One of the most enjoyable elements of my job is travelling to countries where the companies we invest in are based. Travel is an important part of our fund’s bottom-up investment process because we need to build on-the-ground knowledge of the companies we invest in to avoid making errors that can cost our clients money. By far the best way of doing this is to meet company management at their head offices (as opposed to meeting them at a conference) in-country, because one can monopolise the full time allotted to you with them and learn softer details about their respective companies. We recently completed a trip to the US west coast, with Silicon Valley companies demanding the bulk of our attention. The electric pace of technological advancement in this region highlighted some hard truths regarding the shortcomings of our own local industries and broader economy. In a world that is progressing away from agriculture and manufacturing towards one where it is increasingly the owners of...
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