FUND MANAGER PROFILE ANTHONY BOLTON
BIOGRAPHY
Prior to joining Fidelity,
Anthony Bolton was a fund
manager at Schlesinger
Investment Management
Services (1976 to 1979) and
an investment analyst at
Keyser Ullmann between 1971
and 1976.
He joined Fidelity on the
launch of its first UK funds 30
years ago and was manager of
the Fidelity Special Situations
Fund from December 1979
until the end of 2007. He also
managed Fidelity Special
Values between 1994 and
2007, the Fidelity European
Fund (1985 to 2003), the
Fidelity European Growth Fund
(1990 to 2003) and Fidelity
European Values Plc (1991 to
2001).
He stepped down from
day-to-day portfolio
management at the end of
2007 and took up a full-time
mentoring role as well as
having oversight of the firm’s
investment management
process.
As he announced last year,
he is about to return to fund
management by relocating to
Hong Kong and running the
Fidelity China Special
Situations Fund.
You can have a
great business today
and tomorrow it will
be a terrible business
if they change the
rules. That is a risk
and you have to be
aware of it
“
”
will be soon.
“A lot of work on emerging
markets suggests there
is a sweet spot in their
growth, particularly the
domestic growth of the
economy. The sweet spot
seems to be about $4,000
GDP per capita to $10,000.
It is what Taiwan, Korea
and others went through
20 or 30 years ago, and
Japan went through it
before that, when you get
an acceleration of domestic
growth because you are
creating a big middle class
who start to spend.
“China has just gone
into that and we have
never seen a country of its
size [a population of 1.3
billion] going through this
S-curve, and that is pretty
exciting.”
l A road less travelled
Another attraction for
Bolton is China being “less
well-trodden over by investors”
compared to the
“markets I have come from
today where there are
thousands of people looking
to find anomalies.”
But he readily admits
there will be stark differences
in his new stockpicking
environment.
Of some company meetings
he says: “The better
companies are up there
with the UK and European
ones; the worst ones are a
long way behind. In terms
of the quality of information,
some is good quality,
some is risky.” He added:
“Some meetings I come
out of thinking they are
saying a party line and I
don’t think they really
believe it.”
Given he has over 30
years of experience meeting
companies all over the
world, he counters this
with the comment that,
even with accountants and
independent directors, if
the management of a
Western company wants to
pull the wool over the eyes
of its investors it will find a
way of doing so.
A potential thorn in
Bolton’s side is the influence
of China’s government
on private sector
business given it is obviously
a command and control
economy where, as
Bolton explains: “You can
have a great business today
and tomorrow it will be a
terrible business if they
change the rules. That is a
risk and you have to be
aware of it.”
l Who can you trust?
A year ago, Bolton would
not have invested in stateowned
companies though
he has since changed his
view thanks to colleagues
in Hong Kong arguing with
him that he had too black
and white a view of the
world.
“The thing we talked
about is often you get
people who are politically
very ambitious and running
a state-owned enterprise
is a stepping stone
for them to go back into
politics and on to bigger
things. It is a proving
ground and they want to
show a record. I am not
saying there aren’t big risks
and in time people will tell
you something that isn’t a
reality,” he says.
“Knowing who to trust
in China is going to be a
key part of our job, so I am
going to use the team and
their contacts and I am
going to cross-check different
things that we have.
“I am not a Mandarin
speaker and I have no
intention of being a
Mandarin speaker, so I am
going to use the team to
help me with the
nuances.”
One of this team is
likely to take over from
Bolton. “As I got very
involved in the handover
of all the funds I have run
over the years, I have
picked my successor. Part
of my role will be picking
my successor on this fund
and I think the best way to
work out who the best
person will be is to work
with them. After a year or
so I will start to have views
about who I think the best
person is to take over from
me,” he said.
“When I have been
there for a year I will have
a good view if my stay is
only two years or... Most
people say the standard
thing is that those who go
to Hong Kong stay longer
than they initially say. But
most people who go are
younger than I am.”
36 PORTFOLIO ADVISER [www.portfolio-adviser.com] MARCH 2010
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