Stephen Isaacs is a strategic advisor to Alvine Capital, and an angel investor who has held a number of roles as non-executive director and chair and is a frequent commentator on macro and economic matters. We wanted to sit down with him to get insights into his current macro reviews and peel back the layers a little to ask about his approach to the economy and investing and gather some lessons learned from past setbacks.

We start by discussing the approach Stephen takes to investing and to distilling macro noise into investable theses. We look at his own biases which get in the way of him being truly long-term, and look at some fixes to protect us from our worst tendencies as investors, which usually involve an overly acute focus on the short term.

Our conversation then goes free-range, we discuss topics as diverse as governance, the upcoming US election, the behaviour of commodities, absolute return funds and traditional portfolio protection hedges.

Peter Dencik is currently non-executive chairman at Alvine Capital. He has had a long career in finance, having started his career as an economcis rofessor where he worked in two universities in Denmark. He then spent almost a decade at the PKA – one of Denmark’s largest pension funds, and then moved to London where he held various roles in asset management firms. He currently splits his time between Paris, Stockholm and London.

Our conversation traces Peter's movement from academic life into practice and briefly out again. He discusses the challenges and opportunities in running of of Denmark's largest pension funds, and paints a picture of the regulatory backdrop and political landscape at the time. Moving then to the London phase of his career and his views on leadership, management, governance, the role of the non-executive and other compelling insights. The common thread of humanity, respect for the dignity of every professional and the importance of putting the firm and its shareholders first are lessons for all of us.

Ian Prideaux was Head of the Grosvenor family investment office for over 16 years until his retirement in 2022. Under his leadership he embarked upon a bold vision of diversification into alternative assets. He started his career in investment banking.

Ian is a long-time friend of Alvine, and Tom and Aoifinn were keen to catch up with him in the aftermath of his retirement to look back at some of the highs and lows of working at such a unique investment entity as Grosvenor. Our conversation starts with a brief history lessons on the extraordinary origins of the investment pool, and the unique characteristics it held as such a major holder of real estate. This ultimately directed the investment of the balance, and Ian quite early on won the support of the investment committee to embark upon a bold strategy of diversifying the portfolio.

Working alongside Cambridge Associates (which is where he and Aoifinn met) he embarked upon building a private equity and hedge fund portfolio and became a keen participant in manager meetings around the world. We learn about his schooling in the most complex of investment strategies, and how he matured as an institutional investor.

We conclude with a look into his next phase - in which he has a portfolio career and is enjoying a separate set of interests. We hope you enjoy this joyful retrospective on a job very well done.