Episode 52: $520 Million Frontier & Emerging Markets Specialists Jonathan Binder and Charlie Cassel Co-Founders of Consilium Investment Management | The Importance of High Conviction Strategies
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If you’ve been dismissing frontier markets because they seem “too risky,” you’re missing out on a treasure trove of alpha.
Take it from Consilium CIO Jonathan Binder and CEO Charlie Cassel. For 13+ years, they’ve managed to beat EM benchmark indexes time and time again.
In this episode, they share their playbook for successful FM investing and break down:
Misconceptions about risk in Frontier Market investing and their approach to risk management.
Why active management and a non-indexed approach is essential to successful FM investing
How most Global Emerging Markets managers are ill-equipped to invest in the EM and Frontier countries they invest in
Their process for crafting equity strategies that give their clients exposure to top-tier companies in overlooked markets poised for robust structural growth
This is part 2 of our Meet the Boutique Series, where we’ll take you behind the scenes to see how top asset managers innovate and thrive.
Enjoy this episode? Hit subscribe! There are more exclusive webinars to come.
About Consilium Investment Management
Consilium Investment Management was founded in 2004 by Jonathan Binder, CIO, and Charles Cassel, CEO. With over 20 years in financial markets and asset management, they saw an opportunity to build an investment management business that would deliver above average returns for its clients in the Frontier and Emerging Markets. They offer private funds and separately managed accounts exposed to Frontier and Emerging Markets that exploit specific opportunities overlooked by other managers. More information is available by visiting: consimllc.com
TRANSCRIPT
Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.
[00:00:00] Jonathan Binder: We try to be best rather than the biggest, that's the mantra. And a lot of people say that, but look, by the time you're running a gem fund of more than say two or 3 billion by virtue of liquidity. You're forced into certain countries that have a certain size of stocks that have certain liquidity. And by the way, all the funds start to look the same.
[00:00:22] Jonathan Binder: And they will look very similar in the end.
[00:00:26] Stacy Havener: Hey, my name is Stacey Havener. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the toughest boys club, wall street. I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow on assets for investment boutiques.
[00:00:44] Stacy Havener: You could say against the odds, yeah. Understatement. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. It's real talk here. Money, [00:01:00] authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales, and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college, mixed with happy hour.
[00:01:11] Stacy Havener: Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion Dollar Backstory Podcast.
[00:01:24] Stacy Havener: This episode is part of our Meet the Boutique series. It's a slightly different format than my regular episodes. The founders and firms featured in this series are current or former clients of Havener, whom I've interviewed during their intro webinar for investors. The conversations are inspiring, as are the people behind the portfolios.
[00:01:45] Stacy Havener: Let's dive into their stories. Thank you for being here. I'm Stacey Havener, founder of Havener Capital Partners. We are Concilium's marketing partner and I'll be your host for today's call. So some [00:02:00] of us on the call might remember when international investing was like the hot new thing. Then you started being able to access emerging markets and you're like, boom, mind explosion.
[00:02:11] Stacy Havener: This is so cool. Less efficient, less traveled, if you will, areas of the market that were a real source of differentiated alpha in portfolios. But now here we are, I don't know, a couple of decades from those early days of international investing. And we're sort of saying like, where's the real alpha now?
[00:02:32] Stacy Havener: Where are the new frontiers we should be exploring? Pun intended. And if we want to go there, Pooh will be our guide. Enter Concilium and our guests today, co founders, Jonathan and Charlie. We're first name basis only here at this point. Um, it's like Madonna, except the frontier markets version. Guys, thank you for being here and for all your patience.[00:03:00]
[00:03:01] Stacy Havener: So what are we going to do today? Well, obviously we're going to have some fun. We are going to start with some stories. We're going to start with some backstory and we'll quickly jump into what you do at Concilium, why it's different, the job these strategies play in a portfolio, and we really want to spend time on how allocators can think about frontier and emerging markets.
[00:03:25] Stacy Havener: We're going to take your questions and we're all very familiar at this point with the Q& A. Whatever this is icon portal, whatever you want to call it in zoom. So if you have questions as we're talking, pop them into that Q and a, and we will answer them at the end. Sound good. Charlie, Jonathan, welcome.
[00:03:47] Jonathan Binder: Oh, good.
[00:03:50] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Let's start with some stories, Jonathan, you know, I've had the pleasure of hearing your story. It's a great [00:04:00] one. I think for me, the stage I'll set to pass to you is that a lot of people, you know, sort of work, live and work in the emerging markets. You actually grew up in the emerging markets. Can you talk about that?
[00:04:16] Stacy Havener: Take us through your story and how that kind of informs you with a, maybe a different perspective than others.
[00:04:24] Jonathan Binder: Well, my father worked for Shell and he was one of those international executives that was, uh, Sent around the world to run divisions or departments or countries for shell and it started in, uh, yes, 1959.
[00:04:37] Jonathan Binder: He was in Argentina seems like a long time ago, but nothing changes much in Argentina. So it's all too all too much the same again today. But anyway, my sisters were born in Buenos Aires and he also worked in Peru and Columbia. I was born in Bogota. He then actually came to the United States and worked for three years here.
[00:04:57] Jonathan Binder: So I went to school here at that time when I was much [00:05:00] younger and then, uh, kind of the most interesting, uh, assignment was to Cambodia of all places. So I went to boarding school, but, um, every holiday vacation, I would go out and fly out to Cambodia to spend, you know, a month or 2 out there and, um, experienced.
[00:05:19] Jonathan Binder: Quite a different world, as you can imagine, from what, uh, most people at the age of eight, nine or 10 would experience. And obviously things in Cambodia were pretty interesting at that time. Vietnam war was going on, you know, every time the, uh, the bombs were dropped, uh, the windows in our house would rattle and, uh, uh, you know, it was pretty interesting.
[00:05:41] Jonathan Binder: I wish I'd been honestly a little bit older to really appreciate it, but it was nonetheless. experience. And then after that, uh, he went on to work for shell and other parts of the world, the Middle East, as well as eventually at headquarters again. So I think that the one thing that it gave me was an [00:06:00] appreciation for different cultures and specifically an open mindedness.
[00:06:04] Jonathan Binder: So, you know, nothing is off the table. If someone wants to talk to me about. Even the strangest countries in the strangest parts of the world, you know, my understanding and my knowledge from, from prior experiences will allow me, I think, to have a sense of, you know, no, that can't be, or that's impossible, or it can't really be like that.
[00:06:25] Jonathan Binder: To knowing that there are Perfectly normal people doing perfectly normal things and just like any other culture civilization, not trying to work hard, make money, look after their families and all the rest of it. So, I think, you know, that's, um, that's been kind of part of it for me. And then professionally, you know, I was actually 1st looking at Mexican defaulted debt back in 19.
[00:06:48] Jonathan Binder: Uh, so long ago, I think it was about 1984, 1985, which was obviously solved that debt crisis by the Brady debt, but the bank that I worked for at that time, uh, Morgan Grenfell in London was asking me to look [00:07:00] at and analyze the value of the Mexican debt that they held in their portfolio and kind of what could be done for it.
[00:07:06] Jonathan Binder: And, uh, you know, ever since then, it's been kind of a, uh, pretty much a nonstop ride. Of experience both on the banking side, the broker dealer side, research, trading, investment banking, um, and then obviously for the last, uh, what 26 years on the investment management side, running funds for institutions.
[00:07:26] Stacy Havener: So cool.
[00:07:27] Stacy Havener: And how did you meet each other?
[00:07:30] Jonathan Binder: Uh, it was a blind date.
[00:07:34] Stacy Havener: And everyone should know that they're actually really great friends too. In addition to being business partners, which
[00:07:40] Jonathan Binder: I wouldn't, I wouldn't have accepted the date. If I stopped, but no, we, we actually ended up joining the same company down. I was up in New York and got an opportunity to join an investment management business down in Miami on the equity side.
[00:07:55] Jonathan Binder: And Charlie joined. I think literally a month after I joined on the, on the [00:08:00] debt side, that was July 97. So, um, yeah, 26 years together, you know, working, and then we started Concilium in 2004.
[00:08:11] Stacy Havener: So cool. And when you started Concilium in 04, were you doing just the Emerging markets like gem strategies, or were you doing frontier at that time?
[00:08:20] Jonathan Binder: Well, it's kind of interesting because, and, you know, taking people back to what the markets looked like, you know, in, in, in 2004, we actually started originally with a, uh, a long shorter hedge fund that did both debt and equity. And, um, you know, at that time, spreads were quite tight, yields were overall low, valuations were pretty full in the kind of traditional emerging markets by that time.
[00:08:48] Jonathan Binder: And so, because we didn't use outright leverage as a way to create return, we were kind of forced to. Look into what at that time, and some of those countries are still frontier markets [00:09:00] where, you know, the yields were more attractive and the opportunities and stocks were more attractive. Um, and just to give you an example, I think in 2006, or maybe 2005, our 1st sort of frontier style investment for that fund was buying Nigerian 2 year Nigerian T bonds.
[00:09:20] Jonathan Binder: That we're yielding about 20 percent at a time when oil was high and, um, the exchange rate was pretty firm and that was a time when the external dollar debt was yielding about five or 6%. So again, that was kind of an opportunity that we saw. And then we got into equities and Nigeria and bonds and equities and other countries in that kind of frontier world, both in Africa, Southeast Asia.
[00:09:46] Jonathan Binder: And that's really how we kind of got into it from the invest pure investment management point of view.
[00:09:52] Stacy Havener: Got it. So the, the frontier strategy as it is today, when did that start for you, the equity strategy? [00:10:00]
[00:10:00] Jonathan Binder: So it started in 2009 and, um, we launched the strategy officially in 2010 as a manager for Russell investments.
[00:10:12] Jonathan Binder: And then in 2013, we launched our own co mingled fund product, which is for institutions here in the United States. So in terms of the strategy, we're about 14 years old. And in terms of our fund, we're over 10 years old. And I would say that's probably one of the longest track records in the kind of dedicated frontier world.
[00:10:35] Stacy Havener: So cool. And we're going to dive into this. Charlie, anything you want to say, background, backstory, friendship, is he a good friend, good business partner?
[00:10:43] Charlie Cassel: Yeah. He's, he's been great. It's been a lot of people don't work together for as long as we have without having a lot of bumps in the road, we've remained good friends and good business partners for the entire duration.
[00:10:54] Charlie Cassel: So it's, it's been a, uh, it's been a very good partnership for a long period of time and [00:11:00] echoing what Jonathan said, you know, the opportunities set that we've. Broadly uncovered over time has paid a lot of dividends for us. And we started off as debt advisors and then became hedge fund managers and long short on both multi strat and finally decided to concentrate on on the equity side because honestly that's where the best risk adjusted returns have been over the past decade.
[00:11:27] Stacy Havener: Yeah, well said and actually a good segue because I think, you know, a lot of allocators would say intellectually agree with you, right? Frontier markets, super interesting, definitely less efficient, more opportunities to generate alpha. And yet here we sit, how many of them are actually sort of walking the walk?
[00:11:51] Stacy Havener: You know, you don't see frontier and a lot of portfolios. And I want to talk about that mostly around just Maybe the misconceptions, if [00:12:00] you will, I'm sure attendees who are listening today, if they aren't already in frontier, if they're thinking about it, the first thing that comes to mind for me is risk.
[00:12:10] Stacy Havener: You know, how much risk are you introducing by taking the step and realizing that that could mean a lot of different things when I say risk. So I'll give you the floor for how you'd respond to that.
[00:12:21] Jonathan Binder: Yeah, so I think risk is all about perception versus reality, and obviously one of the first things is that people perceive as risk from the United States about a frontier country is often guided by what they will read in the newspapers or see on the television or something like that.
[00:12:40] Jonathan Binder: And unless you've actually been to a country and spend time there and understand the local culture and the real political risk, the real economic policy risk, you're never really going to understand that. And I think, you know, that's that is our job. That is my job is to know that, for example, let's say in our [00:13:00] frontier fund today, you know, we've got an opportunity set of about 30 odd countries.
[00:13:05] Jonathan Binder: We're actually invested in 16 of those countries. So the 1st step on risk is to make the decision not to be invested in certain places. And if you're not willing to do that, or because you're running an index product, you're not able to do that, then, you know, you're not doing your job and that's my 1st job is to make sure that we are invested in countries where.
[00:13:30] Jonathan Binder: Property rights are respected. We can get our money in and out and the companies are transparent. And, you know, there are shades of gray and all of that, but, you know, we end up with 16 countries out of a 30 plus opportunity. So I think that tells you a lot about the 1st step in risk mitigation. The other response that I would make on risk is if you look at the United States today, if you look at.
[00:13:53] Jonathan Binder: The UK, you look at Europe today, I see all sorts of risks in these countries. I see political risks. I [00:14:00] see economic risks. I see, you know, debt risks, et cetera, et cetera. So I think sometimes people, you know, it's sort of easy to say, Oh, a country like Kazakhstan looks risky. Yeah. Actually a country like the U S frankly, if you, uh, eliminate some of the prejudices are equally risky in different ways.
[00:14:21] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Great point. And you mentioned Benchmarks and I want to come back to that because. There's also sort of risk, I guess, and maybe mandates even for an allocator or an institution where they can't go into frontier markets or it introduces a bunch of sort of, you know, benchmark differentiation. Can you talk, is that part of it?
[00:14:48] Stacy Havener: You think that, you know, the benchmarks don't include frontier. And so that trickles down into how investors feel their comfort level of allocating.
[00:14:59] Jonathan Binder: Yeah, I think that's [00:15:00] right. Look, asset allocators, all professionals have an employment contract and get paid a salary. And if they get something wrong relative to an index, and sadly, in the end, I think all asset allocators are referenced to some kind of index somewhere.
[00:15:14] Jonathan Binder: And as you mentioned, most frontier countries are not in quote, the EM index, which is, is part of, let's say, the equity. So, when we approach, you know, frontier. As it, you know, compares to, you know, pure the sort of core em, you know, we know that what we have to do is we have to add value. We have to add value in terms of excess performance relative not only to frontier indexes, but also to the em index.
[00:15:44] Jonathan Binder: So, whenever we look at our performance, and when we're monitoring that as part of our assessment district, whether we're doing a good job or not. And, you know, if you want to go back to risk and you look at, you know, the EM index, so 30 percent plus of the EM index is [00:16:00] in China. Now, you know, my personal and professional view about China has been negative for five years.
[00:16:07] Jonathan Binder: I was wrong for two and I've been right for three. Let's see what happens. But it's, you know, I don't see China. 30 percent plus of the index has been something that exists without risk. And yet people are blindly on an index basis, let alone even on a relative index basis, investing a massive amount of money in China.
[00:16:28] Jonathan Binder: And I see that as a massive risk. Now, if you look at say Taiwan and Korea, which 30%, The risk there is actually those are not emerging market countries. These are countries that are for the most part platforms for global technology companies. So if you're an asset allocator, I mean, you actually need to sort of sit back and say, well, Who do I want making judgments about which parts of global tech are interesting or not?
[00:16:59] Jonathan Binder: Do I want [00:17:00] a global tech specialist or do I want an EM specialist? Frankly, I personally would want a global tech specialist rather than the EM specialist. So again, when you talk about risk, it's like, do you know what you're actually investing in when you invest in an EM or a gem fund, let alone an ETF product in gem?
[00:17:21] Jonathan Binder: Which gives you those types of exposures that are not really anything to do with emerging markets in its pure form and it's old fashioned form. Which is, you know, you mentioned 20 or 30 years ago, you know, it all kind of started and kicked off. I would say what kind of in the early mid nineties, mid nineties, and people were buying yet PLDT, you know, what you were trying to do was find local companies that were exploiting local growth in the local economies.
[00:17:52] Jonathan Binder: And. That's actually the type of investing that we try to do because that's the opportunity that we want to [00:18:00] exploit for our asset allocating clients. And that's where we have an expertise. That's where we can manage the risk. And as of today, that's where the greatest pure opportunity lies.
[00:18:12] Stacy Havener: I love that old fashioned.
[00:18:14] Stacy Havener: Yeah, I mean, we talked about it, you know, yesterday we've been talking about it's such a cool concept and I encourage people if you want to dive in more on that, but what Jonathan Charlie mean, pop that into the Q and a, we can come back to it's really fascinating Charlie before we leave this topic of just some of the challenges that allocators face when considering.
[00:18:36] Stacy Havener: You know, putting money in frontier, the benchmarks, anything you want to add?
[00:18:40] Charlie Cassel: Yeah, I think the, the, the bigger one is, I should say bigger one, but one of the primary concerns that most big allocators will look at is they've got massive amounts of capital to deploy. And so you, you end up with this tyranny of the index that requires market capitalization that can absorb that type of [00:19:00] deployment of capital.
[00:19:01] Charlie Cassel: And so that's why China and Taiwan and South Korea are still in the end, in the global EM indexes, because they can absorb it. It's not because they're really emerging markets. You go to Seoul or Taipei, super modern societies are super modern cities. They're educated. They're, they're multilingual. They're not nowhere close to Pakistan, for example.
[00:19:25] Charlie Cassel: So putting them in the same category is a, an intellectual disservice to the investor. I think.
[00:19:32] Stacy Havener: Yeah, well said and, you know, it's perfect segue into my next topic, which is the idea about sort of bigs and boutiques advantages disadvantages. That'll be my, my theme for the topic because I think there is a perception, you know, you mentioned tyranny of the index, like, just that, that in order to be able to successfully invest in emerging markets and and [00:20:00] frontier, like you need to be a big place.
[00:20:02] Stacy Havener: You'd have a lot of analysts, a lot of resources, and I'd love to talk that through with you. How do you respond to that? I mean, obviously you're a boutique and I, we love boutique. So we're all a little bit biased here, but let's try to be objective, put ourselves in the allocator shoes and think through, like, how does that play out?
[00:20:21] Stacy Havener: Is it true that you have to be a big, to be successful, obviously not
[00:20:26] Jonathan Binder: here.
[00:20:27] Stacy Havener: We
[00:20:27] Jonathan Binder: say, we try to be best rather than the biggest, um, you know, that's the sort of the mantra and a lot of people say that, but look, if you're, by the time you're running a gem fund. Of more than say two or 3 billion by virtue of liquidity, you're forced into certain countries that have certain size of stocks that have certain liquidity.
[00:20:49] Jonathan Binder: And in fact, rules, you know, regulations changed in, um, and by the way, they all, all the funds start to look the same. And then they will look very similar in the end. Uh, and that, [00:21:00] you know, so you had You know, they, they changed the rules on paying for research in Europe, I think, well, three, four years ago, which was kind of the nail in the coffin.
[00:21:10] Jonathan Binder: Cause basically instead of just being able to pay brokers through a commission, asset management houses had to write checks directly to the broker dealers to have access to their research and all the rest of it. So what that means is, is that if you're running a two, 3 billion fund, let alone a 20, 30, 40 billion fund of which there are plenty, you're not going to waste your time.
[00:21:31] Jonathan Binder: Analyzing, doing your own research, writing checks to broker dealers on stocks that you really just simply can't invest in. You know, if you can only put in 0. 05 percent of your fund into a stock, why are you going to bother? So they don't. And that's essentially the opportunity set that then presents itself to us because, you know, through actually through our two fund products, we can offer what I describe as complimentary.
[00:21:55] Jonathan Binder: Asset, you know, to the typical product that you'll get from a typical gem manager. [00:22:00] So what we're saying is not trying to tell people, listen, you've got to put more money into EM or whatever. It's just like, if you intelligently look at the index, if you intelligently look at what you're getting from your typical gem manager, What you will see is you are not getting exposure to the bottom 20 percent of the underbelly of the market.
[00:22:23] Jonathan Binder: And that's what we do now. We can't do that in infinite size. So we should be a scarce resource to the extent that we recognize. I can't invest 20 or 30 billion dollars in that. I could probably only invest maybe 750, a billion dollars maximum, but you know, that's the joy of what I do. I like that. That's fine.
[00:22:45] Jonathan Binder: We're a boutique. We don't have to publicly release results every quarter and all those pressures. So that's fine for us. Um, and therefore we can then exploit those opportunities that the big gem managers simply [00:23:00] ignore, can't be bothered with for all those reasons. And, you know, we went to our client base 2 or 3 years ago to kind of more clearly define our opportunity set.
[00:23:08] Jonathan Binder: And they said. Absolutely. You're completely right. Go ahead. This is your opportunity. You said it absolutely compliments what we're getting elsewhere and that's fine. So I think that's kind of what we've seen in terms of the size of the big guys, what that forces them to look at versus what, you know, we have an opportunity to look at anything.
[00:23:28] Jonathan Binder: And by virtue of being, you know, highly unindexed, If you looked at our portfolio, people would kind of wouldn't know what to say. And we only run 30 positions, you know, in, in, in one portfolio, we run 15 and the other. So this is highly focused and it's all the whole point of it is to add real value and not to just be forced to invest in stuff because we're running 30 billion.
[00:23:53] Stacy Havener: So well said. And I love the idea that it's and. Not or [00:24:00] it doesn't have to be like, oh, it's big or it's boutiques. It can be both because you're bringing something different to the party, so to speak. And I think that that's a very thoughtful approach to the conversation. Thank you for that. Charlie. Do you want to add anything to this topic?
[00:24:16] Charlie Cassel: Yeah, I think the other part of this is, is, is a question of investing style. You end up with the bigger shops that tend to be, even though they may start off as not particularly index focused bigger, they grow. The more they start to hug the index because they have to the liquidity constraints that I said before, kind of force them in.
[00:24:41] Charlie Cassel: And so, so over time you end up with something that looks bland.
[00:24:46] Jonathan Binder: Yeah. And actually the other thing is you'll find that when they do make off index bets or, or allocations, it's a highly crowded trade. Amongst all these big guys, they're all doing the same thing, you know? So for example, when [00:25:00] China collapsed after Alibaba IPO for Alipay was suspended, canceled, you know, literally 24 hours before it was happened by Xi, since then the kind of global growth tech that everybody in the gem world was overexposed to, um, in China.
[00:25:19] Jonathan Binder: They got destroyed and it's been they've been destroyed for 2 or 3 years now and that. So, again, it really just says, if you go for a big gem product, that's fine, but understand exactly what you're getting and understand the risks of what you're getting and be intelligent about. Trying to find other parts of the market where the risks are.
[00:25:44] Jonathan Binder: I'm not going to say they're better. I'm just gonna say they're different risks.
[00:25:47] Stacy Havener: They're different. Yeah.
[00:25:48] Jonathan Binder: But you know, that's what we're paid to manage and we've been doing it for a long time. And I think, you know, overall we've done a, you know, no one's perfect. My father is probably rolling in his grave because I [00:26:00] was invested in Argentina four years ago and, uh, you know, uh, got caught up by the polls and lost.
[00:26:07] Jonathan Binder: And that was probably my single worst. Kind of country decision in 15 years, but, you know, you live and learn, but overall, I think we've done a pretty good job of it
[00:26:16] Charlie Cassel: coming, coming back to the style thing. I think you end up with us with something that's very actively managed. We're not choosing the investments based on what the index is requiring us to do.
[00:26:31] Charlie Cassel: We're looking at the merits of each one of the transactions, filtering everything that we can. Against each other and trying to select the best fit for the portfolio and not just for the portfolio, the compliments, the other transactions in the portfolio, it goes back to trying to make money as opposed to trying to follow an index because that's the diversified strategy.
[00:26:56] Charlie Cassel: And ultimately a rising tide will lift all boats. [00:27:00] No, we're just trying to find the best transactions. We can make money on each and every trade and give a positive return to the investor each and every period that we can.
[00:27:12] Stacy Havener: Are you an investment boutique looking to grow your business and need a little help?
[00:27:16] Stacy Havener: If you feel like you're fighting for the spotlight and, well, still stuck in the shadows of the bigs, join us in the Boutique Investment Collective, Havener's new membership community dedicated to the specialist in the investment industry. In the collective, we'll guide you through the billion dollar blueprint we've used to help boutiques add over 30 billion in AUM.
[00:27:35] Stacy Havener: You'll refine your story, focus on your ideal target market, and practice your pitch. You'll rethink your marketing materials, rewrite your emails, and refresh your differentiators. We'll even help you step up your LinkedIn game and give your profile a makeover. You want to grow your biz? We've got your back.
[00:27:52] Stacy Havener: Learn more about The Collective, the curriculum, and the amazing coaches who will help you on your journey. Visit HavenerCapital. com [00:28:00] slash Collective. High five! Hope to see you in a coaching session soon.
[00:28:12] Stacy Havener: It's interesting, you know, you you've mentioned this a few times, but you have obviously a ton of data for people that want to slice and dice just returns and kind of, you know, start digging in and unpacking. And as you've alluded, I mean, it's pretty powerful stuff. You're very talented at what you do.
[00:28:32] Stacy Havener: And you've talked a little bit about sort of the process and maybe the differentiators that are getting. Investors this experience. I want to touch on that a little bit more. So you mentioned concentration. That's significant. I mean, you said 30 names in one strategy and 15 in the other. Let's talk about that a little bit again, putting myself in the shoes of the allocator.
[00:28:55] Stacy Havener: I'm like, wow, that's again, risk comes into my mind. I'm like, how are you [00:29:00] managing that? That's really concentrated. What's your turnover? Like, I mean, I have a slew of questions that come to Can you talk us through It's just the process you take when you're building these portfolios, thinking about the exposures.
[00:29:13] Jonathan Binder: Yeah, well, you know, as, as I said earlier, you know, there's some countries that are simply uninvestable. Now, that list of countries changes. Some get a little bit better. Some continue to get worse. Some are so far gone. Yeah, they may never make it back. And then there are, of course, out of the 16 countries.
[00:29:29] Jonathan Binder: So that we're invested in, you know, some of those are borderline. Uh, but maybe the valuation opportunity is sufficiently good, or there are other ways that we can mitigate, uh, the economic risks that we're running in the country, given that we've assessed that there's no political risk that we'll get our assets confiscated or whatever.
[00:29:47] Jonathan Binder: So, you know, again, Uh, I think it was actually, um, the bond King many years ago, who once said, you actually have to take huge index risk [00:30:00] to reduce your portfolio risk. So what that means is, and again, I'll use the example. I mean, people don't understand the risks that they're, I don't think that they take by investing in China today, or certainly two or three years ago, or four or five years ago.
[00:30:14] Jonathan Binder: Now, if I look at the countries we're invested in, you know, again, from America, if you've never traveled there, It may look very dangerous, but our job is to analyze the countries, analyze the political environment, analyze the economic policy set. What are the drivers for the economy of this country? Do they look good?
[00:30:34] Jonathan Binder: Do they have longevity, et cetera? Then we can go, okay, what companies are there that present the best way to exploit this growth opportunity? And look, at the end of the day, you know, when I look at the U. S., you know, if you want to talk about risk in the U. S., I think the U. S. and Europe and U. K. run massive growth risk.
[00:30:57] Jonathan Binder: And we're at an interesting point today, [00:31:00] but in essence, people are saying, well, emerging market frontier countries are not growing as fast and all the rest of it. Well, the countries we're invested in are still growing a lot faster than the U. S. That's number one. Number two. The direction of the U S in terms of growth, I think we could debate, but I think it's broadly poor and, you know, the, the, there are a number of reasons for that.
[00:31:22] Jonathan Binder: So when I look at the countries we're invested in. They don't have and don't have a history of the policies that has brought us to where it is today, or the UK or Europe, central banks, massive, you know, ballooning debt on their balance sheets and so on and so forth. So, again, risk is, uh, you know, what risk do we have?
[00:31:43] Jonathan Binder: We have a different set of risks, but they're well identified. They're well analyzed and well understood. And I think people simply sometimes are a bit blinkered in terms of understanding. What are the risks that they are running through their investments in [00:32:00] the United States? And, you know, let's be frank, the U.
[00:32:03] Jonathan Binder: S. has been a great place to invest for the last 20 odd years, tremendous return profile, as we all know, generally driven by, you know, the top 6, 8, 10 global tech stocks, the rest of the market less so, but that's, that's what's really driven it. So people are saying, well, as you kind of alluded to right at the beginning.
[00:32:23] Jonathan Binder: Yeah. Why should I bother with international? Why should I bother with the M I've done great for the last 20 years in the U S and I think, you know, these things shall change. And if you don't recognize the possibility or as I would put it, the probability that these things will change. And we did go through an extraordinary period, you know, in the last 30 odd years.
[00:32:43] Jonathan Binder: I mean, when I came to this country, the long bond and I was a bond guy back then, the long bond was yielding, I think 16%. And I think it bottomed last year or the year before. I'd like to or something. So there was an extraordinary environment in terms of interest rates, yields, money, growth, [00:33:00] minus by all the rest of everything that we know.
[00:33:02] Jonathan Binder: But if you look at it today, you say, well, what are we looking at today? Well, central banks in the U S the Fed is tightening QT. Raising rates, you've got a massive debt on that exists at the fiscal level. The balance sheet of the Central Bank of the Fed is huge. You know, you got regulations, taxes, an environment that's probably somewhat hostile to to private sector companies, specifically, including.
[00:33:28] Jonathan Binder: Companies like, uh, Amazon that just got sued yesterday. So, you know, if I look at the general environment and the risk profile for the United States today, and I'm looking forward and not backwards, and I say, okay, it doesn't mean I'm going to be zero in the United States, but does it mean I should be zero in parts of the world that are, have no such regulatory issues, no such hostile environment.
[00:33:54] Jonathan Binder: No excess debt because they simply couldn't issue it where there is growth, where there are companies that are [00:34:00] doing things today that happened in the U S 10 years ago. And I'm simply saying it won't care. It's going to work here. And you know, these are not, so they're not complicated themes that we're looking to exploit here, but this is an opportunity.
[00:34:13] Jonathan Binder: And why would you not want to play in this sandpit? And I'm not saying that you put 20 percent of your portfolio here, but But you could afford to put 1 or 2 percent of your portfolio here. You know, if your typical EM allocation is call it 8 to 10, you could certainly take a couple of points of that and put it into what we would describe as real emerging markets and real emerging market investing.
[00:34:36] Jonathan Binder: I think also
[00:34:37] Charlie Cassel: kind of going back to the meat of Stacey's question, which was, was about risk. There's a difference between forward looking assessment risk and Backward looking protection mechanisms that one uses to balance your portfolio. Jonathan's point is, is that structurally the forward looking risks associated with, with, with frontier emerging markets are actually less [00:35:00] than what the developed world looks like.
[00:35:02] Charlie Cassel: But the other part of this is, is looking at all the minutia and analyzing the risks of each of the countries and companies in which we're investing. And spreading the risk and also, and I know that sounds funny in a concentrated portfolio like ours, but that means making sure we have something in different countries.
[00:35:23] Charlie Cassel: It's not all in one country. It's not all in big positions in one particular stock, but it also means making sure we get the liquidity constraints right and understood. So when we buy a stock in any of these places, we want to make sure we can get out of that stock. If we happen to be wrong or if something Something that is unexpected occurs.
[00:35:45] Charlie Cassel: The one thing that blows up most emerging market investors is being stuck in a crowded room when everybody wants to get out at the same time. And it's not necessarily that it's a complete loss. [00:36:00] It's not a bankruptcy of a country. It's not a complete nuclear wipe out of. Something off the map. It's it tends to be just massive volatility because investors are heard like, and that psychological effect is more acute in our space than it is in bigger markets.
[00:36:23] Charlie Cassel: Yeah.
[00:36:23] Jonathan Binder: Yeah. That's a great point. And look, I mean, we've designed our fund products for designed to be an institutional friendly, but to reflect the realities of the marketplace in terms of liquidity. And as Charlie alluded to, you know, We're not forced to be invested anywhere in particular, but we are forced to be invested in multiple places.
[00:36:43] Jonathan Binder: And luckily, there are always a number of places that are interesting to invest in, but that's the kind of risk mitigation that we do it at a practical level to protect ourselves as well as to protect our clients. Because as Charlie said, the volatility in our markets is way higher. [00:37:00] I mean, if you. 2020 with COVID, you know, certainly the down and up in frontier and EM, I think we were at one point we were down like 50 odd percent mark to market, but by the end of the year, we were up, we outperformed the U S markets.
[00:37:17] Jonathan Binder: So, you know, so it's kind of a, you know, that's part of, and why was that was because in the end we had companies that were fine. The countries we were invested in were fine, COVID was nothing for them. In fact, turned out to be a lot less for them than for us. So, you know, indeed, there's an example of, you know, people not understanding that there was a risk in the U.
[00:37:39] Jonathan Binder: S. because of where we are today as a society and a culture. Well, you know, this sort of work from home and don't go out and all the rest of it. That didn't happen in the front end world. You couldn't afford to do that. So it was a completely different environment. So, you know, I would go back to diversification grass allocators, you know, yes, you want to be diversified.
[00:37:59] Jonathan Binder: So [00:38:00] identify some interesting areas. And I would suggest that we are a very interesting area. If only actually, because, you know, we've been pretty unpopular. About the last six or seven years, despite performance, you know, the history of sort of frontier and smaller em, you know, as the cycle started in kind of 2010 and it was, you know, money poured into the dedicated frontier funds and no one knows the precise numbers, but we probably went close to 15 to 20 billion dollars at its peak in 2016.
[00:38:31] Jonathan Binder: Today, that number is probably 3 to 4 billion. Okay, so that tells you, you know, so if you're, if you're in any kind of contrarian or contra cyclical, you know, investor, you're looking at an area of the market that has been out of favor. And yet our growth is better. Our valuations are better and we mitigate that risk and the history showing that we can mitigate that risk pretty damn well.
[00:38:58] Stacy Havener: That's perfect. [00:39:00] Love both of those perspectives, both the kind of more macro risk conversation as well as the portfolio level. That was very helpful. So, if you have questions, pop them into the Q and A. I have a couple here. I want to go back to the conversation on the bigs. Again, I'm really putting myself in the shoes of the allocators here and I'm like, okay.
[00:39:23] Stacy Havener: So boots on the ground, remember that was like the big phrase. I mean, it might still be, but when international and E. M. first came out, all the big shops were like, we have boots on the ground. We have offices in the countries where we're investing. And, you know, the allocators are like, that makes total sense to me.
[00:39:42] Stacy Havener: Is that still a thing? Or how, how does that, is that real? Is that perceived? What's up with that?
[00:39:50] Jonathan Binder: I think it's nonsense. I mean, it's, it's, it's total garbage. And obviously, you know, if you're a big firm and you hire 5, 000 people, you got to put them somewhere and, you know, great. If you're the [00:40:00] 25 year old, that's hired to sit in Bangladesh.
[00:40:02] Jonathan Binder: I mean, that's great, but you know, that doesn't, that doesn't mean that you as a 25 year old kid in Bangladesh. I'm going to add any value. I mean, what do you know at 25? I'm like, maybe there are some 25 year old geniuses, but there aren't that many. So, you know, I just see it as, you know, when I look at the team that we've got here at Concilium, you know, every one of my analytical team has been in the markets for not less than 10 years, probably more like 15, 20.
[00:40:33] Jonathan Binder: One of my colleagues is, um, being around almost as long as I have. So I will take, you know. Innate intelligence experience, knowledge, the ability to travel. They have traveled, you know, diversity. I mean, we have a team and I use this word carefully because diversity is can be misused. But when I've assembled the team here on the frontier side.
[00:40:59] Jonathan Binder: I was [00:41:00] consciously looking, not just for talent people per se, but for people with diverse ways of looking at the markets, not just diverse in terms of color, country, whatever. How do they look at these markets? Because if I've got four guys who all think the same way, or when I say guys, I mean for ladies or men all look, you know.
[00:41:22] Jonathan Binder: If they all look at things the same way I look at, then I'm going to get no value added out of them. So actually, I want people who look at things in a different way from the way I look at them, and in a different way from the way they each look at things. And we have a very team based approach here. So the whole point of the process is to suck in 4, 5, 6 different viewpoints.
[00:41:47] Jonathan Binder: My trader over there has worked with me for 30 years. So, you know, again, we want his views on the local markets, his understanding. He, he knows what's going on, the volumes, who's trading, why they're trading [00:42:00] locals, internationals, hedge funds, long only all of that stuff. But that all comes with experience, knowledge.
[00:42:06] Jonathan Binder: And I will take that. Over the local guy in Bangladesh, 100 times out of 101,
[00:42:14] Charlie Cassel: I think, too, that when you're thinking about the people that are putting everybody on a map, they are by definition, creating a mechanism. That requires the people on the ground to be relevant. In other words, you're not going to hire somebody.
[00:42:36] Charlie Cassel: In Pakistan to not be recommending Pakistani equities, and that kind of loses the point, which is, are you really understanding as a portfolio manager? The biases that are being created in that type of a scenario. And I think it's really important to emphasize is that when you're [00:43:00] not everywhere, but you're experienced in all those places and have Have been to them and seen them and understand them.
[00:43:07] Charlie Cassel: You can make a lot better unbiased decision about them.
[00:43:12] Stacy Havener: So well said. Can I try to translate? Cause I'm picking up what you're putting down, but I just want to say it back to you. So basically it's kind of an unintended consequence in some way. You think you're doing a great thing. You put people in these offices in these countries, but now because you've done that.
[00:43:30] Stacy Havener: You know, their whole purpose is to get one of their positions into the portfolio and going back to the earlier conversation, if you, if you have 30 countries, you're only in 16, somebody's not got a name.
[00:43:43] Charlie Cassel: That's right. They're not getting paid.
[00:43:44] Stacy Havener: Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Love that. So some others have suggested to us that differentiated success in global investment strategies is primarily due to country selection based on macro [00:44:00] conditions, and that stock selection is hardly worth the time and effort it requires.
[00:44:05] Stacy Havener: How would you respond to that suggestion?
[00:44:07] Jonathan Binder: Uh, well, I would say the country selection will stop you hopefully from losing a lot of money. That's number 1. but once you've decided that the country is investable, you can certainly find companies that will not do well and companies that will do well. So, therefore, you can't rest your laurels at that stage, and you have to be able to identify the good performers in the local market, because even in a benign environment, there are plenty of bad performance.
[00:44:35] Jonathan Binder: And it's like the United States, I mean, you know. Okay. This year, there are stocks that are up 50 percent and there are stocks that are down 50 percent or maybe more both sides. So the answer is you have to have the ability to do both. What I would say is that, you know, I grew up in a time when there was, I think, sort of.
[00:44:53] Jonathan Binder: Optimism and hope that countries would all kind of move in the direction [00:45:00] of pluralist capitalist democratic societies. And that was sort of part of the theme of emerging market investing and the idea of bringing China into the WTO. It was all very positive and hopeful. And, uh, I think that, um, sadly, hope is not an investment strategy anymore.
[00:45:20] Jonathan Binder: Um, I mean, it's certainly, I would say that if I made a mistake besides Argentina, I would say that I, you know, up until two or three years ago, I tended to give some countries the benefit of the doubt that they must surely Be looking to improve their policy set. Surely they must see the obvious answer that is over here and that they will eventually see that they'll go down that road.
[00:45:48] Jonathan Binder: And therefore my really great cheap stock is going to perform fantastically. And sadly, what I've learned over the last 10 years and less over the last two or three years, cause we got out is [00:46:00] that some countries and some leaders, whether it's a democracy, a quasi democracy. Or even a dictatorship, sometimes they just don't see the good way and they persist with bad policies.
[00:46:12] Jonathan Binder: And that's where we are today. So it has changed a little bit because I think there was a time when you could be a little bit more hopeful. I think today. I am uber realistic that, you know, I have to see concrete signs of actual policy commitment, not just for the short term, because I mean, you, you go back and you ask about turnover and all the rest of it, and yeah, we have to be nimble to a degree we have to be flexible, but in the end, we're trying to buy companies for the long run.
[00:46:42] Jonathan Binder: It's easier for me if I can find a company. But I can be invested in for 10 years. That's that's the dream story. And we have some of us, but only in countries that, you know, are consistently stable. And sadly, there are not that many countries that are consistently stable.
[00:46:58] Charlie Cassel: Yeah, I think all that's right. I [00:47:00] think the other part to add to that is, is that bellwether companies and.
[00:47:06] Charlie Cassel: Any of the emerging markets in which we invest rarely outperform the overall country. So if you're going to be invested in any one country, yes, the country is going to be driving a portion of the performance. But there are certainly stock picking opportunities in every place that we invest to outperform those individual countries.
[00:47:29] Charlie Cassel: And that's what we're being paid to do.
[00:47:31] Stacy Havener: Yes. And, you know, I think that that rhetoric around this basket approach to EM investing, you know, you, you get the country, right. Maybe you get the sector, right. And then you diversify your risk across a bunch of names. So if anything blows up, you're sort of, you know, that was also a big, I can tell you,
[00:47:49] Jonathan Binder: it's a disaster.
[00:47:51] Jonathan Binder: You're actually increasing your risk. I mean, like, just as an example, a well known ETF [00:48:00] manager. Three months ago announced that the passive ETF was going to have to go quasi active because they finally recognized six months late that they actually couldn't get their money out of these countries. Oh, gosh.
[00:48:15] Jonathan Binder: So, you know, that's just an example of, you know, a kind of passive basket approach. Is a disaster, you know, it's a disaster in the short run, meaning long run. It's just garbage. So it's, um, and the numbers bear it out. Yeah.
[00:48:35] Stacy Havener: Speaking of numbers, we have another question about broadly and it's a great question. Em has underperformed for a while. And they acknowledge, like, haven't seen your specific performance, but what do you think it will take to catalyze a period of outperformance in EM in general? So that's the question I would add.
[00:48:55] Stacy Havener: Encourage you to bifurcate, if needed, GEM and Frontier. [00:49:00]
[00:49:00] Charlie Cassel: I'd say the simple answer to that particular question is lop off China from the index. Mmm. That will immediately change the whole complexion of the return prospects for emerging markets.
[00:49:12] Jonathan Binder: Yeah, it's kind of interesting because if you look at China and its contribution positively to the index performance of EM, and then in the last three years, it basically gave it all up.
[00:49:22] Jonathan Binder: Yeah. I mean, in three short years, it gave it all up. And that's why the kind of numbers look terrible and all the rest of it. And I sort of look at it What will really make the difference is people deciding that actually there are opportunities in these countries and putting money into the mass allocating towards them.
[00:49:38] Jonathan Binder: Yeah. Now, why will they do that? I know at some stage there'll be some kind of recognition that maybe the 20 year bull market story in us stocks is maybe looks a little bit more complicated forward looking 20 years. I don't know. And that only has to happen in the margin. That's the state. Not a lot of money can move these
[00:49:57] Charlie Cassel: markets a long way.
[00:49:59] Charlie Cassel: So [00:50:00] valuations are also highly undervalued right now in emerging markets. So you've got, what's the, what's the average book value of a, of one of our banks, regional bank and half times. Yeah. I
[00:50:13] Jonathan Binder: mean, the banks in particular are very, very cheap in a number of these countries right now and supported by. Very strong dividend yields on top of that growth and value.
[00:50:22] Jonathan Binder: I mean, I think 20 years ago, again, 30 years ago, you could be a value investor today. You cannot be a value investor in EM or frontier. You have to be really looking for where the growth is. But the beauty is that right now is you can have both value and growth all at the same time. I mean, it's quite extraordinary.
[00:50:42] Jonathan Binder: So I think it's sort of a, uh, I think a realization that maybe what drove the U S and the U S markets and all the rest of it, you know, it's not necessarily coming to an end, but maybe the story is just looking a little less rosy than it has looked for a long time. And part of that is that regulation, you know, [00:51:00] you name it and hostile environment for companies generally, and people just looking and saying.
[00:51:04] Jonathan Binder: Yeah, you know, that just actually intellectually that just looks a little interesting and I can understand it. And again, I go back and say, you know, I'm not saying you take your U. S. allocation from X to half X. I'm just saying either take a little bit of your X or take your E. M. exposure. I'm really probably more likely to be successful persuading an E.
[00:51:25] Jonathan Binder: M. allocation to slice off a little bit and say, Look at what you're really getting with your gem manager really understand that and maybe you'd like to give us just a piece of
[00:51:37] Charlie Cassel: that. But if you think about what drove the underperformance video for getting about 5 percent what drove the underperformance is that.
[00:51:48] Charlie Cassel: The tailwinds in the United States were just so extreme, you had a massive creation of money supply. You had falling interest rates that were increasing the [00:52:00] capitalization values of the equity markets. It was a kind of a no brainer for a long time. You didn't have to be smart. You just had to follow the hurdle.
[00:52:07] Charlie Cassel: And now that the, that party is coming to a bit of an end and you're going to have to be a little bit more rigorous in your thought process and investing in the United States, you have kind of a no brainer in the emerging market world. Valuations are low, you've got very favorable demographics, you've got growth that exceeds growth in, in the, uh, In the developed world by two to three times, it's kind of a no brainer at this stage.
[00:52:37] Charlie Cassel: Now, when the money flows back, you'll start to see the outperformance again. When that happens, that's going to determine when the, the first movers start to move back into the space.
[00:52:48] Stacy Havener: Yeah, that was great perspective and a great question. And it sparked a question for me that I forgot about. And so I'm watching the clock, but I want to try to get this one in because it's such a cool concept.[00:53:00]
[00:53:00] Stacy Havener: So. The idea of family controlled businesses in non U. S. markets is much more of a thing. What sparked it for me was dividends. When you mentioned dividends, I was like, oh, yes. Um, we've been talking about this kind of as a team. Can you talk about that? Because it's really interesting, you know, that you still have families controlling public companies and they, Why?
[00:53:28] Stacy Havener: Dividends and so they get them and so do the investors who invest alongside them. Can you talk about that?
[00:53:34] Jonathan Binder: Yeah, look, I think there are, you know, the history, well, the story of emerging markets is there are a lot of family and companies that grow to quite big size and all the rest of it. But as a, as a pure growth EM, Frontier investor.
[00:53:48] Jonathan Binder: I actually prefer that to be no dividend. I prefer the companies. I prefer them to retain the company, the money invested high ROI and all the rest of it. I think we're kind of in a strange world that's [00:54:00] developed in the last few years where, you know, I'll go into meetings with companies and other investors and they'll sort of fixated in a way.
[00:54:08] Jonathan Binder: In the last three years that never happened in the previous 20 years about dividends. And it's like, well, why? I mean, I guess a dividend is sort of a simple way to verify that a company is really generating cashflow. And it's still, it's sort of a, it's sort of a comfort story, but you know, I don't really, you know, you know, there is a lot of it around and it is being paid out.
[00:54:32] Jonathan Binder: Sometimes it's family companies, sometimes it's just professionally run companies and they're just paying the dividend out because in this environment that does support the stock price and all the rest of it, but it's a bit of a sort of, I think it's sort of misguided to be by the time you're looking for dividends as to create an investment story, I think you've probably missed 90 percent of the opportunity.
[00:54:54] Stacy Havener: Okay, so throw out my dividend comment then, but talk about the family control piece, because that's what I think is [00:55:00] cool and different than what you see here in the States.
[00:55:04] Jonathan Binder: Yeah, I look, I think, you know, like, pluses and minuses,
[00:55:07] Stacy Havener: you
[00:55:09] Jonathan Binder: know, generations, a whole
[00:55:10] Stacy Havener: webinar on this because I think that's fascinating.
[00:55:13] Jonathan Binder: Well, look, you know, we all know what's the story 1st generation makes it 2nd generation exploits it, 3rd generation loses it. You know, we've had, you know, we obviously because of the family element, we, and we spend a lot of time. Making sure or trying to make sure that when we invest in a company, especially family controlled about transparency, and they're not stealing from the company.
[00:55:36] Jonathan Binder: And, you know, having open and frank conversations. And I think we get it more right than wrong, but it's still possible to get it wrong. And you have to be very careful that the assessment of that generation that is running the company today, or might be running the company makes 2 to 3 years. Well, they actually are up to it because I think what we discovered is, you know, there aren't that many people in the [00:56:00] NFL whose parents played there.
[00:56:01] Jonathan Binder: There are a few, but not that many. And it's the same. It's the same. Uh, what do they call it these days in Hollywood? Never. Yeah. I mean, but it's like, you know, sometimes these people are in the, in a point of opportunity and path without actually deserving it. And you have to be able to be on the lookout for that for sure.
[00:56:22] Stacy Havener: So it's both sides, but you see it more in frontier. And so you've got to assess like, what's the situation. I mean, that is just a cool, a really cool different element that you'd have to be have the expertise in. Yeah.
[00:56:38] Jonathan Binder: The positive is that they tend to be more robust companies because they definitely have been through very rough and volatile times in the last 30, 40 years, 20 years, 10 years.
[00:56:50] Jonathan Binder: So they generally build their companies to have survivability and. You know, that's not sort of my first question, but you know, you [00:57:00] want to make sure that in the inevitable rough times that happen, that they will be able to ride out those storms, whether it's more likely nothing to do with the company itself, it might be the sector or more likely the country.
[00:57:12] Jonathan Binder: And, you know, I can sleep well at night if I know that the company is rock solid, you know, it's valuation may go down, but the company is not going away.
[00:57:22] Stacy Havener: Very well said. Okay, I'm watching the time. Thank you everyone for spending an hour with us today. This has been a fascinating conversation. I'm looking forward to more of these webinars for people on the attendees who are here sign up to follow concilium.
[00:57:43] Stacy Havener: Thought leadership is coming out topics like we're talking about today. We'd love to hear if there's other topics you'd like us to cover. So you can go to their website and sign up. You can follow them on linked in. We'll certainly keep you posted on more webinars. The questions have been great. If you have additional questions, reach [00:58:00] out to the team.
[00:58:00] Stacy Havener: We will make sure your questions are answered or if you'd like to do a deeper dive and look at. You know, someone mentioned performance and some other things, happy to facilitate that. Jonathan and Charlie, thank you so much for being here. Would you like to end with any final comments or thoughts that we didn't get a chance to cover?
[00:58:19] Jonathan Binder: I would just ask everyone to be open minded, do some investigation, look at it, take a look and, uh, don't just wipe it off the table because it's too difficult.
[00:58:30] Stacy Havener: Yeah, or 2 different. Yeah, that's really well said. So we will put this call through compliance, get it transcribed. All the things send you a replay when that's complete and thank you again.
[00:58:43] Stacy Havener: Thank you, Charlie and Jonathan. Thank you everyone for being here and we will get together again soon.
[00:58:49] Jonathan Binder: Thank you. Thank you
[00:58:51] Stacy Havener: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, [00:59:00] or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy.
[00:59:05] Stacy Havener: Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance. All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener Capital Partners.
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