Anthony Bolton, the Fidelity fund manager, is coming out of retirement and moving to Hong Kong at the beginning of next year.
For those of you who don’t know him, Mr Bolton is one of London’s brightest stars. An investment of £1,000 in his Special Situations Fund when it opened 28 years ago would now be worth £148,200.
His move is another depressing reminder of how grim things are in the West. As he put it to me on the phone: "The governments have mortgaged the future to get us out of the financial mess."
By contrast, he reckons that China represents the most attractive growth over the long-term. He must have sounded investors out too, because he believes there is a wave of Western money ready to follow him out East.
But how will he fare making stock picks from the markets in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen? In his early days at Fidelity, Mr Bolton pioneered the process of meeting executives and grilling them on their corporate strategy.
That practice has now become universal in the West, but will he find the same degree of transparency in China? He says he has been to meet at least 40 Chinese companies so far, touring through Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and that he has visited some firms five or six times.
Apparently the corporate governance of the best ones are up to the standards of London or New York, but if he only picks Chinese blue chips, how will he add his star value?
He also says he will focus on state-owned firms, because they are the ones who "get all the best deals". They may not be the ones most open to his scrutiny, however.
The details of the fund have yet to be worked out, but Mr Bolton will be a very big fish in the Hong Kong pond, and money will undoubtedly follow him. He had over £3 billion under management in his Special Situations Fund, it will be interesting to see how he does on this side of the world.
His judgement has already proven once. He didn’t invest in one Chinese company because he thought the management was odd. The boss is now languishing in prison.
You must log in to post a comment.