Bespoke Portfolio Manager

Bespoke Portfolio Manager

Claremont

Reporting relation: Head of Equities, Portfolio Managers & Chief Investment Officer

The primary purpose of this position is to service our bespoke clients. Practically this will entail analysis of portfolio companies, portfolio management of the created strategies, as well as idea generation. Portfolio management will include portfolio maintenance during the life of the mandate. The candidate will have to present on bespoke mandate performance and positioning to clients providing insight on the portfolio as well as general market conditions.

The other part of the role will be to provide feedback to advice on queries relating to CAM. This could be across asset classes and teams.

At least an honours qualification. Some form of postgraduate qualification (such as the CA or CFA designation) would be advantageous.

We require someone with market and investment experience that can hit the ground running. The successful person should be able to analyze portfolio companies, help construct bespoke portfolios as well as understand market and asset class dynamics.

• Strong Excel skills.
• Knowledge of Bloomberg will be helpful.

• Passionate about investments (this is crucial).
• Assertiveness.
• Strong reasoning skills with lateral thinking ability.
• Out of the box thinking.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Pro‑active.
• Analytical ability.
• Research capability with a background in valuations.

• Knowledge of financial markets both globally and locally.

• Methodical and hardworking.
• A willingness to learn, grow and adapt.
• The environment can be stressful given the breadth of our universe. We require a candidate that can manage stress, and difficult conditions effectively.

• Maintain, update and communicate on bespoke mandates:

  We have a number of bespoke mandates that are currently invested. The candidate will have to monitor these mandates, in the context of their objectives, and suggest changes to the lead portfolio manager. The candidate will have to present on bespoke mandate performance and positioning to clients providing insight on the portfolio as well as general market conditions. The candidate will have to suggest companies that could form part of bespoke portfolios.
  
  This will involve sourcing and valuing these companies for the lead portfolio manager.

• Feedback to advisors:

  The asset management team routinely receives queries from advice on various topics. The successful candidate will be involved in responding to these queries. The queries could relate to multiple teams (fixed income, equity, real return solutions, etc.) as well as market related comments. The candidate will need to work with the relevant team to answer the queries. Over time, the successful candidate should be able to answer these questions without too much oversight by the relevant team.
  
  From an equity perspective we get several questions regarding individual stocks as well as transitioning client portfolios from an external provider into our funds. This is a great example of the type of task that the candidate will need to be comfortable with. Answering the question will take a range of skills from market knowledge, stock knowledge, and good systems skills from a Bloomberg and Excel perspective.
  
  We envision the bespoke portion of the role as being the dominant one, but we do want candidates to understand, and be ready for, the advice servicing that will also be required in the role.