Trea started out as a white-label fund manager for third parties and has grown its own product business… What is your current status? What have been the main milestones in recent years?

In fact, we continue our tradition of white labels. We started with our two big clients, Mediolanum and Cajamar, and have continued to grow a lot. Then we raised some funds in Luxembourg under our own brand, such as Emerging Markets Debt, but we always continued to focus on white label on the traditional or liquid assets side. Yes, it is true that we launched private debt funds under the Trea name about six years ago and are currently working on venture capital fund projects also under the Trea name, but we continue to work in the traditional white label. .

How much does each division currently weigh: its own products or white label?

White-label funds are 95%, making up the majority of the business.

With which organizations do you currently have fund distribution agreements and/or mandates?

without admin. Our corporate clients are Mediolanum and Cajamar and AhoraBanca because they had just bought Novo Banco España and we bought the manager a few years ago. So, distributions with these three “marketers”, but these are clearly banks.

What are the latest versions of equities? Which assets were targeted?

Actually not yet, because the last one was in Luxembourg with Emerging Markets Debt years ago and these venture capital funds related projects have not been officially reached yet. We continue to work on them.

How would you describe TREA’s management style?

Analysis, that is, bottom-up, stock selection; Many people are confused to say this value and we are not naive in value, much less, but we find a lot of value in loans or stocks we invest.

What will all this be like after the purchase made by BEKA?

Not particularly. We will be the manager of the BEKA group and nothing changes day by day: the job does not change, the teams do not change, the senior management does not change… private equity The American I brought years ago will now be BEKA, but the rest doesn’t change anything. Obviously this operation will potentially bring us much more projections. Cross sellWe will be part of a much more diverse and much larger group, not in management but in other things. We will be managers.

Seven years ago, after 25 years of international experience in asset management, he joined Trea AM as Managing Director and CIO. You have experienced situations similar to what we are experiencing today: interest rate hikes, economic recession, falling stock markets… First of all, how is the situation?

Obviously every crisis is different, you will never see them come the same way. Yes, it is true that every crisis contains the elements of previous crises, and I think the biggest difference from what I am experiencing now is the concept of stagflation, that is, negative growth with high inflation, at least we have not seen this. It’s been here for over 40 years, and that’s a great danger because it’s very difficult to manage at the central bank level, it’s very difficult to bring inflation down without disrupting growth, and that’s what worries us the most because there’s nothing. and no one is saved there. These are undoubtedly very difficult times.

How has your experience helped you manage situations like the ones we have now?

What you’ve learned over many crises and years is how to manage risk. There is volatility and the only way to combat it is not to rush and think long term, but risk needs to be managed because sometimes you decide to do nothing and you end up falling another 20%, so it has to act against the risk. Therefore, what has been learned over the years and different crises is how to manage these risks, including market downturns, liquidity, investor psychology… In the end, the most important thing is to manage risk because there are things that are normally given to them badly. in these market situations. But even so, managing risk means trying to fall less off the market or trying to defend and retain businesses, not losing, it’s nearly impossible.

What advice would you give to someone already in the market or waiting to enter?

The street investor, who has investments and is hopeless, who does not close his eyes and read the newspaper, think long-term because unfortunately the most common and easiest dynamic is to sell when everything is falling and to buy when everything is falling. It’s very expensive, and it’s the exact opposite of what great historical investors do: buy when things are bad and sell when things are good. Frankly, it’s hard because there’s a lot of media noise, but it’s best not to think about it every day. If you’re investing in stocks, these are investments of at least 5, 10 or 20 years, you have to think long term. At the same time, not everything, you should buy when things go wrong, but buy gradually as things go down.

What milestones do you highlight professionally at Trea and personally in recent years?

At Trea we are proud to have grown in the business world; It was almost 750 million at the end of 15 and then after we won the Cajamar contract and others, we reached almost 6,000 million, it was very strong growth with the help of our corporate partners and with this growth in assets there was also a growth in manager and now we are about 60 people. I think the milestone of creating one of the greatest if not managerial managers in Spain completely independently is a very welcome challenge. As for my career, there are always challenges: surviving the crisis, learning, growing and trying to build a business; I was lucky enough to work in different partnerships in different years, a third of my 30-year career didn’t work in big houses. The concept of job creation, value creation in companies is the best.