Further praise for Winning at Active Management
“The chances of success in fund management, as in professional sports coaching, are inversely proportional to time. The longer you are in the game, the greater your chance of having a poor run over a measurable window (say, three years), and involuntarily exiting the field. So the thoughts of a manager with 50 years' experience are worth reading. This book, unlike many written by active managers, does not claim to have found El Dorado and a path to untold riches; indeed, it acknowledges that passive investment may be appropriate for some applications.
The reason Bill has succeeded for so long comes across well in his and his co-authors' approach to culture, and in their dismissal of the Price-Earnings Ratio – a figure that whilst discredited, and never used in private markets, remains a mainstay of most active managers' processes. Economies and markets do not stand still, and yet many active and quant managers believe that what worked before will work again without the need to change and evolve their processes. It is in this area, more than any other, that 50 years of experience is invaluable.”
Robert Waugh Chief Investment Officer The Royal Bank of Scotland Group
“One of the most difficult aspects of consulting to institutional investors is finding active investment managers who will produce consistent results over a long period. While an investment process that is both sound and repeatable across different market environments is critical, it is insufficient unless implemented in a thoughtful way by an investment team that possesses the skills and values, and is offered the right incentives, to make optimal investment decisions. To my mind, a firm's leadership must inculcate and manage this sort of culture within the entire team in order to remain successful over a long period, and the first part of this book highlights that cultural challenge.
Technology has become a game changer in the investment industry, and the organizations that apply it most effectively will be the long term winners. Given the incredible amount of information that is now available, winnowing the critical insights to a manageable amount and sharing them among the investment team has become essential to an investor's success. In addition, using technology to better understand the factors behind market behavior can help an investment firm to evaluate its own performance. Again, the book speaks effectively of the need to make better use of technology within all parts of the investment industry.”
David Service Director, Investment Consulting Willis Towers Watson (Retired)
“Bill Priest, a leading practitioner of free cash flow-based investing, explains why that philosophy has been so successful. And much more: he and his co-authors tackle the most difficult issue in the investment management business – culture – and demonstrate how to maintain it in challenging periods. The book also addresses the industry's latest challenge, the proliferation of quantitative algorithms in every corner of the investment world, and describes how the value of judgment has increased as machines have come to exploit the short-term relationships that can be tested. Recommended reading for this generation of investors, and the next one.”
Michael Goldstein Managing Partner Empirical Research Partners
WINNING AT ACTIVE MANAGEMENT
The Essential Roles of Culture, Philosophy, and Technology
William W. Priest Steven D. Bleiberg Michael A. Welhoelter with John Keefe
Cover image: © Maxiphoto/Getty Images, Inc.
Cover design: Wiley
Copyright © 2016 by William W. Priest. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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