Wim Antoons, Head of Portfolio at Portolani

We interviewed Wim Antoons, Head of Portfolio desk at Portolani. He tells us about his aspirations in the Financial sector, his hobbies and some interesting insight into some of the most unusual meetings he had over the years.

How do you end up working in the financial sector?

After I graduated from University, I decided I wanted to do something with investments. After starting in a commercial position advising retail clients, I decided to orient myself towards the analytical side of investing. That’s what I liked to do most, analyzing investments and gaining knowledge about investments. I have done various jobs in the field of investing, but since 2000, I concentrate on the selection of investment funds and the organization of strategic asset allocation in client portfolios. Last year, I decided to switch to a multi-family office, being Portolani. In this flexible organization, I can use my experience with investing, fund selection and asset allocation in our advice towards clients.

Besides investments, what types of other occupancy do you have?

I like to dive into academic literature about investments and behavioral finance. I read books in the field of factor investing, asset allocation and investment philosophies. Learning your entire life is key to understand what happens in the financial world. The last book I read was “Thinking fast and slow”, written by Daniel Kahneman. This masterpiece gives you a clear view of how people think when they make investment decisions. Further on, I am a member of the Brandes Institute, an American think tank where we share knowledge of academic articles and books to enhance our knowledge. For the Brandes institute, I published articles over Market Timing and the valuation of the equity market based on the Shiller CAPE ratio.

Which is your favorite investment book?

Over the last 20 years, I read so many books that gave me lots of knowledge on how to invest. I especially like “Value investing” from James Montier and “Margin of Safety” from Seth Klarman. In the field of asset allocation “Pioneering Portfolio Management” of David Swensen and “The Art of Asset Allocation” from David Darst were must-reads. I also liked “Behavioural Investing” from Montier and “Nudge” written by Richard Thaler. “Investment Philosophies” written by Aswath Damodaran was also a very good book. But the one I consider the best and that every investor should read is “The intelligent Investor: the definitive book on Value Investing”, written by Ben Graham. The book highly influenced me during my career and thought me how to invest in a smart manner. By reading this book, I discovered the difference between speculation and investing.

What makes a good fund manager stand out?

A good fund manager differs from the crowd in a number of ways: the investment process relies on factors (value, growth, size or momentum) that have proven to work overtime, assumes career risk by being different from the herd, sticks to his investment philosophy when it’s out of favor and aligns his interest with those of the shareholders in the fund. Also important is that the manager takes no excessive risks in the management of the fund because our first objective is the return of capital above the return on capital. The last point that is very important is honesty and communication towards shareholders. We enjoy working with honest and friendly people. Communication is key, surely when the funds’ performance is suffering due to wrong stock picks or the investment style that is out of favor.

Which is the most unusual meeting you ever had?

I remember some meetings were we did not have a good feeling, because some of our questions remained unanswered. After a thorough analysis, we then discovered that funds have been closed because of poor performance or even fraud into the management of some funds. That learned me always to investigate everything about the fund to ensure you select the right manager. Therefore, the annual report and cross-checks with financial authorities are very important to ensure the manager is telling the truth.