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Godsend”. The US operation was
recently bolstered by the acqui-
sition of MassMutual-subsidiary
OppenheimerFunds for $5.7bn in
October 2018, which expanded the
firm’s overall assets under man-
agement to around $1.2 trillion.
The regional Invesco trading
teams are siloed from each other
in the sense of their geographic
trading responsibilities, operating
in a “three-pronged” approach
that makes full use of its quanti-
tative team which Miller says is
utilised to ever-greater degrees:
“We’re working on ever-more in-
depth reports, post-trade reports,
which we analyse as a team; that
can only serve to make the whole
operation more efficient,” he says.
“We are the eyes and ears of the market. When it comes down to it, we’re
not just traders – although 90% of what we do is trading – but a certain
amount of what we do provides market colour and some advice, and we do
feed into the investment process.”
“By staying ahead of the curve we
are improving outcomes for cli-
ents. That’s the high, overarching
intention. We want to do the best
trades, we want to continue to
be successful, in terms of trading
quality analysis, as we can.”
But no firm on the buy-side can
achieve best execution and the
highest quality trades without its
counterparties on the sell-side,
and Miller has observed a huge
shift in the relationship between
the two sides of the trading world
throughout his career, having been
on both sides of that equation. He
observes that dynamic as having
become more of a partnership
than previously, with Invesco
working with an extensive list of
investment banks and brokers, and
certain players making their bal-
ance sheets available to the firm.
40 // TheTrade // Winter 2019
As he acknowledges, Miller doesn’t change job roles
very often, having worked for just three organisations
across his entire career in the industry, however he
says there has been a great deal of variety throughout
and each move felt like it was a progressive step with
a reason behind it.
From the open-cry trading floor of the capital in the
early 1980’s through an upstart 90’s exchange that
sought to introduce new and disruptive ideas to the
marketplace, to the more sedate setting of Oxford-
shire with Invesco, Miller says he wouldn’t have
done it any differently, summarising the best part of
a 40-year career in finance in typically understated
fashion.
“There are certain trading decisions I would have
made differently, or I might have gone to that firm
rather than that firm, but I think looking back at the
whole 38 years, I think the progression has been pret-
ty satisfactory. I don’t have to worry about commut-
ing anymore, so it’s a pleasure to go to London when
I do, which is rare,” before concluding with a smile,
and perhaps only half-jokingly, that he only travels to
London now to collect awards.