What you'll find in this article
This article introduces Jordan Buck, Co-founder and President of Cadro, and explores how Cadro's Investment Committee operates — from its monthly, data-driven meetings to how private markets expertise and disciplined risk management combine with the object of protecting and growing client wealth over the long term.
Introducing Jordan Buck
Jordan Buck is an award-winning investment professional and leader, with almost two decades' experience in financial services.
After training as a chartered accountant, he went on to managing roles in investment banking and private equity, gaining recognition as one of the City of London’s Top 40 Under 40 Private Asset Managers in 2020. He is a former Partner at LGT Wealth Management, where he set up and led the company's private equity team. Jordan is a guest lecturer at The London Institute of Banking & Finance (LIBF).
He is a full voting member of Cadro's Investment Committee, alongside Co-founder Nataša Williams, and the company's Chief Investment Officer David Semmens, Head of Private Markets Ajay Patel, and External Committee Members Gayle Schumacher and Jonathan Marriott.
An interview with Jordan Buck
Yeah – hi, I'm Jordan Buck, Co-founder and President of Cadro, and sit as a voting member of the Investment Committee.
My background, I was previously a partner at LGT where I ran the private equity team. I very much spent years there investing. Before that, I was an M&A banker and originally a chartered accountant.
How is Cadro's Investment Committee different?
So, there're a few reasons why we believe it was built from scratch to be different to our competitors.
The first thing is we meet every single month. Every four weeks, at least, we have a three hour Investment Committee meeting. So, we dedicate proper time to this. We spend a lot of time discussing and debating. I think it's very, very healthy that we don't always agree with each other. It's very data driven: so, we have at least a 100-page pack for every Investment Committee. We use a lot of ground-up data to help us with decision making. And because we can discuss things and also react quickly, and because of the technology, we can trade our clients quickly as well, it means we get to take advantage of movements in the market.
The portfolios are designed in a modern way to take advantage of modern trends, not trends that were relevant 30 years ago. So we're very focused on technology and on AI and on new things that are happening within the world, whether it be water scarcity or data centres or quantum computing.
How are Cadro portfolios built?
Our portfolios are built in a top-down way.
So, we're very focused – we have a lot of passives and trackers within our portfolio. Not that we don't change them often, we really do. But it's an extremely cost effective way of getting exposure to the types of companies we want our clients to have exposure to. Don't underestimate the impact of, once it compounds, that fee-saving of paying, say, 0.06% on an underlying investment versus 1%.
We sprinkle in some active managers where we believe it's worth paying the fee because they have specialism or information advantage, and we look at long-term themes, things like technology and AI, things like water scarcity, things like power networks with data centers.
And what we don't do is pick individual stocks and expose our clients to unnecessary risk.
How does private markets expertise matter on the IC?
I think it's really important to have private markets expertise on our wider Investment Committee. Let's be honest, 99% of the companies in the world are not public and therefore by just focusing on public markets, you're really limiting your scope of what you're able to invest in.
Having that expertise across private markets as well means that we can understand trends and technologies and things that will end up in the public sphere on public markets.
How does the IC actually work?
Yeah, so the Investment Committee is chaired by our Chief Investment Officer (CIO) David Semmens.
It's a very democratic process. So, there are six voting members. And I think in a very healthy way, we don't always agree. And we are able to state our thoughts and our beliefs very freely and openly, actively discuss these. And ultimately decisions come down to a vote. So, it's not like individuals are being pushed into one thing or the other. We get to be independent, we get to have independent thought and then vote for what we think is right or wrong in the moment. And let's not forget as well, we also monitor every single decision that we make and track forever, indefinitely, whether that was the right or the wrong decision.
Long term investing, but nimble
So, even if we are investing for the long term, if we believe in something, whether the market's moved or we want to take profit or take advantage of something, it pays to move quickly. Because even if we think the same thing for weeks, if we can jump on that straight away and trade all of the clients within a day of making that decision, it just – odds suggests that leads to better outcomes.
How does research inform our decision making?
So, we rigorously check with data which funds we are allowed to even discuss at Investment Committee. They have to hit certain parameters over one, three and five year timeframes. They have to be of a certain size. They have to have hit certain return and other benchmarks. And only then do we decide, you know, if the cost is worth paying, if the theme we truly believe in. We only tend to sprinkle in active managers where we see that the increased cost is worth paying for, and they have an information advantage in some particular sector that we do not have. So that is when we decide that it may or may not be worth paying an extra fee for a specialist who is excellent at what they do.
How do we manage risk?
Disclaimer: The performance shown in the link below is historical and relates to representative Cadro Sterling-denominated (GBP) discretionary portfolios over the period stated. Returns are shown in GBP and are net of underlying investment costs and the estimated Cadro management fee, but before any additional costs incurred by individual clients. Performance is shown relative to the relevant ARC benchmark for each risk profile. Individual client portfolios may differ due to timing, constraints or other factors. Past performance is not an indication of future performance and investing your capital in financial markets carries risk. The value of your portfolio can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you originally invested.
Risk is a huge focus of the Investment Committee.
We look at least every month at the volatility of different portfolios and the volatility of different risk profiles for different clients to make sure that we sit in the parameters that we've decided. Ultimately, our goal is to track but beat the benchmark. So, provide a slightly higher return, but ideally reducing volatility.
Our job is not to double our clients' money in a month. If we do that, we've done a very bad job. Obviously, we can never guarantee the future performance for our clients, but so far our processes have been set up in a way that works very well.
In summary, what makes Cadro's Investment Committee unique?
I think what makes Cadro's Investment Committee really unique is the huge amount of experience, especially with our External Investment Committee members. It's the fact that we're really nimble and we meet every single month, at least once, to discuss what we do there and then. I think the fact that we meet for three hours on that occasion and discuss and debate openly, with a 100-page, data driven pack to look at. And I think the fact that we are very cost effective with very modern portfolios that focus on the future and not the past.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to engage in any investment activity. It does not take into account the investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of any individual. Capital at risk. The value of your portfolio can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invest.
