Speaker 0:
So I want to talk about the U. M. And I want to get this stat right So it's dropped by third from 336 billion at the end of 2021 to 223 billion at the under 2022. But being a bit smaller is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when you're investing in certain parts of the market being a bit smaller when the problem capital being bit more nimble, It's a good thing,

Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think there's two separate points there, so one is capacity management in the asset management industry, which is

Speaker 1:
something that we all need to think hard about. There are a finite number of good investments on any investment firm is going to run up a some point going to come up in a barrier where investing further amounts of quiet money is going to reduce the quality of the investments you're making. So I mean, the way we think about that is we don't have any growth targets for the firm. We have no EU am targets. It's not, in my view, that's not consistent with trying to achieve, not necessarily consistent with trying to achieve good client outcomes,

Speaker 1:
so being smaller is better. You have to trade off against that that I think it's very helpful for an asset management firm to have sufficient resources used to invest heavily in your research capabilities. So as we have grown as a firm, what we've done is we've tried to share economies of scale by reducing fees on funds. But as well as that we've We've doubled the size of the investment team in the last 12 or 15 years because we think that that's actually a good way of using what is ultimately client money.

Speaker 1:
Tiu increase our knowledge and try and achieve better investment income. So it's a balance, but you're absolutely right that

Speaker 1:
you could get too big on. Of course, that's the great challenge with the traditional asset management industry. There's an incentive for

Speaker 1:
investment firms to grow beyond the point where you know they start t o constrain performance now because we try and take a 20 year viewing or infirm. I would hope that we don't have that same incentive. We were gonna you know, the partners in the firm who come after me, you're going to have to live with the consequences of our next 20 years of performance. So it's a slightly different incentive for us. The second and simple part of your question about assets under management and I think this would apply

Speaker 1:
to growth managers on DK probably has more than anyone else is actually what happened to assets between 2019 and 2021. We went give or take from about £190 billion of assets

Speaker 1:
to be under 2, 350 I think at one point and we're now back it 230 whatever the number is were 15% bigger than we were at the end of 2019. But it doesn't feel like that because the headlines are being Lee Gifford dropped 100 billion in assets that the re elaboration was the valuations that were being afforded to some growth companies towards the end of 2020 which created this big spike and assets under management

Speaker 0:
from an investor points of view. So the total return accumulation models works very well for the last decade, maybe a bit more, but now they could be looking at income. How important income at the moment. And what a baby gift for offer from that sort of thing.

Speaker 1:
Yeah, it zay good. I'm pleased. Delighted, you asked. Because we are known primarily is you know, the rapid growth manager on

Speaker 1:
that has overshadowed the fact that we know everything we do is the fastest growing companies we confined. We do have income generating strategies. I would I would emphasise that for us, it's still about long term. It's still about growth and income. What we I think in some ways, is a client specific question is there are many investors out there who are still accumulating and have a 20 year view and do want the fastest growing companies we confined. But increasingly, obviously, is DC pensions. Mature

Speaker 1:
People are going to want to start generating income from that. And how do you How do you try and create an income which actually could last when people retire? They might have 25 years left on. They have to generate an income of of their pot of assets.

Speaker 1:
What what people making the stake of doing? Sometimes in my views, they take two you can take to Biggin and come of that, you know, yield today rather than protecting value of capital for 25 years. So we do do that. So I actually think it's it's quite neatly. Our approach to income is either way, we equity income, which is very firmly within our area of expertise. But we just focus on slightly more mature companies that are they compared. Evidence as well as we invest in the business is for those portfolios,

Speaker 1:
and then we do have multi asset income, sustainable income strategies we call it, which seeks effectively reduces the volatility of capital for people who worry about that but tries to protect the value of capital. That same time is given you some kind of reasonably decent yield. I mean, the good news for income investors now

Speaker 1:
is the yield. You're reasonably back to something that are worth having, even if they're still negative in real terms. Obviously,

Speaker 0:
when we spoke before as well, you mentioned it, the last decade's been characterised by low capital intensity, but now, into a world of crease capital in town. Yeah, does that really benefit as well? Some of the big dividend players that we just mentioned

Speaker 1:
it could do, I think the point there on the capital intensity of growth is Maura about. We've come through this extraordinary period of platforms combined with increasing better communications, faster broadband speeds,

Speaker 1:
processing power and that. And that's what gives you meta 10 cent companies like that. They're very capital like, you know, I think there's a statistic which may be or may and may not be apocryphal, but Amazon on Lee ever took in tens of millions of dollars of external capital and look at the size of the gritty. I think what's changing now is that the growth in the next 10 years

Speaker 1:
may well mean those businesses were not finished. I don't mean to imply that, but ah, lot more of the growth in next 10 years is likely to do more capital intensive because it's

Speaker 1:
it's back into almost more traditional industries. And by that I mean energy revolution, you know, that's no

Speaker 1:
essentially digital. That's building stuff.

Speaker 1:
Health innovation is large scale drug testing and investment in R and D. These things need a lot of capital in a way that I think many of the firms in the last 10 years of simply not needed that. So I do think that that growth. Investors need to think quite carefully. And you know, we can't just repeat what we've always done or what we've done in the last 10 years is going to be a bit different.