Tell me about your career background and a particular highlight.
Jonathan: I started as a fund manager at Henderson, moved to SunLife, and joined the hedge fund industry in 1992, with Crispin Odey.
I went from there for a brief period to Edmond de Rothschild, based in London, but primarily working with the guys in Geneva.
Then I was headhunted to go to Hong Kong to head up the European business for Jardine Fleming, where I was employed in Hong Kong but working out of Luxembourg.
In the mid-90s I hired James and we became mates at that time.
I then resigned, and here comes my career highlight, which is that I was the founder of a company called Thames River Capital, which became a very successful hedge fund and traditional fund management business.
Later on, I backed a different business, which was Occam Asset Management, where I was non-executive chairman.
It went very well and then went badly.
Liontrust stepped in and bought Occam in 2011 and I agreed to come and build the international business for Liontrust.
James: After three-and-a-half years with Fleming, I joined Credit Suisse Asset Management at the end of 2000, to build up a Benelux business for them.
It was a large operation, which had basically become a management job.
It was good fun, but I was keen to get back into a pure money raising and sales environment.
When Jonathan stepped down from the day-to-day role at Thames River in 2007, Thames River kindly asked me to come along and help out on the sales side.
I remained there throughout the acquisition of Thames River by F&C, latterly as head of international wholesale, and I joined Liontrust in the middle of September last year.
What is the reason for you being coheads, rather than just one person for the role?
Jonathan: I started Thames River Capital with Charlie Porter, and we were equal partners.
We both did some things well and some things badly.
The synergy was greater than the sum of the parts.
This partnership is exactly the same.
James: We were both good at raising money, which is the important bit, but there are other aspects involved.
There are geographies in which I am a lot stronger and where Jonathan is stronger but, also, I am based in Luxembourg, so we opened a branch of Liontrust there.
I have lived there since 1997 and it helps to give a global dimension to our business.
