Its April 2006. Finally, after 8 years of hard graft, I have the chance to manage money. Ever since I lived in Hong Kong in 1998, during the Asian Financial Crisis, I have wanted to be in finance. Getting to this point needed me to go back to University for a year, and then get through the graduate recruitment process for UBS. Then was two years of graduate training in Sydney, and then four years of being an analyst at GAM in London.
I remember thinking one day, it was pointless, I was never going to get a chance to manage money, when my phone rang, and a head-hunter called and asked if I wanted to manage an emerging market hedge fund. Of course I did, and after serving my gardening leave where I got married and finished a marathon, I was sitting at my desk, and wondering how exactly I get started. My new boss, John Horseman, calls me over and says: “Paper portfolios are pointless. Let’s get you trading real money.”
John gives me USD 20 million to manage out of his big fund, which is about USD 1 billion at the time. This is for emerging markets. I say to John: “I think it’s quite late in the cycle for emerging markets. How much juice do you think is left?” And he says: “Don’t worry about it. Just go for it.”
