The Plan for Happy Podcast

In this wide-ranging and sometimes scary discussion, Suzanne highlights how important planning and preparation are for your legal affairs.

We discuss, apart from other things, the inevitables of life – death & taxes.
Also:

• The common misconception that everything just goes to your spouse on your death
• The enormous benefits of putting in place LPAs
• How bad things can potentially get with no preparation.
• What are the 2 simplest actions you can take to prevent disaster

My conversation with George Crowdy – fund manager within the sustainable fund team at Royal London Asset Management.

George is a member of the sustainable team which has been running ethical funds all the way back to 1990.

What was fascinating about this conversation is how George describes Royal London’s detailed quantitative process in terms of how they think about sustainable investing.

He also describes:

· The strength of the tailwinds for sustainable investing including how investors and consumers now having far more information to make informed decisions

· The key difference between ethical investing and sustainable investing.

· How they believe sustainable is more aligned with producing higher returns for shareholders because they are solving problems that the world needs to be solved.

· How sustainable investing is the truest expression of active investing where you are looking to pick the future winners that will be benefitting all of society.

George is one of the younger breed of fund managers who really has a great understanding of the trends that are important to younger consumers and investors and it was a pleasure to talk markets with him today.

Today, Adam is joined by Rob Burgeman, discretionary fund manager at Brewin Dolphin. Brewin manages nearly £50 billion of client assets and Rob and his team are responsible for managing their clients individual portfolios.

In this episode, Rob & I explore:

• The key sectors they are looking at for 2021 market performance.
• Why he's positive on the U.K economy (hint: pent-up demand)
• The 4 most dangerous words in investment - which we disagree on!
• How personal investors actually have a big advantage over professional investors.
• The professional investor view of Bitcoin and why it’s a problem for them.
• The impact of ESG and Ethical on investing and how things will not go back to how they used to be.

And make sure to listen to the end where Rob, correctly as in turns out, predicts the biggest issue that markets will face this year.

I hope you enjoy this episode and make sure to like and/or rate it

My discussion today is with Jean-Marc Routier, Product Strategist at BlackRock. Emerging Market equities. ESG for Active Equities

The unique aspect about Jean-Marc is he has an inside view on how the largest asset manager in the world – BlackRock – is making decisions around ESG that impact their entire funds business. This funds business has $8.2 Trillion under management which is larger than Germany’s GDP for reference.

In a fascinating and really insightful conversation, Jean-Marc and I cover the following:

How pursuing an ESG objective will provide a significant advantage for all asset managers

The underlying factors that currently make up the perfect storm for ESG assets.

Why BlackRock decided to remove Coal companies from all their active funds from last year. And what they will be doing this year.

How the largest company in the world just added ESG to their CEOs KPI for the year.

And make sure to listen to the end, where Jean-Marc defines the important difference between companies that “Do Good” and others that “Do No Harm” and the implications for investing in either.

I hope you enjoy my discussion with Jean-Marc Routier

Today we’re going off on a slightly different path.
My discussion today is with Simon Bowen. Founder of Models Method – a firm that helps professionals explain their complex services through drawing simple models or diagrams.
The unique aspect about Simon is the way he describes the underlying behavioural psychology of why drawing models or diagrams resonates with so many people.
In a way, it is simply working out what you do well – then finding an easy way to describe that to people. Sounds simple, but in practice much more difficult.
In a fascinating and really insightful conversation, Simon and I cover the following:
- How every person who serves a client can use simple models to explain their service proposition
- Why drawing models is the most ethical form of sales
- The in-built resistance we all have to change and how to turn that around to benefit the client
And make sure to listen to the end, where Simon shares a personal story on how simply drawing models was able to help a teenager who was going off on the wrong track.
This is a highly visual discussion and may be better enjoyed on video. It is also available at https://vimeo.com/520865049#
I hope you enjoy my discussion with Simon Bowen of Models Method.