Freno: Business models dictate scale more than AUM dollar amounts
Mike Freno · Mike Freno – Confident Humility at Barings (EP.374) · Mar 14, 2024 · at 30:08
Mike Freno is the Chairman and CEO of Barings, discussing how asset managers evaluate scale and asset growth benchmarks.
0:00 / 0:16exact quote · 17.0s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“My approach to that is I think business model dictates what the definition of scale is more than AUM and dollar amount. You could have a trillion dollars and that's not enough scale, or you could have fifty billion and have plenty of scale. So your business model will really dictate that.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Mike Freno
Freno: Mutual ownership is among the best asset management structures
“I think it is one of the best, if not the best, ownership structures.”
Freno: Specialist sales forces make operating leverage impossible in global asset management
“We run a general sales force, which I believe is the right way to really get proper scale. We challenge ourselves all the time. Is having a specialist sales force the right way to go? Just very difficult to get operating leverage in that scale if you're doing …”
Freno: Barings rejects the star portfolio manager model across all products
“We run everything as a team-based approach. We have investment committees for all of our products. We don't have the star portfolio manager that a business is built solely around.”
Freno: Asset management has discounted the importance of technology and operations
“I think one thing that asset management as an industry has discounted is the importance of building up your operations, investing in your technology, making sure the plumbing works all the time.”
Freno: Lack of organizational transparency breeds anxiety and degrades trust
“I always felt early in my career, I would rather know something and know I don't like it than not know something and think I don't like it. And that just breeds anxiety into the organization. It reduces trust. And we want to give people information. If you can…”
Freno: Advancing leaders must stop previous tasks and make fewer, bigger decisions
“Every time you move up in a new role is the things that you used to do, you should stop doing. And the reality is I should model what I expect other people to do. And I should make fewer and fewer decisions as I move up the organization. I should make bigger d…”