Gosling's Grouse: Social alpha

It is estimated that, back in 1979, the asset management industry collectively managed about £79bn.

Spread across insurance companies, pension funds, unit trusts and investment trusts, that sum now equates to more than £3trn. So, by any measure, the industry has been a success in the last 25 years – although not without the odd bump in the road. But what caught my eye about the 1979 figures was only about 8% was invested abroad in non-UK securities (bonds and equities). Pioneers in non-UK investing had been the likes of Perpetual’s visionary founder Martyn Arbib, who built his reputation investing in Japanese equities, or, slightly later, Fidelity’s Anthony Bolton with his appetite ...