Wealth Manager: Thurleigh's rising stars on running their boss' money

Charles MacKinnon, founder partner of Thurleigh Investment Partners, has for a long time lived by the credo that as a fund manager he ‘eats his own cooking’ and expects others to do the same. The principle also extends to the young graduates he has brought onto the investment team.

‘We all run trial portfolios made up of Charles’s own money,’ says Edward Allen, the longest-standing member of the team, having arrived for an internship the week the business launched in 2003, and a partner since 2008.

Allen would prefer not to say how much of MacKinnon’s capital he is responsible for, but says it is enough that he wouldn’t want to lose it or put too big a dent in it. ‘No pressure then,’ adds a smiling Luca Serino, who joined the company in 2005 and was made partner in May 2010.

The two portfolio managers, with colleague David Livingston (who was on holiday when Citywire visited), are joint members of the investment committee, alongside MacKinnon and company chair David Rosier.

‘We definitely work as a team,’ says Serino. ‘It has always been a very clear business choice: if they have hired us and trained us, then there would be no point in not listening to us. We have been trained in the house style and understand the principles of our asset allocation model.

‘The founding partners’ business choice was to hire new graduates with little or no experience of the investment management industry. That way they could form and develop their “house style” without outside influences and preconceptions about managing clients or managing money.’

It is an approach that many others have been willing to back. When Citywire last profiled the company in January 2009, it had £160 million of assets for 38 families, rising to about £245 million on behalf of 80 families today, from a minimum investment of £2 million. Fees are levied at 1.25% for the first £5 million and 1% thereafter, with brokerage typically below 0.1%.

The company is well on its way toward MacKinnon’s then goal of 100 family clients and £600-£700 million under management by 2014, while increasing the number of staff to 15.

The foundation of the company’s investment focus is a combination of their macro-thinking, hammered out at the monthly investment meetings as an expression of their combined viewpoints. Cost is a key consideration, with the typical portfolio made up of 15/20 positions, with risk rating expressed by a greater or lesser weighting in each holding.