Goodhart Expands Global Equity Team
Gary Tuffield
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Goodhart Expands Global Equity Team with Russell Champion and Andrew Heap Joining in Q1 2025.
LONDON, November 2024 – Goodhart Partners LLP (Goodhart) announced today that Russell Champion is joining its global equity team to launch a global small cap strategy and lead a global innovation capability. Russell will be joined by Andrew Heap and other investment team members, who will be announced in the coming weeks.
Gary Tuffield, Partner at Goodhart comments “the investment landscape has shifted as interest rates have normalized. Returns are going to be much harder to come by and the inflation genie is well and truly out of the bottle, creating a myriad of issues for policy makers, asset owners and asset management groups.
“Abnormally low interest rates have propelled a narrow band of large cap companies to extreme valuations leading to levels of market concentration that have never been seen before” says Tuffield. “They have also allowed opportunistic private capital to infiltrate every avenue of financial services creating a self perpetuating feedback loop where persistent demand for cheap beta keeps adding fuel to the ‘magnificent’ fire”, suggesting that “larger asset pools need scale, and as we know; scale is the enemy of active fund management”.
Tuffield asserts “asset management groups have had no choice but to ‘quasi’ index their active funds or abandon active completely”. He firmly believes however, there is an opportunity for discerning boutiques as the behemoths have compromised their ability to invest in smaller capitalized companies and will severely underperform when the tide turns, commenting “there just isn’t the volume or capacity for larger managers to meaningfully participate which is creating some incredible valuation opportunities”. He adds “historically elevated levels of high market concentration have, consistently, been followed by long periods of small cap outperformance.
“At Goodhart we see a significant gap in the market for a new type of global equity boutique – one which has a flexible investment remit, is forward-looking and willing to predict change, where fundamental business analysis is a core skillset” says Tuffield, who continues “these ingredients not only bind our investment team, and the individuals that are joining us, but lend themselves to being able to navigate shorter market cycles.
“Russell exhibits all those characteristics and has an unparalleled insight in to mid and small sized technology companies, having co-founded one of the UK’s first hosting companies in the mid 1990’s” says Tuffield, adding “Russell’s 25-year track record in identifying the next generation of global winners fits perfectly with our proposed global small cap and global innovation strategies that we intend to launch early next year”.
Russell Champion comments “Disruption and change are constant in the modern economy. I want to focus on the sectors where innovation will have a positive financial impact. Demographics aren’t improving, and the labour force is shrinking; innovation is the only way to combat this problem while improving living standards”. Champion says “There is a lot of hype around AI, but a myriad of other technologies have the power to transform markets as well. I believe that understanding these technological shifts will be important in generating market leading returns. I’m excited to be joining Goodhart as we build out its fundamental global equity business”.
Russell started his career at Fidelity in 2005 as a Technology analyst before joining Pensato Capital, with Graham Clapp, in 2008 to cover a range of innovative sectors including healthcare and communications across long-only and long-short funds. Russell most recently worked with Carlos Moreno at Premier Miton on the award-winning European Opportunities Fund, as a Portfolio Manager.
Andrew Heap will be joining Russell as an Assistant Portfolio Manager at Goodhart. Andrew was most recently at Pie Funds where he was responsible for conducting research on global equities with a focus on US Small Cap companies. Andrew previously worked with Russell at Redwheel and Pensato.
Tuffield concludes “We are really excited about the quality of investors that are joining Goodhart, the opportunity in small caps, and the differentiated global equity propositions that we are bringing to the market in 2025”.
About Goodhart Partners LLP
Founded in 2009, Goodhart Partners is a London-based independent boutique asset manager that offers a range of strongly differentiated investment strategies with a focus on public markets. Goodhart Partners holds a minority stake in Asset Value Investors (AVI), a distinctive long only, value approach focused on good quality, neglected securities trading at a discount to their NAV. AVI manage £1.8bn in AUM.
In 2023, Goodhart announced a strategic relationship with Global Opportunities Trust plc. ("GOT") through which Goodhart introduces opportunities in the private markets to GOT. As part of this strategic relationship, Goodhart also provides investment sub-advisory services to assist GOT in managing a global listed equities mandate.
Goodhart is authorised and regulated by the FCA.
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The opinions and views expressed in this document are those of James Sym and are based on the information available at the time of publication. These opinions are for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice.
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