I hope you find this content informative and entertaining. I learned a lot, but please take professional financial advice before investing a penny in these crazy markets.

I also wrote a Substack article about this podcast at HyperNormalTimes.

Made possible by Progressive Equity.

This episode is made possible by Progressive Equity Research, providing freely available engaging research & opportunities to hear from a wide range of small & mid-cap UK-listed companies.

This is a catch-up with Alasdair Haynes, founder and CEO of Aquis Exchange. He last appeared in Episode 3 in November 2021, and much has changed in the meantime. Aquis has continued to grow and is now ten years old. Alasdair has been at the forefront of innovation in stock market technology for many years and remains enthused by the prospects for change and innovation despite a recent health scare. Alasdair openly discusses the successes and mistakes he has made along the way but also clearly reiterates his vision of the future, including the need to improve the UK as a primary listing and trading venue. Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick Alasdair Haynes. 

I sit on the Investment Committee of the AIM-listed Onward Opportunities investment fund managed by Dowgate Wealth. I have a personal investment in Onward. Dowgate Group owns 9.26% of Transense Technologies PLC, of which Onward Opportunities owns 6.96%.

Last year, Onward's fund manager, Laurence Hulse, proposed an investment in Transense Technologies. My initial reaction could best be described as having a Victor Meldrew moment. Those with stock market memories may recall that Transense has a history of failing to meet its ambitious plans and targets and repeatedly returned to investors to back its innovative sensor technology.

In 2007, Transense had a market cap of £60m and forecast revenue of £300,000. Its exciting disruptive technology, Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW), was destined to achieve widespread adoption in the automotive industry. However, this didn't happen, and instead, Transense developed a well-earned reputation for serial stock market underachievement.   

As Sir John Templeton said, the four most dangerous words in investing are, This Time It's Different. With these words in mind, on today's episode, I am joined by Laurence to hear how Executive Chairman Nigel Rogers and Managing Director Ryan Maughan have repositioned this failed AIM-listed, blue-sky growth stock of the early 2000s. It is a fascinating case study of how UK-listed microcap companies can become forgotten and ignored as recovery strategies are implemented and latent value is created. As Nigel mentions, the AIM market is far from perfect.

Today, Transense has a market cap of just £15m and is only now beginning to exploit SAW's true potential in areas like motorsport, EVs, aerospace and robotics. Following an innovative licensing deal with tyre giant Bridgestone that has effectively underwritten the business's foreseeable future, Transense today is led by a combination of Nigel's experienced financial nouse and Ryan's proven engineering credentials and entrepreneurial instincts.

In this episode, we learn how Transense Technologies has been right-sized and can face the future on a firm financial footing, giving it time to exploit opportunities in SAW and its tyre-measuring device business, Translogik.   

Please enjoy our conversation with Nigel and Ryan of Transense Technologies and why this time, it's different.       

Brought to you by Progressive Equity Research.     

My friend Mark Atkinson invited me onto the Desert Island Investor podcast, where we chatted with Miles Adcock, the CEO of Concurrent Technologies. 

Mark introduced me to Miles in early 2023 where we spoke about the challenges of revitalising the defence electronics supplier amid component shortages.  https://share.transistor.fm/s/58cdae19

It was great catching up with Miles again, although the swim home was challenging. 

In this fascinating discussion, Morgan talks openly about how his dyslexia shaped his early life and was foundational in his becoming an entrepreneur. He also talks about how the combination of technology and high-performance people can deliver the complex requirements of large companies and financial institutions. He also talks about why his recent decision to decentralise the business was the best decision he has made since the inception of the business in 2009. Morgan also says developing self-awareness is the best advice he could give someone. Alpha FX Morgan Tillbrook Andy Bryant

Dominic Frisby is an author, comedian, singer-songwriter, voice-over artist, self-taught financial commentator and the creator of the popular Substack, The Flying Frisby. 

The main pillar of Dominic’s investment philosophy is based on gold and Bitcoin, and he has written extensively about both. 

He was an early adopter of real asset protection, writing a book on the role of Bitcoin ten years ago. 

I wanted to get his view on the role of real assets in investment portfolios and how investors might like to consider protecting their capital from fiat currency debasement.  

Dominic didn’t disappoint and added plenty of thoughts on politics, the prospects for liberty and some valuable health tips for the over 50s. Have you tried hanging from a high bar? It works for me. 

Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick, Dominic Frisby.

Brought to you by Progressive Equity. 

In today’s episode, I am joined by energy blogger and author Doomberg for a conversation about the necessity of energy in our lives, how we take it for granted and the implications for our economies and our politics.

Doomberg is a pen name and alias assuming the form of a green chicken online. Originally on Twitter and now on Substack, Doomberg has become the most popular financial newsletter on the platform.

Doomberg explains why he has chosen to operate anonymously, helping him explore and explain complex and technical aspects of the energy debate with unusual clarity often overlooked or ignored by mainstream media and policymakers.

In this fascinating discussion, Doomberg explains why energy is fundamental to human life, why our dizzying technical expertise in extracting hydrocarbons is overlooked and even denigrated by people whose very lives depend on it, what the connection is between energy and human flourishing, how our thinking has been held hostage by Malthusian beliefs of pessimism leading to energy crises, economic decline and political unrest. We also talk about the recent COP 28 gathering and the renewed pursuit of nuclear energy.

I have learnt much from Doomberg about energy, economics and how our world works. In so doing, he demonstrates the changing nature of our media and how the internet can be used as a force for an informed debate on important topics. I find his approach refreshing and inspiring.

Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick Doomberg.   

Brought to you by Progressive Equity Research.

For this episode, I am joined by Jim Leaviss, one of the UK’s leading bond fund managers and the voice behind the podcast Uncle Jim’s World of Bonds. 

I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, but there aren’t many that I always listen to. However, Uncle Jim’s World of Bonds is always a must-listen to. It's both entertaining and informative. It is typically just 10 minutes long and contains some real nuggets covering macroeconomics, financial markets, politics, and the long-term drivers impacting the world all investors inhabit.  

We recorded this chat on July 1st, and quite a lot has happened since then. Obviously, we have had elections in the UK and France and the advancement of England and France to the semifinals of Euro 24.   

In this episode, Jim discusses why he thinks bonds are so interesting and important and what we, as investors, can learn from them. He also discusses Trussonomics, the implications of French political instability, the potential impact of an unwinding of Japan’s carry trade, what to know about credit spreads, and how they might inform equity markets. 

Jim has been a fund manager at M&G for 27 years, most recently as CIO for fixed income. Since we recorded this episode, Jim has announced his departure later this year to study art history. I very much hope he can also find the time to keep up his podcasting, maybe interspersing yield curve analysis with a view on the modern relevance of German expressionism from the inter-war period.   

I must remind you that none of what you hear is investment advice, it is all just the personal views of the people talking and does not represent the views of any organisation mentioned in this podcast. 

Please enjoy my conversation with Uncle Jim about his world of bonds. 

Made possible by Progressive Equity. 

Coming soon, Duncan MacInnes presents a tour de force of the major financial asset classes and how to manage risk in today's crazy markets.

He covers why he is so bullish on gold, gold miners, the yen and UK equities, and long Chinese equities, the ugliest in his portfolio of ugly ducklings.

He also riffs on the yen carry trade, Bitcoin, premium drinks, and how we might know we are nearer the top than the bottom of the current equity market cycle.

Made possible by Progressive Equity Research.   

In today’s episode, I am joined by Mark Wharrier, an experienced professional investor who previously worked with companies such as  Mercury and Black Rock and is now focused on investing in public and private companies. 

We have a fascinating conversation with Ami Daniel, the co-founder and CEO of AIM-listed Windward.

Windward is a 14-year-old company that provides B2B data and software solutions. It helps governments and businesses track, manage, comply with, and protect maritime assets worldwide. Its solutions provide awareness and insights into what Ami calls the problem of big oceans and small ships.

Windward was listed on AIM in 2021 and is currently valued at £120m. 

Ami is a high-energy entrepreneur. Having survived a near-death experience while serving in the Israeli Navy in 2006, he has established Windward as a high-growth, recurring revenue company with a large addressable market. Ami is one of life’s optimists and a joy to chat with.   

In this episode, he discusses the challenges of running an unprofitable growth company, how being told "NO" is only temporary, the importance of building resilience, and why listing in London has been such a positive move for him and the business.  

It was great having Mark’s experienced approach to guide Ami through the key pillars of Windward’s investment case and paint a picture of what Windward could become as it approaches profitability and reinvests in its rapidly growing platform.   

I must remind you that this is for information purposes only. None of what you hear in this episode is investment or any other type of advice, and the views expressed are purely those of the contributors and not the views of Progressive Equity or any other organisation mentioned in this podcast.

Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Ami Daniel.   

Made possible by Progressive Equity.  

Have you ever wondered how fund managers deliver a successful long-short strategy? 

David Seaman of Alpha Cygni Investment Management recently joined me for a conversation with Richard Stuckey, the manager of the Ennismore Global Equity Fund, about managing such a strategy in smaller global companies.  

In this fascinating chat, Richard discusses different approaches to shorting equities and how they involve different approaches to risk management at the stock and portfolio levels. He outlines a couple of examples of stocks he and his team have successfully shorted that turned out to be deceptions. 

We then discuss two long positions he recently added to his portfolio. Genus, a UK–listed animal genetics company, Genus and Paradox Interactive, a Scandinavian-listed games publisher

Richard then discusses the geographic spread of his fund and how to think about market inefficiency driven by the rise of the mega-cap tech stocks, passive investment and meme-driven markets.

And… importantly, how to adapt investment strategy in a market that can remain inefficient for a long time. 

This is a masterclass in the often counterintuitive art of managing an absolute return strategy in a volatile and illiquid asset class. 

While not for everyone, it can offer downside protection in choppy markets while providing long-term exposure to quality compounding equities.

I must remind you that this is only for information purposes and is NOT investment advice. The views expressed in the podcast are personal to the contributors and do not represent Progressive Equity's views. 

Please enjoy our conversation with Richard Stuckey.

Made possible by Progressive Equity.      

This episode is made possible by Progressive Equity Research, providing freely available engaging research & opportunities to hear from a wide range of small & mid-cap UK-listed companies.

For today’s episode, I am rejoined by Sukh Chamdal, the founder and CEO of AIM-listed Cake Box. 

For background on Sukh and Cake Box, you should listen to episode 2 from November 2021, where Sukh talked about the formation of Cake Box as a retailer of egg-free celebration cakes and growth via a franchising model.  

I was keen to catch up with Sukh as, over the last 18 months, the UK consumer has been under pressure from the rising interest rates, inflation and a general cost of living crisis.  

Cak Box has also had specific issues not uncommon among growing businesses, and Sukh has a new senior management team. 

I visited Sukh last Summer and saw the Enfield distribution centre. I witnessed Sukh's passion for all aspects of the business, particularly the development of new products and production and distribution efficiency. 

Cake Box now has over 200 stores and continues to grow. Sukh believes that consumers have re-adjusted to the higher cost of living and remain prepared to spend on treats for birthdays and special occasions. 

Please enjoy my catch-up with the maverick, Sukh Chamdal.

Tony Brewer of Likewise Group 

Guest co-host James Wilson of Phoenix Asset Management, manager of the Huginn Fund. 

A few weeks ago, James Wilson of Phoenix Asset Management joined me for a conversation with Tony Brewer, the founder and CEO of Likewise Group.

James had talked about Tony and his investment in AIM-listed Likewise on a previous episode, and I had been keen to get Tony on ever since.  

Tony has spent his entire adult life in the floor coverings business developing Headlam from a small textile distributor to the UK’s leading flooring supplier before leaving in 2016.

Two years later, at a time when many of us might consider slowing down, Tony set up Likewise and set about building national distribution, as James points out, this is a business where scale matters.

James is an investor who leaves few stones unturned when he seeks companies to join his concentrated and eclectic portfolio. With his questioning and observations, James brings to life the investment case for what one might believe to be an overly competitive and low-value-added business.    

This episode offers a fascinating insight into a man with a passion for carpet distribution and the views of a professional investor backing him to succeed.     

Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Tony Brewer.

Made possible by Progressive Equity Research.

Back in March this year, David Seaman of Alpha Cygni Asset Management joined me for a conversation with Adam Rackley, the founder and fund manager at Cape Wrath Capital.

Adam epitomises the philosophy of doing things differently when it comes to investing in UK equities. He has pursued his unique approach since founding Cape Wrath in 2016 using what he describes as a behavioural value strategy. 

He looks to identify market capitulation events and narrative shifts to cycle capital into shares when they are driven by emotion more than rationality. He then looks to exit positions when narrative shifts lead to equity revaluations to his appraised fair value.

Adam runs his fund according to what he calls the Rules of Wrath, not the established conventional rules of thumb that seek quality companies and long-term holding periods that try to avoid volatility. 

No, for Adam it is a marketing strategy designed to discourage investors who can’t stomach the journey into the deep value that exists in the UK market. He wants a band of loyal investors who understand and back his strategy, a strategy he is fully committed to and invested in.    

While he has all the credentials of a conventional equity fund manager, Adam is anything but. Previously an army officer, Adam has degrees in PPE and law and the CFA qualification. 

He has also rowed the Atlantic, written a book, swam the channel, cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and lived and worked in India for several years. He is now based in North Wales. 

According to Morningstar, only one of 72 smaller company funds outperformed the UK small-cap index last year. That fund was Cape Wrath. A one-year wonder? Well, not exactly. 

As of the end of May this year, Cape Wrath has significantly outperformed its benchmarks over one month, six months, one year, and five years by sticking to and evolving its rigorous investment strategy and process.  

This is a fascinating conversation in which Adam delves into some examples of how his strategy has played out and how he hopes to develop his process further. 

He then looks forward to closing the fund to new investors, switching off his LinkedIn account, and retiring to his library to do what he enjoys best: picking undervalued shares. 

Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick investor, Adam Rackley. 

Made possible by Progressive Equity. 

In today’s episode, I am joined by Tim Price of Price Value Partners, a private wealth manager in London since the late 1990s. 

Originally an English literature graduate, Tim started work as a bond salesman for a Japanese bank.

However, he switched to private client wealth management, where he was to develop his well-reasoned but highly differentiated approach to managing money.  

Tim has developed this approach based on extensive reading in economics, history, finance, and investing. 

In this episode, he shares the main influences, which range from the Swiss Italian Renaissance mathematician Daniel Bernoulli to the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

His strategy has three main themes focusing on ….  value equities, systematic trend following and real assets. 

He has no time for the traditional 60/40 equity/bond portfolio. 

Due to the unsustainable level of sovereign debt and the sluggish outlook for economic growth, he describes bond investors as dancing around a live volcano. 

I have been reading Tim’s newsletters for a while and highly recommend subscribing.

Made possible by Progressive Equity Research. 

Have you ever wondered what investing in Emerging Markets is all about? It’s complicated, right? And having witnessed a decade or more of US dollar dominance and outperforming developed markets, particularly US markets, why bother looking at the rest of the world? After all, isn’t that where all the bad stuff happens, like currency crises and debt defaults? 

Recently, there have been signs that Emerging Markets might be re-emerging. This year, there have been signs that the dollar’s dominance may not be quite so dominant. Following the Fed’s decision to cut rates by 50 basis points, China announced an intention to add significant heft to its policy of loosening monetary and fiscal conditions in the world’s second-largest economy.   

Following an extended period of being considered uninvestable, Chinese equities had a near 30% bounce in a couple of weeks. Was this just some hasty short closing or a re-awakening of the biggest emerging markets? This is currently one of the fiercest debates among global investors.

I wanted to get the perspective of an emerging markets expert, so I was delighted to have the chance to speak with Leila Kardouche of Variis Partners. Leila is a veteran of the space, and she and her small team recently launched a new London-based emerging markets partnership, filling a space left by several high-profile investors who have recently left this area due to its long period of disappointing returns. 

In this episode, we learn about the structure of Emerging Markets and how benchmark indices such as the MSCI are not very helpful in uncovering the full potential of the growth opportunities often obscured within these markets. Among other things, Leila discusses how to evaluate political risk in this widely diverse range of markets as we take a tour of what’s hot and what’s not in an investment universe covering 85% of the world’s population.  

Critically, Leila and the Variis team focus on stock selection. Leila discusses how the challenges of growing businesses in emerging markets have produced some very successful compounding growth opportunities. Yes, these companies have outperformed strongly even within markets like China, which has been disappointing overall.

Be sure you are subscribed to In The Company of Mavericks on your podcast app to avoid missing the next and future episodes. 

Made possible by Progressive Equity.  

In this episode, I am joined by someone who is probably the best-performing smaller companies fund manager you have never heard of. 

I first met Geoff Oldfield in the 1990s when he was working as the co-manager of the European Select Fund at Barings Asset Management. He and his partner Gerhard Shoeningh were making a name for themselves in the sector and, in 1998, left to set up Ennismore Fund Management with some very firm ideas about the type of investment firm they wanted to run.

The main pillars were performance over asset gathering (no fund marketing), investment decisions taken by PMs, not a committee, clawback of performance fees to reward individual contributions, and a firm owned internally by its portfolio managers. 

Ennismore’s first fund was launched in January 1999. It has been closed to new investors for most of its life, and a significant proportion of the fund is owned by its portfolio managers, including Geoff.  

I was fortunate enough to invest in the Ennismore European Smaller Companies fund on its launch. Over the subsequent nearly 25 years, it has delivered a 17-fold return with a focused absolute return strategy in European-listed smaller companies. This is an average annual return of 12%. Remarkably over the period, the fund only had three down years: 2008, 2009, and 2020, which together represented an aggregate negative 12% return. This is a track record fully demonstrating the advantages of an absolute return approach.  

Geoff is not a public figure and I have spoken to him about doing this podcast since he returned to frontline fund management. After a 10-year break, Geoff came back into portfolio management in an effort to help turn around the Ennismore Global Fund. This 2016 fund had scored “an own goal” (as Geoff puts it) while running short positions in the meme stock-obsessed NASDAQ market of 2020.  

Geoff is the epitome of the humble investor being respectful of Mr Market and also knowing when to take advantage of his emotionally charged moments of mis-valuation. He talks about mistakes he made in the GFC and how providing liquidity to investors is a good discipline despite investing in an illiquid asset class. He also describes how he defines quality companies and how they should be valued, but he also talks about how he always looks for a margin of safety. Critically he discusses what makes smaller companies such a rich seam of opportunity for value investors a strategy he has successfully pursued in the changing market circumstances for more than a quarter of a century.

I must remind you that nothing you hear today is investment advice. The views expressed are personal to the contributors and do not represent the views of Progressive Equity or Ennismore Fund Management. I hope you find it enjoyable and educational. As always when I chat with Geoff, I learned a lot.  

Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick investor, Geoff Oldfield. 

Brought to you by Progressive Equity. 

This episode is made possible by Progressive Equity Research, providing freely available engaging research & opportunities to hear from a wide range of small & mid-cap UK-listed companies.

I am joined by private investor Mark Atkinson, host of the Desert Island Investor Podcast, for a conversation with Mark Smithson, the founder and CEO of Marks Electrical. 

Marks Electrical is an AIM-listed online retailer of household electrical products providing nationwide next-day delivery of a wide range of household appliances.  

Mark’s straightforward approach to his business is based on an enduring work ethic, deep domain knowledge and a commitment to business efficiency based on common sense and the application of technology.  

In today’s episode, we follow the story of an entrepreneur who started selling reconditioned second-hand gas cookers in the 1980s to become CEO of a listed business with a shareholding worth over £60m.

Mark talks openly about the challenges he’s faced and the mistakes he has made. 

However, armed with a “never give up” attitude, he sees his business as well positioned to grow market share in the competitive space for household appliances. Mark epitomises raw entrepreneurial spirit, and his story has lessons for us all.   

Brendan D'Souza of Dowgate Capital joins me to talk to Nadeem Raza, CEO of Microlise. Microlise is a dominant software supplier to the UK logistics and road haulage industry. Nadeem has worked his way up from being a software engineer in the late 1980s and gives us a masterclass in how focusing on solving customer problems and taking a long term view of the business opportunity can drive value creation. Nadeem discusses the impact of changing technology and events such as the financial crisis and the 2008 MBO focused attention on developing the SaaS revenue model. As he says, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. On IPO in 2021 Nadeem chose not to sell any shares and has subsequently bought more, marking him out from the norm. His long term vote of confidence in the international growth potential that Microlise offers is notable. Nadeem also describes how interconnected we are as an economy and the role that transport and logistics play vital roles in keeping us in the manner to which we have become accustomed.  

We had a great time chatting with Nils Gornall the CEO of DP Poland, a couple of weeks ago. This episode, dropping soon is a masterclass on how to run a delivered pizza shop and what makes Domino's Pizza a global success story.

Adam Rackley joins me for a conversation with growth stock analyst and ultra runner Alex Sweet of Sweet Stocks.

Alex discusses his background and investment philosophy, and we chat about three UK equities he has covered in his newsletters: 4imprint, YouGov & Loungers. 

COMING SOON on all good podcast apps.

Made possible by Progressive Equity 

Coming soon on your favourite podcast app is a fascinating chat with Ami Daniel, co-founder and CEO of Windward. Ami is a high-energy entrepreneur driving the fastest annual recurring revenue business in the London market, and he was a joy to talk with. Windward has an impressive customer list and is building a suite of AI-powered products to drive Ami's ambition for Winward to become a multiple hundred-million-dollar revenue "rule of 40 company." 

Please subscribe so that you don't miss this and further episodes.

Made possible by Progressive Equity. 

This episode is a fascinating insight into the changing mix of our sources of energy from serial entrepreneur Andrew Austin. Andrew is founder and Executive Chairman of Kistos Plc which he founded in 2020. Kistos owns gas assets in the Dutch sector of the North Sea and has agreed to acquire an interest in the Greater Laggan Area, West of Shetland from Total. Andrew talks about how to structure M&A deals in volatile energy markets, the importance of low carbon locally sourced natural gas as a bridging fuel to a fully renewable future and some interesting tips with keeping in touch with his shareholders. Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Andrew Austin. Brendan D'Souza In the Company of Mavericks 

This episode was recorded on September 21, 2023.

For today’s episode, I am joined by the private investor and host of the Desert Island Investor podcast, Mark Atkinson, for a conversation with the Chairman and CEO of Town Centre Securities, Edward Ziff. 

Edward is the second-generation custodian of the family business with a rich history largely centred on the City of Leeds. 

Edward talks candidly about the challenges of managing a small listed real estate company in which his family holds a controlling stake. He discusses the difficulties of attracting outside shareholders and how modern norms of PLC life often run counter to the cherished traditions of personal relationships often prevalent in family-owned companies.

Edward is not a first-generation entrepreneur managing growth and holding a tiger by the tail. First and foremost, he is trying to preserve capital and generate income for an increasingly dispersed group of family and friends while meeting the requirements of a modern listed company. 

Despite navigating the financing pitfalls of the global financial crisis and the COVID pandemic, Town Centre Securities is left today as something of a stock market relic, trading at less than half its assessed net asset value, reflecting its small size and lack of institutional appeal.  

As Edward says, running a small listed family business is exciting and depressing in equal measure.

In this episode, Andrew Hollingworth of Holland Advisors discusses what he looks for in the maverick owner managers he invests in. He talks about what he chose to back Mike Ashley of Sports Direct, now Frasers and how he thinks about capital allocation and governance issues. He also runs through his investment thesis on JD Wetherspoon, and other owner-managed scale economy shared businesses like RyanAir and Charles Schwab. Andrew is the fund manager of the VT Holland Advisors Equity Fund. This episode is produced in conjunction with Progressive Equity Research, offering objective analysis and access to company management teams across every market sector.

Jeremy McKeown and Gareth Evans are joined by Scott Evans of the London Business School and co-compiler of the Deutsche Numis Market Indices to discuss the performance of mid and small-cap last year, over the long term, and what might be driving equity market performance in 2024. In addition, they mention updates from Concurrent Technologies and Gamma Communications from last week.   

In today’s episode, I am joined by Tim Price of Price Value Partners, a private wealth manager in London since the late 1990s. 

Originally an English literature graduate, Tim started work as a bond salesman for a Japanese bank.

However, he switched to private client wealth management, where he was to develop his well-reasoned but highly differentiated approach to managing money.  

Tim has developed this approach based on extensive reading in economics, history, finance, and investing. 

In this episode, he shares the main influences, which range from the Swiss Italian Renaissance mathematician Daniel Bernoulli to the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

His strategy has three main themes focusing on ….  value equities, systematic trend following and real assets. 

He has no time for the traditional 60/40 equity/bond portfolio. 

Due to the unsustainable level of sovereign debt and the sluggish outlook for economic growth, he describes bond investors as 'dancing on the edge of a live volcano'. 

I have been reading Tim’s newsletters for a while and highly recommend subscribing.

Made possible by Progressive Equity Research. 

During the pandemic, an Argentinian economist called Javier Milei began to make a name for himself on TV panel shows for his wild libertarian ideas and idiosyncratic, abrasive delivery. Milei raged against politicians of all persuasions, always prepared to outrage his opponents and entertain his audiences.

By 2021, he had become a congressman, denouncing the political class as useless parasites who had never worked and thought only of self-enrichment. He assured his electorate that he would kick these criminals out. He didn't seek to lead lambs, he told them, but to awaken lions, and the lions he awoke were younger people attracted to his unique combination of in-depth economic knowledge and flamboyant shock-jock delivery.

While other politicians and the mainstream media depicted him as a performative clown, Milei had taught economics for twenty years and published over fifty academic papers. Unlike most academics, Milei was a showman, playing drums for a Rolling Stones cover band. He was an evangelist who sold out increasingly large venues, lecturing his audiences about the workings of the price mechanism, the moral justification for capitalism, and the crime of collectivism while raising a sense of moral outrage.

The coincidence of Argentina's economic cycle of despair with Milei's arrival as a chainsaw-wielding showman, backed up by the deep conviction that he knew the solution to his country's woes, unexpectedly led him to the highest office in the land in less than a year. Last December, he became Argentina's 59th president. He won the largest number of votes and the largest percentage of votes recorded in any election since the transition to democracy, but it came with only a minority position in the legislature.

This left him with an enormous challenge in executing his reforms, but despite this, his first year in office has been largely successful. Unanswered are the questions as to whether Milei's remedies will prove sustainable, whether this time will differ from all the other times, and whether he can end Argentina's era of missed opportunities. Can he continue painful reforms while remaining sufficiently popular to complete the project?

I spent a few days in Buenos Aries in early November to learn more about this man and the libertarian experiment he was implementing. I met several people there, including Robert Marstrand, an author and investor who writes the investment stack OfWealth. 

Robert has a background in investment banking and has lived in Argentina for 16 years. He was very generous with his time and explained the opportunity for Argentina and how investors might like to think about this Maverick nation with its maverick president.  

Please enjoy our conversation about Argentina and its maverick president. 

For today’s episode, I am joined by former fund manager and author Patrick Schotanus.  

Patrick has extensive and varied experience analysing and investing in financial markets, culminating in 15 years of co-managing a large multi-asset fund. 

Throughout his career, Patrick has questioned the relevance of mainstream economics in understanding the reality of financial markets and investment management, and over recent years he has focused all his time developing what he calls The Market Mind Hypothesis or the MMH. 

Last year, Patrick published a book on his work titled The Market Mind Hypothesis: Understanding Markets and Minds through Cognitive Economics. It is a fascinating read.

In today’s conversation, Patrick discusses how mechanistic economics leads to damaging policy errors, how mechanistic investment strategies damage price discovery, and the amazing overlapping worlds of markets and minds. In short, Patrick believes markets are conscious and we would be better off if we established this as our way of framing how we think about economics and finance.       

As Patrick says, if mainstream economics is the answer to our problems, then we are asking the wrong questions. And that the growing dominance of mechanistic and passive investment flows risk breaking markets' conscious means of price and value discovery.

Patrick’s analysis contains much practical guidance on thinking about real and financial markets, although he concedes that more research is required.  

Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick thinker, Patrick Schotanus.

Brought to you by Progressive Equity.

I am joined by franchise industry veteran, Ian Bradley, for a conversation with Stephen Hemsley, Founder and Chairman of Franchise Brands.

*** A REQUEST - I support a charity called Level Water which uses the power of swimming to change the lives of children with disabilities. Later this month I will be swimming the 6km from Averton Gifford to Bantham in Devon to help Level Water fund its noble cause. If you have found value in listening to the In the Company of Mavericks podcast series, I would appreciate it if you could make a modest contribution to my fundraising page. I have experienced myself and seen others flourish from the greater self-belief instilled from developing swimming skills and enjoying the water. It is a very worthy cause. Thank you. Jeremy ***

Stephen discusses his journey from training as an accountant to 3i, to Dominis Pizza and then onto the formation and development of Franchise Brands. He talks about the lessons learnt from the remarkable growth of Dominos, the importance of technology and effective guiding principles for developing trust with your franchise partners. 

In this episode, I am joined by someone who is probably the best-performing smaller companies fund manager you have never heard of. 

I first met Geoff Oldfield in the 1990s when he was working as the co-manager of the European Select Fund at Barings Asset Management. He and his partner Gerhard Shoeningh were making a name for themselves in the sector and, in 1998, left to set up Ennismore Fund Management with some very firm ideas about the type of investment firm they wanted to run.

The main pillars were performance over asset gathering (no fund marketing), investment decisions taken by PMs, not a committee, clawback of performance fees to reward individual contributions, and a firm owned internally by its portfolio managers. 

Ennismore’s first fund was launched in January 1999. It has been closed to new investors for most of its life, and a significant proportion of the fund is owned by its portfolio managers, including Geoff.  

I was fortunate enough to invest in the Ennismore European Smaller Companies fund on its launch. Over the subsequent nearly 25 years, it has delivered a 17-fold return with a focused absolute return strategy in European-listed smaller companies. This is an average annual return of 12%. Remarkably over the period, the fund only had three down years: 2008, 2009, and 2020, which together represented an aggregate negative 12% return. This is a track record fully demonstrating the advantages of an absolute return approach.  

Geoff is not a public figure and I have spoken to him about doing this podcast since he returned to frontline fund management. After a 10-year break, Geoff came back into portfolio management in an effort to help turn around the Ennismore Global Fund. This 2016 fund had scored “an own goal” (as Geoff puts it) while running short positions in the meme stock-obsessed NASDAQ market of 2020.  

Geoff is the epitome of the humble investor being respectful of Mr Market and also knowing when to take advantage of his emotionally charged moments of mis-valuation. He talks about mistakes he made in the GFC and how providing liquidity to investors is a good discipline despite investing in an illiquid asset class. He also describes how he defines quality companies and how they should be valued, but he also talks about how he always looks for a margin of safety. Critically he discusses what makes smaller companies such a rich seam of opportunity for value investors a strategy he has successfully pursued in the changing market circumstances for more than a quarter of a century.

I must remind you that nothing you hear today is investment advice. The views expressed are personal to the contributors and do not represent the views of Progressive Equity or Ennismore Fund Management. I hope you find it enjoyable and educational. As always when I chat with Geoff, I learned a lot.  

Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick investor, Geoff Oldfield.

Brought to you by Progressive Equity 

Things are changing in global markets. There are noticeable shifts taking place. The world’s capital is rotating. As always, many factors are at work, but we might be witnessing a once-in-a-generation shift away from US assets, which have recently dominated global capital allocations. 

Global investors are diversifying their portfolios. 

That is why I was keen to host this episode today.

David Seaman of Alpha Cygni Asset Management and a seasoned emerging markets investor joins me for a fascinating discussion with Sean Peche, the manager of The Ranmore Global Equity Fund. 

Sean recounts how he honed his value investing credentials at Orbis after qualifying as an accountant in South Africa and before launching Ranmore in London in 2008.  

Sean has a first-hand take on how capital flows have shaped equity values and built up today’s imbalances. 

While relative value is not sufficient reason for capital to flow, it is a necessary pre-condition. Sean says there are now multiple reasons investors, typically fully loaded in the US market, want to recycle their capital.  

He talks about how he looks for value, why he has recently moved overweight in the UK, why emerging markets have many developed market characteristics, and why he doesn’t meet the management of the companies he invests in. 

As he says, he can best objectively determine the effectiveness of management by watching what they do, not necessarily by listening to what they say. 

Sean delivers a master class on the principles of value investing combined with an acute sense of how the world is changing and how best to load up on asymmetric risk opportunities that will likely operate in his favour as we confront an unforecastable future. 

Now, please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Sean Peche ..

Brought to you by Progressive Equity 

This is a fascinating story of resilience, innovation, and raw entrepreneurialism. Simon’s journey is a powerful example of how adverse circumstances can be fertile ground for learning and growth. Living in China for 16 years, transforming CT from its tool-making roots into a global component supply business, Simon candidly discusses the challenges he faced and how he overcame them. Simon talks about the need to stay ahead by adopting AI and robotics. He says that CT went to China for its low costs but is staying because of its world-class leadership in modern manufacturing technology.

I really enjoyed this one. I hope you do too.

Please subscribe on your podcast app or follow me on Substack.

Made possible by Progressive Equity. 

A Conversation with Alasdair Haynes, founder and CEO of Aquis Exchange. AIM-listed Aquis is a process innovator in the field of share trading and stock exchange technology. In offering the World's first subscription-based pricing Aquis offers its customers a marginal cost to trade of zero. The platform also reduces toxicity, or the impact cost of trading, improving execution efficiency. Aquis also runs a primary listings business called the Aquis Stock Exchange which competes with the LSE's AIM market for listings for smaller growth companies. Additionally, as a technology provider, Aquis offers services to exchanges and trading venues in other geographies and product markets.

Over the last four decades, stock market trading technology has changed completely. National stock exchanges have become more focused on data provision creating an opportunity for newer more adaptable businesses to emerge that can focus directly on the needs of their customers. The Aquis platform offers demonstrable improvements in efficiency as well as cost savings for market intermediaries and their customers (investors) which has driven market share gains over recent years. Aquis already provides 22% of market liquidity in European equities but has just a 5-6% share of the volumes traded. This provides significant scope for further market share gains over time.   

Alasdair has a long history of innovation in the exchange technology sector from his early beginnings as a trader with Morgan Grenfell and subsequent leadership roles at ITG, Chi-X and now Aquis. Our discussion covers the role of change in presenting opportunity, how liquidity improvements drive volume gains and how there is an opportunity in primary listings to create the NASDAQ of Europe via the Aquis Stock. Exchange.

Guest, Alasdair Haynes, https://www.linkedin.com/in/alasdair-haynes/ https://www.aquis.eu/aquis-exchange

Guest host, Ben McKeown, Director at Dowgate Wealth https://dowgatewealth.co.uk/our-team/ben-mckeown/

In this episode, Julian Collett of Blackdown Partners joins me for a conversation with Simon Phillips, the founder and CEO of CT Automotive, a £50m market cap, AIM-listed company. 

Simon’s journey is a powerful example of how adverse circumstances, can be a fertile ground for learning and growth. His story underscores the crucial role of resilience in business success. The development of a business supplying tooling and components to the global automotive industry is a testament to Simon’s well-honed entrepreneurial skills and can-do attitude, forged in the face of adversity. 

Growing up in one of London’s more socially deprived areas, Simon thrived in maths, physics, and engineering but was thwarted by his dyslexia in pursuing conventional employment. Through successful side hustles developed during his university years, Simon bought into a plastics moulding and tool-making business, becoming MD of his own company at the age of 25. 

Simon's vision for CT Automotive was clear from the start. He saw the huge potential in manufacturing in China to Western standards. This foresight led him to spend 16 years living in China, transforming CT from its tool-making roots into a global component supply business that serves most of the world’s largest automotive OEMs. 

Simon candidly discusses the challenges he faced in his chosen career path and how he overcame them. He shares why he chose to IPO the business on AIM in 2021 and reflects on the following couple of years as the most challenging period he has ever experienced.

Looking forward, Simon talks about the need to stay ahead via the adoption of AI and robotics, a trend that is happening so quickly that the shape of the automotive industry he supplies will be unknowable over the next few years. However, as he says, CT went to China for its low costs but is staying because of its world-class leadership in modern manufacturing technology.    

This is a fascinating story of resilience, innovation and raw entrepreneurialism. 

Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Simon Philips.  

Made possible by Progressive Equity. 

Hotel Chocolat Co-founder and CEO Angus Thirwell delivers a masterclass in how to develop a customer-led business. We begin with a chat about Angu's early life and the evolution of the Hotel Chocolat brand. Angus talks about the benefits of being a founder-led business which has among other things allowed Hotel Chocolat to build long term sustainable growth by doing the right things and not just the easy things. Armed with a long term strategic ambition to deliver pleasure by chocolate, Angus reveals a real passion for his product and the brand. Angus Thirwell Ben McKeown In The Company of Mavericks IntoFergus

The Episode Timeline:
1.11 - 3.51 Introduction to Angus's early life as an entrepreneur and son of Mr Whippee taking him to The West Indies as a 3-year-old. This was followed by boarding school back in the UK.
3.52 - 5.40  School Film Society initiative with a subscription model and the missed opportunity to start Netflix
5.40 - 6.49  Music and lyrics. Fergus singer-songwriter.   
6.50 - 10.52 From selling technology in France to meeting co-founder Peter Harrison and the formation of The Mint Marketing Company.
10.53 - 12.21  Being led to chocolate by their customers
12.22 -  16.43 The journey from B2B to B2C and challenging suppliers to be more creative. Discovering the gift-ability of chocolate with the Chocogram led to the discovery of the Tasting Club, a key tenet of today's innovative culture in Hotel Chocolat.
16.44 - 19.33 The difference between innovation and novelty. Looking for 10 out of 10 chocolates that excite customer tribes. Black Forest Gateaux drinking chocolate reappears from the 1970s.
19.34 - 23.21 Opening the first shops as a lesson in capital discipline but involved a new overarching brand to draw together Chocolate Express and The Tasting Club. The seductive appeal of chocolat and the delight of a hotel. A new world for consumers to discover the brand.  23.22 - 26.02 Manufacturing and the benefits of vertical integration including better IP protection.
26.03 - 27.59 The spat with Waitrose and the importance of long term properly invested business in control of its own destiny. Doing the right things not just the easy things.
28.00 -  33.03 Overseas expansion and its challenges. A long hard road, a decade in and only just starting to bear fruit. Understanding local consumer preferences. Multiple ways of growing in new markets.
33.04 - 35.36 The pandemic bringing out the best in Hotel Chocolat and the lessons from COVID. Adapting to the new order the benefits of integration and the use of creativity to discover new opportunities. Pledge to keep the Hotel Chocolat family together and keep the chocolat flowing.     
35.37 - 37.59 The development of subscription revenues. The win-win of a hotel Chocolat family supply subscription model. The podster re-cycling coffee maker.
38.00 - 39.20   Impact of supply chain issues and inflationary pressure. Using scale economies and other methods to mitigate cost pressures, but one thing customers require is a continued focus on quality.
39.21 - 42.15 Public listing and retention of independence. Importance of access to capital and the dilutive effect on the founders. Responsibility to maintain the long term provenance of the brand and its values. Has facilitated the funding of profitable growth. Less recourse to external capital in future will enable the business to develop on its long term growth trajectory undisturbed by outside influence.
42.16 - 43.26  The importance of being a founder-led company. In particular the competitive advantage of long term management tenure.
43.27 - 45.59 The 10-year vision for Hotel Chocolat. Pleasure through chocolate. Originality, Authenticity and Ethics are the 3 key pillars of growth. Evolution not revolution is the key. Widening the brand to encompass more categories. 
46.00 - 47.05 The biggest risk to growth is the maintenance of quality and not having too many balls in the air at any one time. The key CEO role is to prioritise projects to maintain quality and grow sustainably.
47.06 - 48.56 New treats to look forward to. The velvetiser is a core product. Coffee ranges and matcha drinks and biscuits of the gods, among others.
48.57 - 50.38 What have you changed your mind about since starting Hotel Chocolat? The big lesson is getting and retaining the best quality people possible. Amazing what can be achieved with a high calibre high performing team.
50.39 - 51.02 Thank you and goodbye. 
 

For this episode, I am joined by Duncan MacInnes, manager of The Ruffer Investment Company, for a conversation about his investment philosophy and how he thinks about risk in today’s financial markets. 

He describes himself as a pragmatic, macro-informed, value investor.  

The Ruffer Investment Company is a billion-pound London-listed investment company with the simple aim of delivering consistent positive returns regardless of how financial markets perform with the ambition to protect and increase the real value of its investor's capital. 

A simple but challenging mandate. 

To achieve this distinctive objective, Duncan has a highly differentiated strategy and has constructed a portfolio that looks nothing like most portfolios. 

Since launch in the early 2000s, Ruffer has a good long term track record. 

However, over the last couple of years, performance has slipped as risk assets, particularly equities, have outperformed Duncan’s expectations.   

But Ruffer’s performance has a tendency, as Duncan says, to perform like ketchup coming out of a glass bottle. 

The events of early August, as the yen carry trade sent markets in a spin, offered a brief glimpse of the better times that might lie ahead for this fund. 

Duncan offers a master class in different, often esoteric, markets and how he has used instruments such as gold, FX, credit spreads, derivatives, inflation-linked bonds and even bitcoin to find uncorrelated returns and asymmetric and reflexive risk profiles. 

Duncan is positive on the outlook for gold, the yen, and commodities. However, he thinks investors are over their skis regarding US equities, specifically the Mag Seven. 

He is more positive about UK equities and describes why the consensual view that Chinese equities are uninvestable draws him to them. 

As he says, we are all invested in China already, but at several times the value of most Chinese stocks.

As always, nothing you hear in this podcast is investment advice, and all the views expressed by the contributors are in a personal capacity only and do not represent the views of Progressive Equity or any other organization mentioned in this podcast.       

Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick, Duncan MacInnes.   

Made possible by Progressive Equity.  

Jeremy McKeown & Gareth Evans discuss the macro drivers behind this week's equity markets and some company updates that caught their attention. 

Companies mentioned this week include UK housebuilders, M&S, Marks Electrical, Sosander and Xaar. 

Things are changing in global markets. There are noticeable shifts taking place. The world’s capital is rotating. As always, many factors are at work, but we might be witnessing a once-in-a-generation shift away from US assets, which have recently dominated global capital allocations. 

Global investors are diversifying their portfolios. 

That is why I was keen to host this episode.

David Seaman of Alpha Cygni Asset Management and a seasoned emerging markets investor joins me for a fascinating discussion with Sean Peche, the manager of The Ranmore Global Equity Fund. 

Sean recounts how he honed his value investing credentials at Orbis after qualifying as an accountant in South Africa and before launching Ranmore in London in 2008.  

Sean has a first-hand take on how capital flows have shaped equity values and built up today’s imbalances. 

While relative value is not sufficient reason for capital to flow, it is a necessary pre-condition. Sean says there are now multiple reasons investors, typically fully loaded in the US market, want to recycle their capital.  

He talks about how he looks for value, why he has recently moved overweight in the UK, why emerging markets have many developed market characteristics, and why he doesn’t meet the management of the companies he invests in. 

As he says, he can best objectively determine the effectiveness of management by watching what they do, not necessarily by listening to what they say. 

Sean delivers a master class on the principles of value investing combined with an acute sense of how the world is changing and how best to load up on asymmetric risk opportunities that will likely operate in his favour as we confront an unforecastable future. 

Now, please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Sean Peche ..

Brought to you by Progressive Equity 

In this episode, Progressive’s legendary technology analyst, George O’Connor, joins me in a conversation with Mark Blandford, the online betting pioneer and founder of Sporting Bet.

Always interested in horse racing and betting on horses, Mark moved from traditional bookmaking into the emerging world of the internet in the late 1990s, building Sporting Bet into a high-growth AIM company, later acquiring US-facing Paradise Poker.

Things changed suddenly in the US online gambling market in 2006, and Mark eventually left Sporting Bet to focus on his racehorses and his family office. 

In 2002, Mark was named AIM Entrepreneur of the Year, and in 2015, his horse, Next Sensation, won Cheltenham. 

Mark has also had several winners as a venture capital investor and has several strategic public company investments. His wide-ranging portfolio includes interests in NASDAQ-listed Gambling.com and the UK-listed small-caps Gaming Realms, B90 and Good Life Plus. 

Among his private investments, Mark has stakes in platform, payment, ag-tech, and ed-tech businesses.  

He discusses his interest in quantitative analysis, improving operating efficiencies and working with entrepreneurs who are prepared to listen and take advice.

This is a fascinating conversation with many lessons and reminders of how technology can change industries AND how a changing regulatory environment can create radical uncertainty and existential risk. Mark talks openly about his eventful journey from a traditional bricks-and-mortar bookmaker to a seasoned VC and investor.    

I must remind you that none of what you are about to hear is investment advice, but it is solely for your information and entertainment. Please take professional advice before investing your money in these crazy markets. 

Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Mark Blandford.

Brought to you by Progressive Equity 

For today’s episode, I am joined by David Seaman of Alpha Cygni Asset Management for a conversation with two mavericks, an entrepreneur and an investor.

Angus Thirwell is the co-founder and CEO of Hotel Chocolat and was on Episode 4 in December 2021. Angus has just completed the sale of Hotel Chocolat to Mars for a value of £534m and has decided to roll most of his stake in the company into the Mars family structure as he sees an increased opportunity for the brand to grow under its new ownership. 

Gary Channon is the founder and CIO of Phoenix Asset Management with a disciplined value style of investing detailed in previous episodes with James Wilson. Gary heads a team that manages UK-listed investment vehicles, Aurora Investment Trust and Castelnau.  

We are treated to a master class in how Angus’s careful stewardship of his premium branded chocolate and the culture required to develop its full potential led him to his partnership with one of the world’s biggest and most successful family businesses.  

And how Gary’s disciplined approach to research and valuation delivered a stunning return by acquiring a 15% stake in Hotel Chocolat after its post-pandemic setback. 

We cover a lot of ground and discuss the health of the UK stock market, how to think about investing in consumer-facing businesses and how failing and learning from mistakes is an important part of developing a business whether in premium chocolate or asset management. 

Gary also talks about taking the funeral business Dignity private and this latest addition to the portfolio, Churchill China.      

Please enjoy our conversation with the mavericks, Angus Thirwell and Gary Channon.

Brought to you by Progressive Equity Research.

Thanks to Progressive Equity Research for making this episode possible.

In this episode, Miles talks about the changes he is implementing in the business and the opportunities to grow by product, industry, and geography, both organically and via acquisition. Miles demonstrates a wide-ranging understanding of the markets in which Concurrent operates and foresight of how to raise its growth ambitions. Since joining Concurrent, the business has had to cope with a significant component shortage which has impacted the performance of the business in 2022. Toward the end of the episode, Miles discusses a significant obstacle he has had to cope with from a young age. Miles provides inspirational advice to others who might be facing similar issues. Thanks to Mark Atkinson for introducing Miles and the great questions he asks. Many thanks to Miles for sharing his story in such an open and honest way.       

I have always been interested in founder-led companies. Entrepreneurs and family-run companies often have unconventional attitudes to risk and return. They often back themselves to take operational risk. They tend to be more innovative. You could say that they are more prone to being maverick. But also, you could say that they are more cautious and mindful of capital preservation and the value of staying in the game for the benefit of future generations.  

Investing to capture the founder-led effect is a way to achieve an asymmetric return, with better downside protection in tough times and higher upside returns in good times. Sounds great in theory, but how do you go about it in practice?    

In this episode, I chat with a Chinese Australian who invests globally in founder-led companies.  

Lawrence Lam has run the Lumenary Global Founders Fund since 2017. As the name suggests, his process attempts to identify companies that are run for the long term and have the founder effect. 

So, what is the founder effect, and how can investors determine whether a management team has this elusive characteristic?  

Well, Lawrence has helpfully written a book called "The Founder Effect - The Three Pillars of Success in Founder-Led Companies." It’s a great read if you are trying to understand good long-term management decisions and how to spot them. 

This is a fascinating conversation with someone who loves what he does and scours the world’s stock markets to find his secret formula at work.  

We learn how he balances the less correlated world for opportunities to buy founder-led companies that offer good value, why China offers a great way to diversify a portfolio, how BYD is poised to become the next Toyota, and how meeting management might useful for understanding if the company is likely to do well next quarter, but not so useful for understanding whether it will compound for you over the next couple of decades.  

As Lawrence says, he looks for the long-term track record of key decision-making, simple organisational structure, skin in the game, and close alignment with shareholders. 

As always, none of what you are about to hear is financial or any other type of advice. It is hopefully entertaining and informative, but what you hear should not be used as the basis for an investment decision. Please take personal financial advice before investing a penny of your money in these crazy markets. And with that …  

 Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick Lawrence Lam.         

Brought to you by Progressive Equity. 

In today’s episode, private investor Mark Atkinson and host of The Desert Island Investor rejoins me for a conversation with MPAC CEO Adam Holland. 

Mark’s professional background was in the paper and packaging industry. He has been a shareholder in MPAC since 2013 when it was known as Molins. 

Adam has enjoyed a varied engineering career, initially working in space technology, then with Rolls Royce and for JCB before joining MPAC initially as COO in 2021. He has a track record of solving engineering problems in global industries and leading teams that provide after-sales care for large multinational customers.

Adam gives us a detailed run-through of the rich legacy of the business he now runs and its evolution into an automation systems provider to the global packaging industry. He talks about the scale of MPAC's market, the challenges, and the opportunities to grow organically with existing and new customers, and via infill acquisition. 

We learn from Adam why he prefers to reinvest in the business than to pay dividends today, how MPAC has significant potential in the giga factory market for the scale production of modern batteries, and that scaling the business and maintaining its culture of engineering excellence and customer service is vital in his vision to make MPAC into a business capable of being 10x its current sales level.  

Please enjoy our conversation with Adam Holland.
 
 Brought to you by Progressive. 

I have always been interested in founder-led companies. Entrepreneurs and family-run companies often have unconventional attitudes to risk and return. They often back themselves to take operational risk. They tend to be more innovative. You could say that they are more prone to being maverick. But also, you could say that they are more cautious and mindful of capital preservation and the value of staying in the game for the benefit of future generations.  

Investing to capture the founder-led effect is a way to achieve an asymmetric return, with better downside protection in tough times and higher upside returns in good times. Sounds great in theory, but how do you go about it in practice?    

In this episode, I chat with a Chinese Australian who invests globally in founder-led companies.  

Lawrence Lam has run the Lumenary Global Founders Fund since 2017. As the name suggests, his process attempts to identify companies that are run for the long term and have the founder effect. 

So, what is the founder effect, and how can investors determine whether a management team has this elusive characteristic?  

Well, Lawrence has helpfully written a book called "The Founder Effect - The Three Pillars of Success in Founder-Led Companies." It’s a great read if you are trying to understand good long-term management decisions and how to spot them. 

This is a fascinating conversation with someone who loves what he does and scours the world’s stock markets to find his secret formula at work.  

We learn how he balances the less correlated world for opportunities to buy founder-led companies that offer good value, why China offers a great way to diversify a portfolio, how BYD is poised to become the next Toyota, and how meeting management might useful for understanding if the company is likely to do well next quarter, but not so useful for understanding whether it will compound for you over the next couple of decades.  

As Lawrence says, he looks for the long-term track record of key decision-making, simple organisational structure, skin in the game, and close alignment with shareholders. 

As always, none of what you are about to hear is financial or any other type of advice. It is hopefully entertaining and informative, but what you hear should not be used as the basis for an investment decision. Please take personal financial advice before investing a penny of your money in these crazy markets. And with that …  

 Please enjoy my conversation with the maverick Lawrence Lam.         

Brought to you by Progressive Equity. 

For this episode, I am joined by Gareth Evans, the founder and CEO of Progressive Equity Research for a conversation with Nils Gornall, the CEO of DP Poland, and a veteran Domino's Pizza operator. 

Nils started as a pizza maker at the age of 15 and opened his first franchised store in Perth, Western Australia, just before his 22nd birthday. 

It is fair to say Nils has pizza in his blood and gives us a masterclass in what makes a delivered pizza shop work and how to develop a winning culture. 

From Australia to Croatia, via Canada Nils now operates AIM listed DP Poland from Warsaw. He is quite the epitome of the Aussie traveller. 

In this episode, we learn how operating a pizza shop is like running a sports team, and how wowing customers with pizza delivered in 25 minutes or less involves better in-store metrics and not high-speed moped drivers. As Nils said, “The race is in the store, not on the road.” 

As Stephen Helmsley of Franchise Brands, formerly CEO of Domino’s Pizza in the UK said in Episode 11, opening Domino’s successfully in new markets requires proven operators. Nils fits the bill perfectly. 

Please enjoy our conversation with the maverick, Nils Gornall. 

Gareth Evans of Progressive Equity joins me for a discussion with Jonathan Satchell, Founder and CEO of Learning Technologies. Jonathan talks about his early career, his passion for technology his journey into video training, eLearning and professional development leading to the creation of LTG and AIM IPO in 2013. He discusses how he and his partner, Chairman, Andrew Brode, chose to go the PLC route rather than use private equity. Jonathan shares some of his secret sauce of acquiring and refining businesses that he has acquired and how he got inspiration from the work of Sir Martin Sorrell at WPP. He also discusses how it is important to mix the differing cultures of product and service companies to meet the complex needs of his customers. In particular, he talks about the opportunity his largest and most recent acquisition offers LTG. Despite the short term margin dilution, he believes he has acquired a bargain for his shareholders. In the conversation, we also discuss the positive impact both The Great Resignation and the metaverse are already having on his business.  

Earlier this year, in Episode 15, I spoke to Laurence Hulse and Alyx Wood about investing in the UK equity market from the perspectives of two UK-focused professional investors with distinctive strategies. 

On October 17th, I got Laurie and Alyx back together with Simon French, Chief Economist and Head of Research at City stockbroker Panmure Gordon, to ask the question, Why Invest in the UK?      

It was a great conversation on a live topic of interest for investors and one I hope to return to in future episodes. 

Simon frames the discussion with his expertise in interpreting macroeconomic data.

Alyx adds his perspective of an investor who spends much of his time talking to international investors about investing in the UK. 

Laurie talks of what he sees as a generational opportunity to buy abnormally cheap assets at the bottom end of the UK’s “out of favour” stock market.   

As always, this is for information purposes only. This is not investment advice. 

Chris Bogart discusses how he started to dabble in litigation finance as a hobby, but the onset of the global financial crisis led to the formation of Burford Capital and a 12-year journey to industry leadership and a listing on the NYSE. Chris describes how culture, risk assessment and the adoption of data science have all played a part in helping Burford drive its competitive advantage in the developing market for litigation finance. David Seaman of Alpha Cygni Investment Management adds some in-depth questioning on key aspects of the Burford story, including the periods of investor scepticism, its culture and how Chris thinks about risk. Please enjoy. 

Have you ever wondered what investing in Emerging Markets is all about? It’s complicated, right? And having witnessed a decade or more of US dollar dominance and outperforming developed markets, particularly US markets, why bother looking at the rest of the world? After all, isn’t that where all the bad stuff happens, like currency crises and debt defaults? 

Recently, there have been signs that Emerging Markets might be re-emerging. This year, there have been signs that the dollar’s dominance may not be so dominant. Following the Fed’s decision to cut rates by 50 basis points, China announced an intention to add significant heft to its policy of loosening monetary and fiscal conditions in the world’s second-largest economy.   

Following an extended period of being considered uninvestable, Chinese equities had a near 30% bounce in a couple of weeks. Was this just some hasty short closing or a re-awakening of the biggest emerging markets? This is currently one of the fiercest debates among global investors.

I wanted to get the perspective of an emerging markets expert, so I was delighted to have the chance to speak with Leila Kardouche of Variis Partners. Leila is a veteran of the space, and she and her small team recently launched a new London-based emerging markets partnership. This partnership fills a space left by several high-profile investors who have recently left this area due to its long period of disappointing returns. 

In this episode, we learn about the structure of Emerging Markets and how benchmark indices such as the MSCI are not very helpful in uncovering the full potential of the growth opportunities often obscured within these markets. Among other things, Leila discusses how to evaluate political risk in this widely diverse range of markets as we tour what’s hot and what’s not in an investment universe covering 85% of the world’s population.  

Critically, Leila and the Variis team focus on stock selection. Leila discusses how the challenges of growing businesses in emerging markets have produced some very successful compounding growth opportunities. Yes, these companies have outperformed strongly even within markets like China, which has been disappointing overall.

For my recent Substack covering emerging markets, please see, Are Emerging Markets Re-emerging? 

Be sure you are subscribed to In The Company of Mavericks on your podcast app to avoid missing the next and future episodes.

Made possible by Progressive Equity.  

Earlier this year, in Episode 15, I spoke to Laurence Hulse and Alyx Wood about investing in the UK equity market from the perspectives of two UK-focused professional investors with distinctive strategies. 

On October 17th, I got Laurie and Alyx back together with Simon French, Chief Economist and Head of Research at City stockbroker Panmure Gordon, to ask the question, Why Invest in the UK?      

It was a great conversation on a live topic of interest for investors and one I hope to return to in future episodes. 

Simon frames the discussion with his expertise in interpreting macroeconomic data.

Alyx adds his perspective of an investor who spends much of his time talking to international investors about investing in the UK. 

Laurie talks of what he sees as a generational opportunity to buy abnormally cheap assets at the bottom end of the UK’s “out of favour” stock market.   

As always, this is for information purposes only. This is not investment advice. 

This episode is made possible by Progressive Equity Research Ltd.

A great conversation with two Irishmen with deep domain knowledge in commercialising modern pharmaceutical products. This is a journey into the world of precision medicine and diagnostics. Padraic Dempsey, formerly CCO at Uniphar, joins me for a fascinating conversation with Peter Keeling, the founder and CEO of Diaceutics PLC. Diaceutics' data platform DXRX sits at the intersection of life science and data science as a diagnostic commercialisation tool used by the World's largest pharmaceutical and biotech companies helping patients find the right therapy. It might not sound like a big deal, but as therapies become more targeted, it is much more difficult for the right drugs to find the right patients at the right time.