What six fund managers back when no one’s watching

By Staci West on 4 March 2026 in Multi-Asset

Nine minutes. No slides, no prepared statements, no hiding behind jargon. At this week’s biannual speed-dating event hosted by FundCalibre, six Elite Rated fund managers fielded rapid-fire questions from journalists all looking for a story. Some chased macro views. Others dug into performance numbers.

I took a slightly different approach.

Rather than asking where markets are heading next (I’ll leave that to the experts), I wanted to pull back the curtain on how professional investors think when no one’s watching: what they back when it’s unfashionable, what lets them sleep at night and what those answers say about how portfolios are really built.

The fund managers were:

• Paul Marriage of Premier Miton Tellworth UK Smaller Companies
• Jeremy Gleeson of Allianz Global Hi-Tech Growth
• Simon Adler of Schroders Global Value Equities
• Rupert Silver and Ben Newton of Credo Dynamic
• Eustace Santa Barbara of IFSL Marlborough Special Situations
• Michael Bourke of M&G Global Emerging Markets

Going against the grain (on purpose)

Ask six fund managers for their most non-consensus view and you don’t get six versions of the same trade. You get philosophy — expressed through very different ideas.

For Paul Marriage that meant backing something many investors have long written off: British pubs. Holdings such as Young’s reflect a belief that the UK consumer has been more resilient than expected, and that well-run pubs — particularly in and around London — are far from obsolete. Quality estates, beer gardens, continued investment through COVID, and strong management teams all matter. The pub, it turns out, isn’t dead. What a relief!

At the other end of the spectrum, Simon Adler answered the question by pointing firmly at himself. He joked that peers might find it unusual that he carries his belongings around in a reusable Tesco bag. But the point landed: value investing isn’t just a process, it’s a mindset. Treating client capital as if it were your own means buying cheaply, avoiding excess and staying disciplined. “We’re a team of cheap people looking for cheap stocks,” he said — the proof is in the pudding.

In technology, Jeremy Gleeson noted that while headlines are dominated by mega-cap names, his team has been spending more time further down the market-cap scale. Small-cap tech companies such as Lumentum are firmly on the radar, helped by the fund’s ability to get on the phone, meet management and dig beneath the surface, even when the rest of the market is looking elsewhere.

For the Credo Dynamic team, the most against-the-grain idea is also the riskiest. Rupert Silver highlighted MicroStrategy as a high-conviction but carefully sized position. The logic is simple: if Bitcoin rises, this holding could add significant upside. Ben Newton added that many investors would likely find the entire portfolio unconventional. It’s intentionally built to be different.

Meanwhile, Eustace Santa Barbara pointed to an overweight position in gold. Not as a trade, but as a portfolio anchor. The difference, he noted, is in how they access the theme: gold companies that generate cash, pay dividends and return capital via buybacks.

What lets them sleep at night

If the first question revealed where managers are brave, the second showed where they are calm. When asked what they wouldn’t lose sleep over if markets closed for a year, several answers came back not as stock tips, but as statements of time horizon.

Paul pointed to high-quality property, defence exposure and software and data companies: businesses with tangible assets or entrenched demand. UK defence firm Cohort was cited as an example of something built for longevity rather than short-term excitement.

Simon didn’t hesitate. He said there wasn’t a single holding in the fund that would keep him awake and that he’d happily see markets close for five years. For a patient, buy-and-hold investor, the absence of daily price noise would be a gift.

Jeremy gave the “boring but safe” answers, Microsoft and Apple, before offering a more interesting one: Alibaba. Strong balance sheet, dominant core businessand a growing role in China’s domestic AI ecosystem. If markets shut, he argued, those long-term growth engines wouldn’t.

For Michael Bourke, the question itself was slightly beside the point. With low turnover and holdings stretching back more than a decade, a one-year pause wouldn’t change much. If pushed, he pointed to insurance companies, businesses designed around long-term risk management.

Diversification was the recurring theme for the Credo team. In an uncertain world, Rupert said, the portfolio is as diversified as it’s ever been, and that breadth is what brings comfort, even alongside higher-risk positions.

Eustace highlighted industrial thread manufacturer Coats, a global market leader supplying brands such as Nike and Adidas. It’s not glamorous, but it’s essential. Stable demand, global reach and a business model that proved resilient even through the pandemic.

The common thread

Despite wildly different styles, from value to tech to multi-asset, the underlying thinking was remarkably consistent. These managers aren’t trying to predict next quarter’s headlines. They’re building portfolios designed to endure boredom, volatility and long stretches where nothing much happens at all.

In a room where answers had to be delivered in minutes, there was no time for spin. What came through instead was conviction, patience and a quiet confidence that the real work of investing happens long before anyone’s watching. And in a market obsessed with constant action, that might be the most non-consensus view of all.