The Big Interview

Gabriel Grego, managing partner and chief investment officer at Quintessential Capital, is known among investors for his devastating critiques of fraudulent companies. A former paratrooper in the Israeli Defence Force, Grego is on what he sees as a moral crusade to sniff out corporate corruption. He is adamant, he tells GlobalCapital, that activist short selling is a force for good in financial markets — and society as a whole.

Hugh Hendry, the outspoken founder of former macro hedge fund Eclectica Asset Management, told GlobalCapital he sees no evidence for the re-emergence of global macro as a broad and viable investment strategy. Were volatility to rise again, Hendry says he may well get back into the financial fray but the likelihood of that is vanishingly slim.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which holds almost $400bn of assets under management, has played a critical role in maintaining financial stability during the coronavirus pandemic. Alireza Zaimi, head of corporate finance at the PIF, tells GlobalCapital how the fund weathered a commodity shock of unprecedented proportions, how the crisis has shaped its investment choices, and how its funding strategy has held up.

Beijing-headquartered Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has played a pre-eminent role in tackling Covid-19 this year, mainly by offering financial support to countries like Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Vietnam to combat the impact of the pandemic. But its work is not nearly over, as second and third waves of the coronavirus hit countries around the world.

Thomas Hugger has more than two decades of investment experience in frontier markets. Volatility is part of the job description. But he has never faced challenges like those unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Oleg Mukhamedshin, deputy chief executive of Rusal, which produces 9% of the world’s aluminium, tells Mariam Meskin how the company has weathered yet another rocky period in commodity markets. And how its sustainability credentials have been affected by oil spills at its affiliate, Norilsk Nickel, in May and June.

Anne Stevenson-Yang is a director and co-founder of J Capital Research, a New York firm and short seller that specialises in Chinese companies, as well as international companies looking to grow their business in China. GlobalCapital spoke to Stevenson-Yang about the dangers of trusting financial reporting from China, and steps stock exchanges could take to stifle the likelihood of fraud.

Now is not the ideal time to be a port operator. International Container Terminal Services has faced a tough year, as the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical turmoil take a toll on global trade. But the Philippine company, which develops and operates container ports and terminals, moved quickly in response to the crisis in early 2020, boosting its liquidity and freezing its capital expenditure. ICTSI followed with two successful dollar bond sales in June and July.

Anis Lahlou is chief investment officer at Aperture Investors in London. He believes that asset managers must change the way they charge fees to their investors, by only charging them for market-beating performance.

The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) was set up in 2006 to provide funding to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, itself a public/private sector partnership, to expedite the vaccination of children in the poorest countries against endemic infectious diseases. Doris Herrera-Pol, IFFIm board member and former director of global capital markets at the World Bank, spoke to GlobalCapital about the role the capital markets can play in the development and deployment of a Covid-19 vaccine.

The European Stability Mechanism was set up in 2012 as a backstop for euro area member states that were unable to access the capital markets during the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. GlobalCapital spoke to Siegfried Ruhl, the ESM’s head of funding and investor relations to see how the institution is once again looking to play a crucial role to support the bloc through its Pandemic Crisis Support credit lines and how this will be financed.

Bertrand de Mazières is one of the best known and most respected figures in European debt capital markets. As director general of finance at the European Investment Bank (EIB), he oversees one of Europe’s most important bond issuers, a status not only due to the amount it issues each year, but also its role as a setter of standards and benchmarks for rest of the market — in good times and bad.