Episode summary
Episode 357: Ryan Boothroyd of Border to Coast Pensions Partnership: On Partnering and Stewardshi...
The Fiftyfaces Podcast
· · 33 min · Hosts: Aoifinn Devitt · Guests: Ryan Boothroyd
Summary
Ryan Boothroyd argues that effective partnership is less about scale and more about mutual understanding, responsiveness, and helping a client in ways that fit its specific constraints. He says some of Border to Coast’s best relationships are not with the largest managers, because bureaucracy can make it harder to get what the client needs. The most useful partners feel like an extension of the team, not a vendor offering more “bells and whistles.”
He also lays out a high bar for active management. Boothroyd is skeptical that managers can consistently outperform, but thinks active management matters more than ever because index returns are low and market weights are concentrated. He has become less purely contrarian over time, giving more weight to momentum, catalysts, and businesses whose growth can drive returns without relying on a valuation rerating.
On Border to Coast’s growth, he says the firm is trying to prove that scale creates benefits beyond cost savings. That means institutionalizing processes, installing BlackRock’s Aladdin, building a credible advisory service, and expanding investment management services carefully rather than rushing products to market. On sustainability and nature, he sees long-term relevance and tangible stewardship impact, but says nature investing is still early and often sits between philanthropy and investable capital.
Key takeaways
- Boothroyd says active managers face a very high bar, and he doubts the industry’s claim that outperformance can be sustained easily over time.
- He prefers partnerships built on mutual understanding and proactive support, not on the size of the asset manager or the breadth of its product menu.
- Border to Coast is prioritizing scale benefits, process institutionalization, and a measured rollout of new services rather than rapid product expansion.
- He thinks momentum and catalysts deserve more respect than he once gave them, especially when returns depend on a company’s own earnings growth.
- Boothroyd says sustainability should be judged over a 50-year horizon, with stewardship producing tangible outcomes such as water-quality improvements.
- He sees nature investing as promising but still immature, with much of today’s opportunity set not yet large or impactful enough for major institutional capital.
Notable quotes
“I've probably started to consider momentum to be a more powerful factor in some instances, particularly over shorter time horizons than than valuation sometimes is”
“I think it's more about kind of mutual understanding”
“There's no point us having more aumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumumum for no reason because if we don't show some kind of benefit from that”
How the episode opens
I think there's a misconception around partnership and the misconception is that you have to be a large firm to deliver partnership effectively. And when I think about our current relationships, a lot of our strongest partnerships are not with the largest institutions. In fact, sometimes the largest institutions can be difficult to navigate because there's bureaucracy, there's stasis, it's difficult sometimes to get what we need from them.
And I think what it's about is not about the breadth of your offering. It's not about being able to give us lots of different bells and whistles that you write about in RFPs and things. I think it's more about kind of mutual understanding.
So having an understanding of the specific needs, constraints, interests of the client and then proactively suggesting or offering ways to help them with those. I'm Ethan Devid and welcome to the 50 Faces podcast. A podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories.
This series is supported by Benefit Street Partners. Benefit Street Partners is a leading global alternative credit asset manager offering clients investment solutions across a broad range of complimentary credit strategies including direct lending, special situations, structured credit, high yield bonds, leverage loans, and commercial real estate debt and equity. This episode is also supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets.
PIMCO invests their clients capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of expertise navigating complex debt markets. I'm joined today by Ryan Booth who's head of external management at Border to Coast Pensions Partnership, which manages over a hundred billion pounds of regulated assets on behalf of LGBS funds across the UK.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- external management partnerships
- active versus passive outperformance
- market efficiency
- stewardship and sustainability
- nature investment opportunity set
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Border to Coast Pensions Partnership
- Benefit Street Partners
- Franklin Templeton
- PIMCO
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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The Fiftyfaces Podcast, this episode and its artwork belong to Aoifinn Devitt. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
