The Future of Asset Management, with Ted Seides and Brent Beshore [Invest Like the Best, EP.30]
This week, my good friends Ted Seides and Brent Beshore join me to discuss the future of asset management and a ton of fun side topics. While we are all passionate about investing, we’ve had very different careers: Ted in alternatives, hedge funds and fund of funds, Brent in lower middle market private equity, and my own in quantitative equities. What we share is a passion for investing in general, and a deep interest in where the asset management business and profession is going.
This conversation starts like most episodes—a somewhat structured exploration of the investing business –but morphs to be a bit more fun and informal as we work our way through a bottle or two of wine. In the later half, we talk about how to dissect an industry, common features of good businesses within a given industry, books we’d like to write, books we wish existed, and things we’ve learned in our careers.
Links Referenced
The Base Rate Book (Michael Mauboussin)
Books Referenced
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
How to Double Your Profits in 6 Months or Less
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
The Systems Bible: The Beginner’s Guide to Systems Large and Small
Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
Show Notes
0:00 – (first question) – Ted describes structural headwinds that hedge funds face today
1:20 – The future of asset management, the fee structures and where it might be heading
5:45 – What would lead to a natural tendency towards capital deployment
11:22 – Is it possible to pick the best pickers
12:47 – How much was size a factor in identifying good stock pickers
15:19 – Looking at edge and how the fight for informational edge has changed over the last few decades
19:09 – The signals that are starting to pop up today that will have some staying power
20:09 – The future of the corporation and what impact that will have on how valuation is determined
23:29 – What role industry dynamics play when making an investment decision, and why components of a core business can be attractive
27:42 – Looking at the disruption in the media business
29:43 – The way in which change impacts investing decisions
31:51 – What are the setups that would be conducive to a true long term investing strategy
36:49 – What long held beliefs have changed for everyone over the last few years that was a surprise
39:44 – The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
43:19 – Topics for books that they would explore
47:00 – Exploring the idea of business hygiene
47:10 – How to Double Your Profits in 6 Months or Less
50:21 – What book topic do you want to produce that doesn’t exist yet
50:48 – Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
59:26 – The Base Rate Book (Michael Mauboussin)
1:01:17 – Will businesses be purged by rising interest rates squeezing their margins
1:07:26 – Exploring the role of intuition
1:10:26 – Who would you trust your money with
1:15:59 – What does retirement look like for this crew
1:21:20 – If you had to share a book, article, or person with unique ideas, what would you share
1:23:10 – The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
1:24:05 – The Systems Bible: The Beginner’s Guide to Systems Large and Small 1:26:06 – Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
