Over 400 financial advisors, private bankers and professional investors flocked to Palazzo Mezzanotte in Milan on Wednesday 4 November to gain a firsthand look at the secret to Kairos’ success.
One of a kind in creating more efficient portfolios, with managers who work outside the box, earning their clients’ and partners’ trust day after day, is how Amir Kuhdari, the asset management company’s Sales Director presented the Kairos Group.
Independence, partnership, flexibility, alignment with its clients’ interests and experience: the hallmarks of an investment boutique that makes excellence its mantra and recruits top talent on the market to build and consolidate risk-adjusted performance.
“We are now in unexplored territory, dominated by quantitative easing within a vast monetary policy experiment,” explained Guido Brera, Chief Investment Officer. “There was a currency war, in which everyone was printing cash, causing exchange rate devaluation, and now tax arbitrage is over and we find ourselves in a trade war, with governments focused on individual companies”.
How is Kairos reacting to this economic and financial context? Markets have changed, and with interest rates at zero, investment opportunities come by way of extremely flexible and aggressive management of bonds or an expert approach to equities or other alternative instruments.
“Alternatives stand out as a flexible solution, making it possible to manage risk and exploit the inefficiencies of the market offer,” noted Michele Gesualdi, Head of Multi-Manager Products. “These are instruments with expected returns that are higher than bonds but the same risk budget. At the same time, unlike investments in equities, they reduce risk without sacrificing performance.”
Achieving returns with controlled volatility is the philosophy that has always characterized the Group’s management teams, represented by Massimo Trabattoni, Rocco Bove and Federico Riggio at the round table. These three managers explained, using practical examples, how they can bounce between the various asset classes, opening and closing the “risk valve” with discipline and perfect timing.
What is Kairos’ vision for the next few months? Alessandro Fugnoli, Group Strategist, had the answer, after retracing recent market events in a “rereading” of the latest editions of the Kairos newsletter, Il Rosso e il Nero. “This is not the end of a bull market, nor the start of a bear market. We are in a volatile stage in which we must limit portfolio risk and stay clear-headed to make the most of the various opportunities, following the rule of buying at lows and selling at highs”.