A Day in the Life
Yvonne, Investment Director
8:00 am
As an equity investment director in our London office, I will interact with dozens of people in different locations today. Our group acts as an intermediary connecting our equity investment professionals with our business developers and relationship managers as well as clients, prospects, and consultants. I begin my day by catching up on global news and world markets. I also check email to get a sense of what my colleagues in the US and Asia are working on before heading to the Wellington Early Morning Meeting at 8:30.
9:00 am
One of the ideas presented at today's Early Morning Meeting catches the attention of a portfolio manager I work closely with, and we discuss how the stock would fit into his portfolio.
9:30 am
I take some time to finalize presentations I will be using in upcoming meetings during the week. Some of the meetings are portfolio updates with clients, some are introductions to select sector-focused investment strategies with prospects and consultants, and one is a finals presentation to the investment committee of a major corporate pension plan. I review recent performance drivers for these strategies and update myself on current portfolio positioning. To gain insight into the rationale for a few holdings and recent transactions in one of the strategies I make a brief call to the Singapore-based portfolio manager.
11:00 am
I review a quarterly portfolio analysis with a member of my product management team. Her work reveals a moderate shift in the portfolio toward a less-aggressive posture. We discuss the potential implications and prepare to present our findings to the portfolio manager tomorrow.
12:00 pm
I break to have lunch with a business development manager who works in our Frankfurt office and is in London for a client meeting. We catch up on investment trends that she has been observing in her region and discuss investment approaches that may suit those requirements.
1:00 pm
I use the half hour before the Wellington Boston-based Morning Meeting at 1:30pm to discuss a fee proposal for a potential sizable mandate in one of our European Equity strategies with a senior colleague in Boston.
2:00 pm
I participate in a conference call with a new client who has awarded us a global equity mandate to discuss the transition of the assets. Our internal transition team leading the onboarding process requires my input on the investment guidelines the client has proposed and we discuss the implications of the customization to our standard guidelines.
3:00 pm
I convene a meeting with a portfolio management team to discuss the potential need to close an investment approach that could be approaching capacity limits with the recent funding of several sizeable new mandates. I begin a series of emails and phone discussions with several people who will be involved in taking the necessary steps to close the strategy to new investors.
4:00 pm
I join a meeting with an investment consultant who is visiting to finalise their due diligence on one of our highly active Europe equity strategies before assigning a rating. After the portfolio manager discusses current portfolio positioning and his outlook for the market, I explain how my team supports the portfolio manager with risk management oversight.
5:30 pm
Coming back to my office I catch up on email traffic and respond to a few inquiries from relationship managers about recent performance trends in one of the strategies I follow. I also review the report package that my assistant has put together in preparation for a client review I am due to give tomorrow.
6:30 pm
Before leaving the office I give a call to a few Boston-based colleagues to discuss the details of a US West Coast trip that I am planning with one of the London-based portfolio managers to see prospects for his investment strategy.