Investment Approach

The understanding and management of risk is core to the Foord investment philosophy. Our favourite definition of risk is Elroy Dimson’s: “More things can happen than will happen.” It most certainly is not “what has happened.” We therefore take a forward-looking approach and make investment decisions today that aim to protect investor capital across an array of future possible outcomes, knowing that most of those possible outcomes won’t happen.

Because we are dealing with potentially many futures, we do not build portfolios for only one possible outcome. This applies whatever our conviction of that outcome’s probability of occurring. We will also often be wrong in our views and forecasts. We must therefore have balancing positions that we think, on average, will achieve the investment objective regardless of how the future transpires.

Foord's 22-strong global investment team is characterised by considerable experience. The longevity of the team is amongst the best in the industry. Many of the senior investment professionals have spent significant time at Foord.

Ideas are drawn from the entire investment team as part of Foord’s multiple-counsellor process. In conventional fund management, a single fund manager typically takes full responsibility for the management of a portfolio. In contrast, the multiple-counsellor approach involves dividing the assets of each portfolio among a number of portfolio managers. These managers then make independent investment decisions and manage their portions as though they were separate funds, but with full transparency. While the Foord hierarchy is flat and highly collegial, accountability for multiple-counsellor returns is squarely on each portfolio manager.

The emphasis on individual decision making within a team environment is premised on our belief that, for the most part, individuals produce better results than teams: Committees tend to dilute investment ability because the right decision is unlikely to meet with consensus approval. Individual authority and accountability results in swift decisions, keeping distance between the seed of a good investment idea and its implementation as short as possible.