A VIEW FROM
THE TOP
Adrian Fitzpatrick, former head of dealing at buy-side house Kames Capital
A
fter 42 years in the industry, Adrian Fitzpatrick, former head of
dealing at buy-side house Kames Capital, retired in September
2016. A stalwart champion of the long-only institutional
investment manager, Fitzpatrick started his career as an office
junior at the age of 17 – an experience that he has not forgotten, and
one which helped to shape his approach over the years.
“I’ve been incredibly fortunate and I am glad to have worked in the
industry, I couldn’t have asked for better," he said. "There’s a great
saying, be nice to people on the way up because you meet them
again on the way down. I think that’s very true. I never forgot where
I came from as office junior and mail boy. I’ve always made the
effort to speak to everyone – and I think that’s important. We as an
industry are all in th is together, and we need to listen and talk to
each other.”
Based in Edinburgh, Kames Capital currently manages £51.3 billion on
behalf of global clients. The company can trace its history back to 1831,
with the formation of Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Society. From
2001 to 2011, it was known as Aegon Asset Management. In 2011, it was
renamed to Kames, a reference to the 18th century Scottish philosopher
Lord Kames and also the name of a river in Argyll and Bute on the west
coast of Scotland, to better reflect the firm’s Scottish heritage.
Fitzpatrick has always spoken honestly about his opinion on issues
such as the rise of high-frequency trading – this editor remembers an
interview some years ago, where Adrian described HFTs as “vultures”. It
was a colourful description that made a big impact and has remained on
this editor’s mind ever since. Now though, there are different things to
think about; these include TCA (it’s an Americanisation that encourages
mediocrity unless it is real time), payments for execution and research
(could the market be moving to an execution-only commissions model?)
and regulation (should the markets be run by regulators? Probably
not). Perhaps the most urgent question now though is the changing
relationship between the buy side and the sell side.
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www.buysideintel.com
December 2016