"Now is the time": Q&A with Samuel Mann on his new venture

I have always had a strong desire to run my own financial services firm and the current maturing of the retail market was the impetus. There is no reason other than hard work for the broad retail market to have access to the same high quality alternatives the big end of town have had access to. Now is the time.

I have always had a strong interest in quantitative modelling, having studied this in university as part of my degree, and when State Street was looking for quant analysts in their P&A division I was attracted. This then led to me being exposed to the embryonic Australian Superannuation industry in the mid 90's, which was growing at such a rapid pace. I have ridden that wave ever since. I have never considered a career outside of this industry. The dynamism and continued evolution is highly attractive to me.

Longreach has partnered with K2 Advisors to offer the broad market access to best of breed liquid single hedge fund managers. To date this market has only had very selective access to single managers. We will also complement that with a diversified illiquid alternative income strategies that we will manage as part of the Longreach partnership program.

Most volatility we feel in our portfolios is a result of equity markets. A well-constructed or allocated Alternatives portfolio or manager should be able to dampen down the volatility of the overall portfolio but also generate a return stream that is not dependant on equity markets. Ideally the alternatives portfolio should add diversification, reduce volatility and enhance returns. I know this sounds like nirvana but investors should seek these outcomes.

The primary driver for the selection of our investment partners is a strong culture of wanting to generate returns as well as being deep experts or practitioners in their fields. They do not need to have worked in an asset management firm before but they do need to have had a history of making money in their field. We are looking for skill which can manifest itself into Alpha.

Transparency is a non-negotiable aspect of investing. I will not invest or partner with a group that does not give transparency and I do not believe that investors should settle for lack of it either. Investors should know what they are investing in.

"You can't manage what you can't see" was a mantra at K2. It was all about understanding the risks you undertake when making an investment in a hedge fund. If an investor comes unstuck in alternative investing its often because they didn't understand the exposures or risk they were taking. If you get that right you can make far better informed investment decisions.

Persevere!! Don't give up.

I would have to say Andy Fay. I worked as his business manager when he was Asia Pac CIO for Deutsche Asset Management. His ethics and culture around investing other people's money and the responsibility we have when doing so has stuck with me for my entire career. As simple as that is, it is often forgotten in our industry. We are managing other peoples retirement savings.

I used to unload by hand 40 foot containers of garden pots and furniture through school and university. Horrid work but I could lift 200kgs over my head. I could do about a tenth of that now.

I have a small farm and run some cattle on it, which I love. As much as it's more work it's a fantastic de-stressor for me. There is nothing better than the laugh of a kookaburra (often at me) to put it all into context.