Series: Expert Investors

Emerging markets (EM) have been growing rapidly in recent years. In fact, they now contribute over 50% of global growth and are expected to contribute over 60% by 2025.1 Once dominated by agriculture and cheap manufacturing, EM countries are today home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies and most innovative companies. Some of the largest e-commerce, gaming, social media and hardware manufacturers reside in emerging markets.

Julian McCormack is an investment specialist and Platinum Asset Management and we welcome him to the brand new Equity Mates podcast studio. In today's episode the lads cover all things current markets conditions, where to from here, and where Platinum are seeing market opportunities.

Niki Scevak is a co-founder and General Partner at Blackbird Ventures - an Australasian investment firm whose mission is to invest in wild hearts, with the wildest ideas, right from the beginning - and co-founder of Startmate. Niki describes the wildest idea he's ever been pitched and invested in. This is a fascinating insight into the origins of some of the biggest companies in the current stock market and how angel investment philosophy brings these companies into existence.

Daniel Gladis is the founder of Vltava fund, a value-focused, research-driven hedge fund launched in 2004. Making it the oldest hedge fund in Central Europe. We first came across Daniel through his recent shareholder letter titled ‘What oil prices are telling us’.

Gaurav Sodhi is the Deputy Head of Research at Intelligent Investor. Intelligent Investor publishes in-depth analysis and recommendations for ASX-listed companies aimed at Australian investors managing their own direct portfolio.

Kerry Craig is a Global Market Strategist at J.P. Morgan. Before working at J.P. Morgan, he worked in economic research positions in the NZ Government and in the UK Pension industry. At J.P. Morgan, he is responsible for offering thought leadership and explaining market data and trends to J.P. Morgan’s investment team and the broader investing community.

Stephen Koukoulas is one of Australia’s leading economists, previously working as Chief Advisor for Financial Markets at Australia’s Treasury, Chief Economist at Citibank and as a Senior Economic Advisor to Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

James Holt is a Director of Investment Solutions at Perpetual. Perpetual is an Australian fund manager and is one of Australia’s oldest companies - founded in 1886. Today we are speaking to James about finding those hidden investment gems amongst all of the noise at the moment - COVID, market falls, inflation & war.

Steve Baxter is an Australian investor and entrepreneur living in Brisbane. Many people will know him as one of the ‘sharks’ on Channel 10’s Shark Tank, and we’re excited to unpack that. But we are also excited to unpack his life as a serial entrepreneur, investor and mentor.

Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist and politician. A former academic, he served as the Greek Minister of Finance from January to July 2015. He is also an Australian citizen and has a unique view on the Australian financial landscape ... from a global perspective. As with most Europeans, Yanis luuuuurves to chat ... and he is certainly one of the most colourful and entertaining experts Bryce and Alec have had in studio to date. Yanis has penned several books, so if what he talks about interests you, search out some of his books online. Meanwhile ... sit back with your baklava, and enjoy this episode.

Roger Montgomery is the Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at Montgomery Investment and has been on the show several times previously. With all that is happening in the markets, we are seeing an enormous compression of P/E values and Roger explains, why this is happening and what it means, but more importantly some stocks that fit his funds buy and hold strategy. Be sure to check out Roger's book, Valuable.

The ladies this week are joined by Andrew Lockhart who has more than 30 years’ banking, funds management and financial markets experience specialising in leverage and acquisition finance as well as corporate and institutional lending. His considerable experience includes being responsible for the origination and portfolio risk management of large, diversified and complex loan portfolios including corporate restructurings. In 2019 Andrew was also appointed Chair of the Australian branch of the Alternative Credit Council, which is a sub-committee of the Alternative Investment Management Association. In this conversation they try to understand the credit market in greater detail, he gives an overview of the diversity within his fun, and discuss how the current market conditions have an effect on the portfolios he manages.

Nathan Hughes is a Portfolio Manager of Perpetual’s Ethical SRI fund and Income Share funds. He has over 17 years experience in the industry, 11 of those at Perpetual. Perpetual’s Ethical SRI fund is an actively managed fund, targeting long-term capital growth and income through investment in quality shares of Australian ethical and socially responsible companies. The fund has just celebrated its 20 year anniversary as an unlisted fund and in November last year floated on the ASX with the ticker GIVE.

Julia Lee is a returning favourite here at Equity Mates. As the Chief Investment Officer of Burman Invest, Julia has been closely watching the Australian stock market and we’re here to unpack what Julia is seeing and how she is positioning her portfolio as a result.

Jon Erlichman is a correspondent and anchor for CTV National News, Canada’s most watched nightly newscast, and a senior anchor for Bloomberg Markets. But how we know Jon is as one of the most effective finance communicators on social media - if you don’t follow him on Twitter or watch his TikTok’s - you should.

Bill Browder is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, which at one time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia, and in 1997 was the best performing fund in the world - up 238%! Bill was the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act, a law to punish Russian human rights violators, which was signed into law by President Obama in 2012 and subsequently adopted by a number of governments around the world including Canada in 2017 and the UK in 2018. He is the author of the best-selling book Red Notice: How I became Putin’s Number 1 Enemy. Given the current World events in the Ukraine, we felt it appropriate to re-share this episode recorded last May (2021).

Thomas Valenzuela is the Chief Investment Officer for Stewart Asset Management, a New York based asset manager that aims to compound client capital through a concentrated portfolio of quality US equities. Over the past 5 years, Stewart Asset Management has returned 23% per year compared to 17% for the S&P 500 total return. Thomas has worked in financial markets for over 40 years and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about the current market status to this conversation today.

Tim Samway is the Chairman of Hyperion Asset Management, an Australia-based fund manager focused on buying the highest quality companies at reasonable valuations. Hyperion manages approximately $13 billion. Hyperion’s Global Growth Companies managed fund is ASX-listed HYGG and over the past 5 years has returned 25% pa, beating the MSCI World Accumulation Index by 9% pa. We first spoke to Tim last year, in an episode titled 25 years of searching for disruptive businesses, and with the recent sell off in growth names we thought it would be a great time to get him back on the podcast.

Tobias is the portfolio manager of Acquirers Funds, including the NYSE listed ETF Acquirers Deep Value, ticker code DEEP, and the author of multiple books including Deep Value and The Acquirers Multiple. Tobias is an Australian now based in the United States and is our go-to expert when it comes to value investing. Given the recent sell off in high growth, largely unprofitable companies, Bryce & Alec thought it would be interesting to check in with Tobias and hear his take on the market.

Twelve months ago, TDM published a memo on the macro environment, predicting that the ‘mid-pandemic world of cheap money and crazy valuations’ would end up on the list of macro moments like the tech bubble, global financial crisis and European debt crisis. The memo warned that you can’t just own an amazing business regardless of valuation. Now, twelve months later, TDM have published a follow up memo. And we have one of the memo’s authors, Andy Simon, joining us to discuss it today. Andy Simon is a member of the investment team at TDM Growth Partners. TDM is a private investment firm that was founded in 2004 and has compounded client capital at over 25% per annum for 17 years.

There’s been a lot of buzz around SPAC's - why are they so popular? You may have heard the term SPAC, but be unfamiliar with what exactly a SPAC is. In today’s episode Bryce & Alec are joined by Enrique Klix, who is the founder & CEO of Integral Acquisition Corp, a NASDAQ-listed SPAC (NASDAQ: INTE) Discover the mechanics of a SPAC, how these blank cheque companies work. What a SPAC IPO versus a traditional IPO looks like. What key considerations you should research before choosing to go the SPAC route.

In today’s episode Bryce & Alec are joined by Mark Lamonica from Morningstar. They discuss Mark's views on earnings season here on the ASX, and the similarities with the U.S. They look at the broader market and what Mark is seeing during this crazy start to 2022. Then they unpack a few individual companies that have recently been analysed by Morningstar, namely; Newscorp, Ansell and ARB Group. Mark finishes with a very bold and controversial prediction for 2022. Here at Equity Mates, we wanna get better every year. So each year we have our Community Survey. It's a way for us to better understand who you are, and what content you'd like us to create more of across all our podcast channels to help you on your investing journey. It takes about 15 minutes to complete, and as an incentive for completing the Community Survey, you'll go in the draw to win $500 bucks! For terms and conditions click here

Nick Griffin is the founding partner & Chief Investment Officer at Munro Partners. James Tsinidis is a partner & Portfolio Manager at Munro Partners. Together they are here to talk about the investment case for climate. Munro has built a reputation for investing on the forefront of big technological changes. In 2021, global investment in the transition to low-carbon energy broke $500 billion and was more than twice the 2010 total. Between now and 2050, Munro expects over $30 trillion in investment. Is this just a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ scenario? The boys at Munro think 'not'.

Andrew Brown is back to give us his view on the investing year ahead and his thoughts on interest rates and inflation in 2022. Andrew's conclusion: focus on earnings growth. Where earnings growth goes, so does the market. Given all the uncertainties, he suspects a tougher environment, and one where stock picking, not 'themes' will be more decisive.