hi everyone today we have the great pleasure of having Peter Harrison on the show.

Peter is the CEO of schroers one of the biggest asset managers in Europe and amazingly shos has been in business for nearly or for roughly 200 years.

Peter great to have you here thank you great question.

Peter: it's also quite fun because schroers is one of the longest standing Partners we have in the fund in the Norwegian someone wealth fund um we have relationships going back to you know roughly 25 years yeah yeah nice is a great privilege to run money for you.

only 45 out of 1 million companies exist for 100 years and you've been doing it for 200 years what's the what's the trick.

Peter: so I think the the key is committed ownership we've got a family backing who takes a 20year view of where we need to go and and and because of that the business has changed and evolved and the we've been in lots of different businesses in the finance sector throughout that time but we've continued to change and I think that's only possible if you've got a commit long-term ownership structure which allows that change.

and and because of that the business has changed and evolved and the we've been in lots of different businesses in the finance sector throughout that time but we've continued to change and I think that's only possible if you've got a commit long-term ownership structure which allows that change.

if we do the last 10 years what are the biggest changes you've seen in Investment Management.

Peter: huge yeah.

Peter: so massive growth of passive management huge growth towards privates um a collapse in fees so just to for the for the listeners uh private is like private Equity passive is index funds.

absolutely and and and private debt the world the world is moving away from public companies towards private companies.

um a a revolution in governance huge agenda on climate um collapse in fees so wholesale change the industry is going through a major disruption.

a while back there were lots of English companies in this industry you know really really Grand names doing very well huge tradition and then the Americans came and ate your lunch.

Peter: so look I think the two things the capital markets moved towards America that was the first thing and they started with a huge domestic bias.

but I don't think the UK companies evolved and and part of what we've been in the business of is trying to change the business to where the fast flowing water is.

today there's very very different markets and and if you don't change you're not going to be in the fast flowing water.

why are the Americans doing better.

Peter: well I think I think the size of the domestic Market makes it able to able to create scale and this is a scale business at the end of the day.

you you need to invest hugely in Tech in data and and if you don't if you if you you cannot shrink to grow.

and I think too many companies s they saw the disruption and they thought actually we're going to shrink we're going to try and cut costs we took the view we need to invest to grow and it's it was a different strategy but it's I think the only way through it.

and the Americans being American they tend to want to invest to grow.

but it's not only the asset management it's also the banks like the merging Banks.

Peter: absolutely right absolutely right.

but are the Americans working harder are they clever what is it.

Peter: no no they're not they're not working hard and they're not clever but they do have some innate advantages of of scale to start with.

they had more partnership type structures which I think is is is is a very good structure in an asset management business um because you're sharing 100% % of the pie with with people in the business rather than a portion of the pie.

and I think we've also seen this very big change of the growth of privates and and in private markets the bigger you are the bigger the mode.

are you sure they're not working harder.

Peter: so I heard a story which I actually think may be true uh when the Americans came to to London they had the widest margin and the most profitable day on part of the week on Friday morning because the English guys had been out drinking on Thursday night.

and so they were just wider spreads less Keen competition and the American guys were just like in there Friday morning bang hitting it.

I don't know if I walk around this building this is this this place is full so I can only speak for here but but then we've been successful during that period yeah.

what's been the most important things that schroers have done lately.

Peter: we've pivoted towards privates we've pivoted towards wealth we've spent a lot on technology we've spent a lot on uh sustainability and what that means um and I'm sure we should talk more about that.

but I for me the ability to move and innov and being being really tough on ourselves to change and I think that that requires cultural change and it requires new capabilities.

so so it's required a lot of change during the last 10 years.

how does the kind of the decline of the UK Capital Market play in here.

Peter: so if you go back go back 15 years the UK has one of the largest pools of domestic Savings in the world yeah.

and we regulated that out of existence so it basically bought government bonds and and stop taking risk.

and we put consumer protection at the center and that Shrunk the UK as as an equity Market considerably saw huge outflows over the last 15 years.

and then we put in a corporate governance code which said conflict between shareholders and companies is a good thing and everything every League table was the more times you vote against management the better.

and those two things were were unhelpful for listings they were unhelpful for thriving domestic Capital.

those are now changing and people are are going back towards more risk- taking they're going back to a more constructive environment.

so the the listed Market has has struggled I think what's happened at the same time is London has boomed with private markets with hedge funds um as a center for you know people coming together.

we've got some fantastic Life Sciences the problem is it's being it's foreign Capital which is driving those businesses not domestic Capital.

so the returns are not going to UK Savers and I think as a country that's a big problem.

but it's also probably the constituent is of of the stock markets right so um uh the US market has compounded at roughly twice the rate of Europe over the last 10 years of course due to a lot of you know much more TCH companies in in the UK more mining oil.

yeah we've got the companies of 100 years ago and and they're not the companies that that are driving the growth of the future.

and I think creating a listings environment where people want to and creating an environment where where management want to be listed in London has been a big part of the change which has been going on over the last few years to say say this this is unacceptable you cannot have your best companies going and listing overseas.

how important is the salaries and board salar salaries.

Peter: a lot more scrutiny in the UK a huge amount of scrutiny.

I think it's this notion that there's a conflict between shareholders and management and for me the best businesses are grown by by great management but good alignment with shareholders.

and the more Agency problems you get the the more people don't aim at creating great businesses and I think that's that's been part of the UK problem.

what does brexit do to this.

Peter: well breakfast was just it undermined two things it undermined confidence in the UK as a place to make long-term decisions and it created two or three years of complete Hiatus.

and then you after brexit you had Boris government Boris Johnson's government you had a whole set of challenges around LZ trust's budget and the guilts crisis.

all of a sudden the UK as a serious counterpart and a place to invest started to decline we've started to see that correct but but say scars take a while to heal now um.

the effort to reboot the pensions industry to get better outcome for pensioners how is that going so because you've been part of some of these commit.

Peter: it's been it's a big big effort to change I think we've we've we've done a couple of things we've changed all the listing rules and changed a lot of the the structural stuff.

you're about to see a big set of changes come through in the corporate governance environment and a return to complier explain as a as a way of how do you you know if a company doesn't follow the rules can do they get the opportunity to explain why they're doing it differently.

and I think that that's going to come through helpfully um.

and you're getting a freeing up of a lot of the capital which is previously just put into you know risk minimization.

we have in the UK 300 billion in tax advantage cash savings and virtually no Financial advice everybody sits in cash rather than taking risk.

well if you don't take risk you don't earn return and that's the UK's problem we put consumer protection right at the center and killed risk taking.

is there um a danger that in order to attract companies you loosen up on the rules and regulations to the extent that it becomes you know uh Wild West.

Peter: well that's that's the argument that a lot of people will make the the other question is if you take no risk you don't get a return.

and so I I think the the answer is you you have a set of rules and if companies abide by those rules they can list in the UK and then it's for active managers to choose which they want to own and which they don't want to own.

and and I think the UK has always been good at active risk- taking and I think you slightly careful that you don't set a set of rules which is so prohibitive that no one wants to be here.

and that's where we were 5 years ago that that's changed.

do we need a unified European Equity Capital Market.

Peter: yeah.

and will will we get it.

Peter: no.

why not.

Peter: too politically difficult there's two there's too much stress within the European experiment to see that that convergence come together.

I mean if if we had it what would you do.

Peter: well I think I think you create a a big enough single Capital Market that it starts to be competitive against the US.

the great the the the challenge of the last few years has been that we used to have London New York and one or two other markets now there are probably 15 challenges to be a Global Financial market.

and Europe needs to act get it act together and and act its size but it's so fragmented and there's so many so many bits of Arbitrage.

I mean if we just take we had a set of rules that came out called mhid which was a um sounds really geeky but actually there was a really really pernicious changes that took place in the way a lot of research was done.

and but every country interpreted them differently and as a result of that you got more fragmentation and you get ultimately atomization and the US will carry on growing.

and so me it was an effort to get uh the clients to pay separately for research.

but that was one part of it yeah it also was hundreds of thousands of pages of reporting Etc which was you know sits in a vault somewhere no idea whatever happens to it.

from an asset uh management point of view are you happy with the government so far.

Peter: I think they've picked up the battern of needing to change and understanding that growth is important and understanding the environment for growth and an industrial strategy is important.

so that bit that bit seems to be coming through but it's very early days the government is tough and it's really tough when there's no money and in the UK there is no money.

and and that's going to you know how do you balance growth and higher taxes.

you mentioned the private Market or you know private equity and so on how uh what kind of role is that going to play for individuals who save for retirement.

Peter: I think it needs to play a much bigger role.

so if why.

Peter: well because a lot of the a lot of the future is around how we fund climate transition how we fund synthetic biology how we fund AI.

public markets are not naturally good at A disruption and B funding change.

so you're going to see that Innovation come from private markets and if we don't if we don't Embrace that and we and we and we hide in those companies of 100 years ago those new returns and that disruption will only be a cost to end Savers rather than a benefit to them.

so I I think there's a there is a big change required I mean public markets are shrinking really quickly the number of companies that are D listing is down what 40% over 20 years.

the stock in trade of a traditional public markets investor you know your clients our clients is shrinking the availability of alpha is shrinking the ability to outperform markets.

so for me those are those are those are really big issues that as the Frog quietly boils in the pan they don't get talked about enough.

and I think one of the big changes we're going to see is Is wealth markets which don't traditionally have big exposure to private markets are going to move much more into priv.

and you're seeing it in the states you're seeing it biggest families I mean you cater for private Equity you also cater for wealth management right.

Peter: yeah.

so this is a relatively new thing for you.

Peter: yeah in the last we've we've done wealth management for many years we've we've made it a lot bigger over the last 10 years and we've doubled the size of the company and and that's mainly been through growing our privates business and growing our wealth business.

AI how is that going to change the way you do things.

Peter: everything.

in what ways.

Peter: everything well I think it fundamentally changes the landscape of the companies we invest in.

in the very short term we will spend a lot of time trying to do things better in the probably far more quickly than we realize.

we will find we do things very very very differently and the moment we're all thinking about the better bit but actually the real change will come from when we do it differently.

so I think in the first place we'll see a major changes in wealth because my sense is that people will turn to their beautiful AI assistant who will become who will know them better than anybody and ask them for wealth advice in way that they currently ask people.

and I I don't believe our portfolio managers are in different from any other industry if we can if if AI is helping understand the human genome back backwards the microbiome backwards it can certainly help you make become a better investor.

and I think it's beholden on us to make sure those tools and that data is in front of our portfolio managers when they make decisions.

moving on to investment philosophy is there a Schroeder way of running money.

Peter: no there is a schroer set of philosophy about how you create great teams and how you take risk um.

but our philosophy is you create individual markets require different different treatment.

so if you're investing in China you need a different approach but you almost certainly will have a relatively small team with great tools you'll be led by by brilliant people you'll grow people internally rather than try and hire them in because it's so now now you are on how to build good teams how to build good teams okay.

now you are on how to build good teams how to build good teams okay let's do that.

Peter: so how do you build good teams first thing you you need brilliant leaders of those teams you need to give them great tools they need to be the right size they need to be near their local markets um.

and you need to give them space to get things wrong because great investors don't get it right every single day then they might be wrong for three or four years at a time time and you've got to be willing to put your arms around them and support them.

but the critical thing is you understand the risk they take and they're good Risk Takers and you and you got your head around who is managing their way through that and the path dependency of returns.

so we are invested with some some of your best teams right what would you say they have in common what do great teams have in common.

Peter: huge consistency of people MH openness to external thinking they they look out they don't look in and they're great Risk Takers.

what is a great risk taker.

Peter: they understand they understand the risk reward equations and they understand when they change and they understand why they've been wrong.

in a way that is you you can be wrong in China because state owned Enterprises are doing something because some government stimulus or you can be wrong because you've just picked the wrong company or or you've or you've got a the company you have the motors disappeared and you end up clinging on to it for too long.

if you you need to understand the price action and how the business is changing and be willing to change and some people get stuck others move.

and it's the ones that move and are able to adapt and and hold on to a consistent philosophy and and so so often you see people wavering and if you see people wavering the chances are they won't be able to navigate through long-term change.

one of the pros and cons of not having one way of running Capital because um Fidelity I guess got you know one way of running you know Capital uh cap the capital has got one way running Capital.

Peter: well capital's got it's got several ways of running Capital because they give it to lots of individual teams and then they're very clever of the way they aggregate it up.

but I think the for me it's the accountability so you you've got that ability to look at a team and say our oil price forecast doesn't come from one Central person who and then put it into the whole system and when it goes wrong blows up the whole system.

so it creates a business resilience that is stronger but I think that accountability of a team who is job it is and they can see everyone in the team they all know know who's accountable for what.

when you're trying to do that at an organizational scale it's really hard to hold that accountability in alignment for long periods of time particularly through change.

and what you tend to see is those companies that have a whole organization investment process can go through long downward spirals because the organization starts to question its own raise on debt.

and I I think in a world where we need to be very adaptive the ability to have small teams adapting is a lot stronger.

now you've got You' got to give them great tools you've got to give them great data.

what are great tools.

Peter: well I so for me look when I when I first joined this industry 35 years ago our competitive Advantage was being able to key in 10 years of reporting accounts into um a spreadsheet to build a two-year earnings model right yeah.

that does that doesn't win anymore does today that takes about two seconds to do that.

but there is a huge amount of unstructured data out there telling us what's going on in businesses what companies are really doing what the supply chains look like.

that that unstructured data takes a lot of getting and processing and and bringing out those those are the sorts of things I mean by great tools.

the the the the the joke I always have is that Bloomberg has um something like a 100,000 functions and a great portfolio manager might use 30 of them and that's not that's not the right answer.

how do you get the right information in front of your investors so they make great decisions.

how do you train people.

Peter: you grow them I think we're in apprenticeship business and and that requires a lot of a lot of mentorship it requires a a great recruitment process at the beginning and it requires the ability to move people through a system and gradually give them um accountability.

so when I joined as a graduate trainee you spent time you know I spent a lot of time as an engineering analyst then I could go on and do another industry and bit by bit you learn your craft.

I I'm not a great believer that we are good at bringing in rock stars from the outside there are businesses that do that incredibly well you know the citadels and millenniums do that that's not us.

let's move on to your leadership what's been the main management lessons for you as you have moved from being an investor to becoming the CEO.

Peter: it's tough the best job in our industry is being an investor right so so you know that's that's that's the first hard bit.

and you have this this crisis moment where you don't turn on your Bloomberg in the morning you turn on your you turn on your emails.

were you a good investor.

Peter: no not not good enough and it was realization I wasn't a good enough investor.

is it the pie of principal you rise to your own level of incompetence in a hierarchy or something like that.

Peter: um so that so the the first the first thing was was get getting over being an investor and not trying to drive from the back seat.

um the second was understanding what sort of leader I was because you don't really know that when you start on the management journey.

and what kind of leader are you.

Peter: well I I've discovered that I'm I'm a connecting with the organization and trying to drive the heart of the organization as much as the minds of the organization has been ended up being being the style that that I've done.

I'm passionate about Innovation I'm I spent my time paid my way through University Writing code so I'm a bit of a geek.

so for me the the getting the Innovation being really consistent about your strategic Vision just being resilient and not be banged off course um but making sure you take the organization with you.

because the problem in most businesses is the huge layers of permafrost that don't think change has got anything to do with them.

and how do you bring those people through and and create those new capabilities.

how do you melt permafrost.

Peter: I think culture change the so so great great teams right is a difference between a between a good company and a great company and and and great leaders within those teams will will drive that change.

but you need to shine daylight into dark Corners it's the best disinfectant and how do you do that.

part of it is creating an open an honest environment but so you know we there's two let's say let's say we make an error on a client account right there's two ways of two ways of responding that.

first is the obvious way which is had you learn from it and the second way is is finger pointing and all the rest of it.

if you create the environment which says we want to learn from this people start most people want to come to work to learn.

and I think you've got to create that learning environment and that trusting environment and once you do that we're not a particularly big company we're 6,000 people.

we we can be trusted 700 so we we think you look you look heck of a lot you know have you been bold enough.

Peter: so I if I look back what's the thing I wish I'd done more of is be more bold.

and in what ways should you have been more bold.

Peter: so we should have done more private markets earlier because compounding up we should have probably been more willing to acquire more teams and not do as much organically um.

and I think I look back the things.

but you have acquired quite a lot.

Peter: we have acquired quite a lot but we acquired small because I didn't want to destroy the culture yeah.

and so for me because the challenge I think is that public market culture and private Market culture are really different and can you get them to coexist in the same organization successfully is is hard.

and that was the thing which you've seen ruin many companies and I so I said we're going to we're going to work really hard at this but we're going to go slowly.

with hindsight the disruption in our industry has been way quicker yeah than anyone thought yeah.

well uh one of the things you bought was part of Casino which is where I started absolutely I started my my my career in 20 well you bought it in 2013 part of it uh and that's where I started straight after school.

so um and that's doing pretty well right.

Peter: it's it's it's on fire it's growing it's probably the fastest growing wealth business in the UK it's it's got and it's got all the characteristics it's got strong culture it's got great investment performance and it cares deeply about its clients.

and if you if you have those three things actually businesses will carry on performing for very long periods of time.

do you still have the queen as a client.

Peter: I couldn't possibly comment.

uh in in a short period of time you will uh pass uh you know the bet on to Richard Oldfield do you think that'd be difficult.

Peter: very hard.

why.

Peter: I've been in this industry 35 years I started here as a graduate trainer I might have gone elsewhere but I I will miss it's a very special company and I will miss it massively.

and you feel a great sense of indebtedness to being it's a privilege to run a company that you start start your career in.

now if if I were to um play Devil's Advocate a tiny bit here so um whilst you being the CEO aset N Management have grown you know a lot right more than 100% but uh fees generally come down right uh because there's more well there's generally pressure on fees costs gone up profits down and the market capitalization is is down compared to when you started just how do you how do you look at these various things.

uh because there's more well there's generally pressure on fees costs gone up profits down and the market capitalization is is down compared to when you started just how do you how do you look at these various things.

Peter: so we we're crossing so we started with a traditional equities business which has gone through huge disruption and and everybody who had a traditional equities business 10 years ago has seen a huge change and many of those businesses are down 90% or actually don't exist anymore.

so so what we've what we've done is invested heavily in those new businesses and we're crossing a valley.

so as a as a traditional business has come under pressure we've grown those new things and as you see in our results the the pace of growth of those new things now outstrips the decline in the old business.

so as we cross the valley that the compound maths does your work for you but it takes it takes a long time and we were never going to be able to tear up the the really strong Foundation that we had in that traditional business it would been wrong to.

so we could for me that it was going to be a long transition um we took the view that that was the right way to make the transition um.

but I if I look at us against our peers I think we' we've done you know a really strong job but I totally take the point that you know at the end of the day shareholders want alignment better returns.

I just realized I asked a pretty stupid question uh whether the queen was still a client I suspect she isn't.

Peter: well no I I didn't want to put you right on that but but I could change the royal family.

but one of one of the one of the highlights of of my uh of my time here was was was coming to open our building and showing around which was which was one of a legendary moment.

yeah she opened it right.

Peter: yes she opened it.

moving on to culture so um family still owns 44% and you said that was the key to surviving for 200 years um just what are the disadvantages of having family ownership or are there any.

Peter: so no I think the the key is um it creates a huge Capital discipline.

but it also has a creates a blockage in a way because you you don't naturally want to dilution per se is a lot lot harder to do mentally if you're if you're a family that's that's held on to.

so our shar's an issue today are virtually the same as they were in 1959 so that the only negative and everything else is a positive that.

but but you you you see that ability so Bruno schroer sat around our boardroom table for 60 years and he said to me pretty well at every meeting get it right on a 20-year view.

now you still have two family members on the board yeah.

Peter: yeah but if we hadn't have had that license to change I don't think I would have had the license to start the transition and the inflection that we've done because we had to transform otherwise we'd have been one of those businesses that was really struggling and not inves investing to grow.

are you 100% confident that it's right to be independent.

Peter: yeah I am actually I mean it's it's look there an industry where the scale is getting more and more important.

so our biggest competitors Blackstone Black Rock have got hugely bigger in this period.

but if you want to be an active Alpha manager scale is not everything doing a good job for your clients is frankly the most important thing.

because now in in interrogation uh you know you added actually uh yes I think I think it is actually actually is a qualifier and it means that you are normally not 100% sure.

no what are the what are the things that make you less sure about this.

Peter: well I see the industry is going through everybody's talking about who they merge with and all the rest of it.

so so it is a very active debate in our industry today as to how people are going to get to scale right so so and the most common thing is people merging and everyone's up for sale.

our view has been that you can you can navigate that by investing for growth growing these new businesses and seeing your way through.

I'm cutely aware that's a controversial statement most people disagree with it so I think I think you do have to qualify it.

but for us we can we can achieve it because of the family background.

would it make sense to merge some of the UK players.

Peter: oh if you're some of the smaller players you probably do need to merge yourself away because if you're a 50 70 80 100 200 billion business you're not viable to because you can't invest in a data science you can't invest in the.

but at 770 you think you're big enough.

Peter: what's different about our 770 is that it's all itive and it's all private and it's all wealth it's all high fee earning um Rich businesses not got a big chunk of passive in there.

so I I think that it's a it's a much richer mix of businesses than some of businesses which look bigger than us but frankly they're all passive.

moving on to sustainability and ESG what do you make of the recent swing in appetite for ESG.

Peter: well first thing say it's been politicized so that's so you've seen this huge Geographic diversion yeah um.

and you've you you absolutely have passed Peak debate I mean so a lot of people don't want to talk about it now and you've seen it.

but I think in borrs and people's awareness of the importance of climate I don't think that's debated at all.

so what companies are getting on and doing is very real it's just people spend a lot less time talking about it.

so how do you think it will develop going forward.

Peter: I think the first thing is it it's gone from hand waving to data and and in our industry there is a price to pursuing sustainability.

you know so so we we have to understand that if we want if we want to be good at this and we are we're in top three of of doing it that comes at a ticket.

so a lot of people have said we don't want to pay that price um.

the second I think is that we will get more and more regulation and more and more fragmentation of Regulation around the world and that is a pain in an industry which is about global scale.

so different interpretations in Japan to Korea to China ETA which all difficult um.

but I if you come in a different way companies uh report Gap profits right but different companies put a different cost on the external environment.

so if you're a tobacco maker you create cancer if you're an oil company you create carbon emissions if you're a um uh a soft drinks maker you create diabetes.

we treat all those Gap profits as the same the races are not the same right the after the impact adjusted profits of businesses are really very different.

I think Society will increasingly look at our businesses and say if you don't make profits the same way we need to think about investment in a different way because the real impact adjusted profits of P's portfolio differs.

and asset managers sit there between asset owners like yourself and asset creators and companies.

and I think it's our job to shine a light on what's the cost of delivering that performance and if we can't shine that light we're we're failing in our duty.

you are the fifth largest um foreign player in the Chinese market how do you see that going forward.

Peter: so China's going through a a major correction post um property crisis.

you've seen huge growth in cash deposits in Banks as as as this we the wealth effect of the of the destruction is is coming through.

but you're also seeing a huge massive energy transition going on in China and I I think you will see a return to risk-taking at some point.

I mean CH the Chinese have had a a huge benefit of moving moving people from the countryside to cities and that's given them a productivity boost.

that productivity boost isn't enough to carry on into the future they need financial productivity.

and to to Achieve Financial productivity they probably need external players in to help show them what good Financial productivity looks like.

and a a strong position there but running wealth fund management fund management assets private Equity assets I think is is really additive for our future growth.

but today it's Lo losing US money and one of the bets that I've made that hasn't been right has been the scale of that bet.

but if you take a 20 of view be delighted with it.

if you but in in a world with increased geopolitical frictions between the US and China for instance um what are the dilemas of being a large player in China for you.

Peter: well it's really interesting isn't it most us players have stopped talking about their Chinese investments in their in their public statements but they haven't pulled back from their activities on the ground because this is one of the largest savings markets in the world is a huge you know it's it's second only to the US.

have you stop talking about it or.

Peter: no we we we've said very open about it because Yen Yen Stenberg the who recently stepped down as the Secretary General of NATO uh you know he talks more vocally about um thinking about defense and security rather than just doing business and profits.

h have your priorities changed.

Peter: no I think the the reality of our business is is you know we we will be a taker of the geopolitical environment.

we have to be sensitive to it and governments will you know take take whatever defenses defense decisions they want to make.

I I personally think that there is a huge opportunity for savings growth in China and we should as a West want to be engaging with that.

we want to engage with them on Green transition we want to engage with them on corporate governance just as we do anywhere else in the world.

and we should be if we don't if we we got two choices as a society we either walk past on the other side of the road and say it's all too difficult and it's horrible or we or we cross the road and and and help.

and and I think being part of the solution has always been to my mind the right way of doing it it's sometimes a lot braver and harder but I think we don't engage we're going to get what we deserve.

how does India Look to You.

Peter: looks great at the moment but let's be quite clear right CH go back 10 years ago China was booming and India was nothing anybody wanted and now it's the other way around.

and I'm sure in 10 years time it will move again.

but the growth of the middle class the The Innovation that's going on in India is pH fanatical phenomenal.

but in our industry it's a super tough one to we've got we got price control from the regulator um great savings but um in aggregate we cannot Own 100% of of an Indian business which is a challenge.

but we we've you know we've got a big position in China we're also number seven in India and the rest of Asia.

how do you see that.

Peter: I think you got to look country by country I mean fund o overall it's it's clearly growing very strongly.

but I think the most interesting one is the corporate governance change going on in Japan that that is a sleeping giant of domestic savings corporates who've never really got the message and bit by bit that is changing and that that that excites me.

talking about excitement um what do you read a lot what one of one of the greatest privileges is is is I'm a judge of the Ft book of the year so I read a lot of books about about business.

Peter: so I'm my anything which is about society today for me so so a brilliant book just out the longevity imperative that says we've get we're getting ourselves thinking about longevity completely the wrong way um.

so so a brilliant book just out the longevity imperative that says we've get we're getting ourselves thinking about longevity completely the wrong way um.

Jonathan Height's book about the impact of mobile technology on children you know the the stuff ravenous about about Food Systems being broken around the world those are the really big issues I think we face.

can we give us some more titles you read all these W Supremacy on on AI.

Peter: you Amy Edmonson was was our winner last year which you you you obviously covered in your podcast which was a brilliant book on on learning from failure.

and I think there's so much great I mean there's so many brilliant books being written absolutely.

I just don't have enough time to read.

I agree um yeah we we do review a lot of them on on LinkedIn so please uh uh check it out there um.

who's been important in your life in terms of a mentor.

Peter: I think I think mentors are are really valuable and I I've got several um.

I I one one particular Mentor took me took me out the other night and he said what are you going to do and I said I'm not sure if I'm going to have an executive thing.

he said let me tell you something you're no spring chicken you shouldn't be thinking about being an executive in your mid-60s give it up go and do something more valuable.

and you need you need people sometimes to take and what would that be and so for you to do something more valuable now uh after November what would that be.

Peter: I I'm going to I'm going to spend 6 months doing all the things that I have never done before.

and they are I I'm look I'm going to go I spend a lot more time fishing I'm going to spend a lot more time on the water I'm going to spend a lot more time reading and then I'm going to go and do some crazy things like grow flowers and um go bird watching you name it I'm going to do all this.

and then sounds like typical English activities.

Peter: well no I'm going to spend six month fishing bird watching plants I'm going to immerse myself in other stuff.

and out of that I hope to come up with what I should be doing afterwards I'm not going to stop doing things but what I am clear about I'm not going to do something executive.

sounds like a really good plan uh Peter lastly what is your advice to young people.

Peter: so I think if I reflect back do not assume that climbing the greasy pole is the route to being happy.

so a lot of a lot of people look at the societal structures and say I want to be more senior in organization and all the rest if I look back I should probably say the portfolio manager um.

if I I think they've got to engage I think a lot of them don't engage and I think a lot of them need to look outside of the algorithms that they are victims of and they get fed the same stuff and people stay in a very narrow pipe.

and I think how do how do we how do we I it's a mentorship program how do we help break that cycle of saying there's one view of society.

because I think people need to think very differently about who they really are and what they really want out of life and I rather than just saying it's about the next promotion.

well Peter big thanks for being here today and a big thanks to you and troas for the partnership we've had for 25 years and for the money you have made for norgas Bank investment management.

Peter: thank you for the trust you placed us thank you great pleasure.