It Will Come, page-25

Extract from a Bell Direct promo this morning for their "Livewire" offering

It takes a special type of person to be a contrarian investor. It requires accepting that you won’t always get it right, and the ability to put aside preconceived ideas about a company and focus only on the fundamentals. One investor who’s made a career of this approach is Simon Mawhinney, Chief Investment Officer at Allan Gray Australia. It was this contrarian streak that saw him buying banks and retailers in the middle of the COVID-crash, a decision that turned out better than anyone could’ve expected at the time.
But it doesn’t always go so smoothly, as was the case with his investment in the now-defunct Arrium, which we discuss in this episode of The Rules of Investing. We also discuss two current investments from the Allan Gray portfolio, and one former market darling that he’s actively investigating.