WEALTH MANAGER PROFILE SIMON JAMES
BIOGRAPHY
SIMON JAMES, FOUNDING
PARTNER, GORE BROWNE
INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT
James chairs Gore Browne’s
investment committee. He is
engaged mainly in researching
investment opportunities and
oversees investment strategy
and corporate strategy. He has
previously managed money for
private clients, pension funds,
unit trusts and foreign
institutions, specialising first
in US and then global equities.
Having started his career
at Grieveson Grant in 1980,
during the ’90s he worked at
F&C, where he was ultimately
managing director for its global
retail business. He then spent
two years in Munich at F&C’s
owner, HypoVereinsbank,
as a strategic planner for the
investment and private client
businesses of the bank.
BY GARY CORCORAN
As a wealth management
firm, Gore Browne has all
the hallmarks of an oldfashioned
City of London
institution yet its two offices
are in very different
locations, in different parts
of the country.
One of its four founding
partners, the eponymous
Bertie Gore Browne is exarmy.
He is ex-Cazenove.
He is a former private
client stockbroker. He has
worked in Salisbury since
1987.
Simon James, another
founding partner, chair of
the investment advisory
committee and my interviewee,
has run US and
global equity funds. He
is ex-F&C having run its
global retail business. He is
a former strategy man for
HypoVereinsbank, F&C’s
one-time largest shareholder,
in Munich. He has
worked in Salisbury for
Gore Browne since 2004
when it was set up.
The other two founders
are Lizzie Pollard who
is ex-Brewin Dolphin in
the City and ex-Cazenove
in Salisbury, and
Examples of holdings
John MacMahon who has
worked for an Australian
and New Zealand bank in
London and Tokyo. He has
run Indian family money
worldwide from London.
He has worked in Latin
America and the US. He
was educated in Scotland.
These different skills,
Asset class Investment
Fixed income � Schroder Emerging Debt Absolute Return
� M&G Optimal Income
UK equities � BAT, Unilever, Glaxo, Vodafone
� Troy Trojan Income
General international � Veritas Global Equity Income
� Murray International
Global themes � Eclectica Agriculture
� Martin Currie Global Energy
Infrastructure � International Public Partnerships
� Kier Group
Hedge funds � Culross Global Arbitrage
� BH Macro
Private equity � Electra
� Princess Private Equity
Property � Primary Health Properties
� Hansteen
Source: Gore Browne IM
backgrounds, personalities
and experiences are
all brought together in a
shared ethos of how they
would like to run money.
“The first of these,”
James explains, “is every
single private client is different
to the next. We do
not hold with the economies
of scale kind of private
banking, or the private
client discretionary
management model that
says you have relationship
managers then someone
else who never ever gets
close to the client who
chooses all the investments
for them. We think it is
inappropriate.”
Instead, Gore Browne
runs client portfolios
depending on individual
needs, tax positions,
income requirements and
other family holdings.
“We want everything to
be as transparent as possible,
which means unlike
most of our peers we put
our performance track
record on our website; we
Gore Brown Investment Ma
than a decade old and is sti
to some wealth managemen
brought together a unique g
professionals who manage
their own particular ethos
A differe
of doing
put our fee levels on our
website; we charge fees
and do not charge anything
else,” he adds. “It
is laughable that people
like Brewins think they
are market-leading at the
moment.”
l Size matters
One competitive advantage
Gore Browne has
right now is its size. The
founding partners set up
in 2004 and started to run
money in the following
year, for clients who were
largely those of Bertie Gore
Browne and Pollard. They
ran about £20m of assets
under management at the
end of year one.
There are now nine
investment professionals,
all principals – James
hopes to hire an assistant
in the coming six months
– who look after 350 clients
and £130m in assets
from offices in Salisbury
and Harrogate.
Each year of business
18 PORTFOLIO ADVISER [www.portfolio-adviser.com] JANUARY 2012
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