Peter Lynch stated, “Insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise.”

Therefore, it is my absolute pleasure to introduce our global Investing Matters audience to Asif Suria, the former technology analyst, serial entrepreneur, software services creator, quantitative fund founder, owner of the InsideArbitrage website and newletters, investor with a focus on event driven strategies including merger arbitrage, spinoffs, (legal) insider trading, buybacks and SPACs and also the author of the recently released Harriman House book, The Event-Driven Edge in Investing: Six special situation strategies to outperform the market.

Asif was one of the earliest contributors to Seeking Alpha in 2005 and his work has been mentioned in Barron's, Dow Jones, BNN Bloomberg and other publications.

He has been an active investor for more than two decades and his background in technology has helped him build machine learning tools that inform his investing process, especially as it relates to event-driven strategies that require updated data and processes. He previously ran a quantitative investment firm focused on insider transactions.

Operating experience as an executive at venture funded San Francisco Bay Area based companies gave him a front-row seat to understanding how to build and grow companies.

In this insightful and fascinating Investing Matters interview, discover Asif Suria’s fascination with the Beatles, his journey from being a technology analyst, Seeking Alpha contributor, running a quant fund, managing his own website InsideArbitrage, newletters and analysing vast databases of transactions, learn about his personal investing strategies and about his brilliant new book, The Event-Driven Edge in Investing: Six special situation strategies to outperform the market, and also ….

-Y2K bug / Dotcom bubble & bust

-Learning from mistakes

-Investing Influenced by Benjamin Graham, Philip Fisher, Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Charlie Munger

-Value investing / Value trap

-Growth at a reasonable price (GARP)

-Connections with Portfolio Manager, CEO, CIO, Investment Manager & authors Vitaliy Katsenelson & Tobias Carlisle

-Event driven strategies

-Merger arbitrage/ Risk arbitrage strategies (Microsoft / Activision Blizzard)

Legal insider transactions (buying/ selling)/ insider transactions (Amazon/Jeff Bezos)

-Bruce Sachs / Vertex Pharmaceuticals

-Stock buybacks / Cannibals (Apple NVR Inc) Double dippers

-Special purpose acquisitions companies / SPACs / WeWork

-Spinoffs (McDonalds / Chipotle Mexican Grill.. Fiat Chrysler / Ferrari)

-Management changes

-Personal investing strategies

-The too hard bucket

-Psychology

-Hedge Fund

-Venture capital fund

-The importance of the law of averages

-The InsideArbitrage database

-Why seasonal / cyclical strategies matter

-Idea generation

-Key lessons & learnings from investing

-Importance of being a learning machine

& much more

We hope you enjoy this podcast, and we look forward to hearing your feedback.

Please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice and follow the @InvMattPodcast on Twitter.

To quote Sir Francis Bacon, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

Therefore, it is my absolute pleasure to introduce our global Investing Matters audience to the Investor, Mentor, Keynote speaker, Business Development guru, Multi award winning Fund Manager and global bestselling author of one of the best investing trading books, ‘The Art of Execution: How the world's best investors get it wrong and still make millions’ - the global investment thought leader Lee Freeman-Shor.

Lee left school with ambitions to become a Chef. However, he discovered he did not like the unsociable hours. He then returned to education to study and attained at Law degree at Nottingham Trent University. Alas he didn’t have the desire pursue the path of a legal sector profession. “Through unplanned serendipity”, Lee qualified to become an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) thus commencing his professional finance/investing journey.

His role as an Investment Development Manager, with AXA Winterthur in March 2002, was followed by the same role at Schroders in September 2004. Then, his previous boss at Winterthur, who moved to Skandia Asset Management as their CIO, asked Lee to join him on the Investment Research side of Skandia with the possibility of eventually running money in October 2005. To quote Lee, “the rest is history.”

From October 2005, Lee went onto be the Fund Manager for the $1bn+ Best Ideas Fund Range. Previously Co-Head of the Equities Research team, he co-managed a 10-person, multi-national team and had direct responsibility for the research and monitoring of all equity managers used across Skandia's platforms, including multi-manager funds, single strategy funds, guided-architecture ranges and much more.

The significant success that Lee achieved at Skandia Asset Management led to be him being recognised as one of the World's Top Fund Managers in the inaugural Citywire 1000 report: for the performance of the Skandia European Best Ideas, Skandia Global Best Ideas and Skandia UK Best Ideas funds.

Following the merger of Skandia Investment Group and Old Mutual Asset Management in 2012, Lee became a Fund Manager for Old Mutual Global Investors from June 2012 until May 2018. During this time, he went on to manage many more billions per year, including bonds, multi-asset funds of funds, winning mandates and managing a larger number of global fund managers.

In this insightful and fascinating Investing Matters interview, discover how the multi-award-winning Fund Manager and international bestselling author Lee Freeman-Shor, researched over a period of seven years. Hear about the investing habits of forty-five of the best Fund Managers in the world that he had allocated between $25m and $150m during that time. Hear about ‘The Winners checklist’, ‘being greedy when winning’ and much more, including…

-Serendipity

-Importance of proper mentoring

-Equity Management / Best ideas

-The Kelly Criteria

-Risks

-The genesis of the global bestselling book, The Art of Execution

-Learning the about the characteristics, mindset & straits of individuals & fund managers

-Performance & investing performance hit rates

- Discover the five distinct tribes and habits of investors: Assassins, Hunters, Rabbits, Connoisseurs and Raiders

-Best strategies for when you are experiencing a losing investment

-Best strategies for when you are experiencing winning investment

-The Wingman, the trading tool

-Psychology

-Biases impact even professional investors

-Overconfidence bias

-Confirmation bias

-Endowment Bias

-Anchoring bias

-Sunken cost bias

-The boredom factor

-Price targets are bad

-Dealing with losing trades

-Why price targets are bad

-British American Tobacco, Superdry, Bitcoin, Nvidia, Gold, ETFS, S&P 500, Mining stocks

-Long-term investing & compounding are key

-Ride / run your winners

-Cultivate multibaggers

-Personal investing strategy

-Investing & much more

We hope you enjoy this podcast, and we look forward to hearing your feedback.

Please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice and follow the @InvMattPodcast on Twitter.

To quote Ray Dalio, “Principles connect your values to your actions.”

With that in mind, welcome to this insightful Investing Matters interview with Richard Stone, hugely talented former Chartered Accountant, Equity Analyst, Financial Controller, Finance Director, CEO, leader and now Chief Executive of the Association of Investment Companies, which he joined in September 2021.

Prior to that, Richard was Chief Executive of Share plc (The Share Centre platform) from 2014 to 2020 and was Finance Director from 2006 to 2013. At Share plc he positioned the company to deliver exceptional customer service, including digital transformation, for both direct retail clients and other partner investment firms. Floating the business on London’ Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in May 2008. Richard led Share Plc for seven years as Group CEO prior to the business being purchased by Interactive Investor in 2020. Many of you will be aware that as a subsidiary of Interactive Investor, that Share plc was purchased in May 2022 by the behemoth investment company Abrdn Plc.

Having had an interest in stocks and shares since his teens. Richard’s passion for numbers led to him pursuing and attaining a Philosophy, Politics and Economics Degree at York University.

Following this he gained his “first proper job” with Ernst & Young (EY) as a Trainee Accountant. Richard excelled at EY and went on to win the coveted KPMG Peat Prize (The Peat Gold Medal & Prize) for the highest mark in his final Chartered Accountancy exams. Richard is qualified ICAEW Chartered Accountant.

After some year auditing for EY, Richard got the opportunity in 1999 to move to London to work as a software and information technology equity analyst for the US-based Investment Bank, Robertson Stephens. Where he worked on numerous IPOs in London. He then moved to ECsoft Group Plc the Information Technology Consulting Service co, a dual listed Nasdaq firm as their Financial Controller. Following which he moved to Huntsworth Plc, becoming their first Financial Director, where as part of the team backed by 3i, worked diligently and rapidly over three years grew the company from 100 members of staff to 600. He then joined Gavin Oldham at the Share Centre (Share Plc).

Richard has seen and worked across the US & UK Capital Markets from almost every angle during the past two decades, which makes for fantastic and insightful Investing Matters which will be informative for all.

In this Investing Matters interview, Richard gives a brief overview of his roles and responsibilities at the Association of Investment Companies, AIC’s fantastic team, Investment companies’ growth, capital raising, dividends, reasons to be optimistic and much more.

Topics and discussions also include:

-Equity participation

-Investment companies / Investment Trusts

“Never get into stockbroking”

-Studying economics / Big privatisations

-Investment companies discounts to Net Asset Value, tightening cycle

-Private Equity

-Renewables / Infrastructure

- Reasons to optimistic

-The UK market “is pregnant with value”

-Mergers, wind-ups, buybacks

-The British ISA

-Shareholder engagement

-Investment companies cost disclosures

-Stamp Duty

-AIC’s education & building awareness strategy

-Structural benefits of investing in investment trusts

-Dividend Heroes

-A long-term savings plan

-Long-term investment outperformance

-Investing & much more

We hope you enjoy this podcast, and we look forward to hearing your feedback.

Please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice and follow the @InvMattPodcast on Twitter.