Gary Hill and Shane de la Haye of Capital International Jersey tell Emily Moore about the firm’s ‘distinctive’ approach to investment management
Published by Jersey Evening Post: https://jerseyeveningpost.com/business/2025/08/27/tuning-out-the-noise-and-focusing-on-performances/
WHAT is it that makes certain companies successful, not just for a short time but year in, year out, decade after decade?
While that is a question which is no doubt pondered by chief executives and budding entrepreneurs across the world, it is also one which absorbs much of Shane de la Haye and Gary Hill’s time, as the investment professionals painstakingly select the shares with which to build their global equity strategy.
With more than 30 years’ experience in investment and portfolio management, Gary founded Martello Asset Management (now Capital International Jersey Ltd) with the late Phil Rose in 2019. With an international outlook, the firm’s clients include many residents of southern Africa, who are “keen to protect the value of their assets by investing in global, developed markets where there are wider investment and currency diversification opportunities”.
“Martello Asset Management grew with the support of the clients, advisers and trustees with whom Phil and I had built relationships over the previous decade or so,” reflected the investment director.
As the firm grew, it attracted the attention of Capital International, an Isle-of-Man-based financial services group, whose acquisition of Martello last October supported its ambition to expand into Jersey.
“Capital International has clients in over 100 countries and a strong presence in the Isle of Man and South Africa. It is a very ambitious firm with strong potential for growth,” Gary added.
“Having identified Jersey as a key market, the business was keen to acquire firms which aligned with its values and investment approach. Joining forces with Capital also benefited Martello’s clients, giving them access to greater resources and a wider team, something which will be augmented further following the group’s acquisition of the asset management arm of Affinity Private Wealth: APW Investors Ltd.”
Having joined Martello just over three years ago, Shane, who has also worked at HSBC and Ashburton, works alongside Gary, managing the firm’s global equity fund, carrying out investment research and managing clients’ portfolios.
“I have always been fascinated by investment management and particularly by the research side,” he explained. “I love doing a deep dive into companies, looking at how they interact with their peers and the wider market, and understanding what it is that makes certain companies perform better than others.”
Using an in-house process, Shane, Gary and the wider team focus on the long-term financial metrics of each company in an approach designed to “cut out much of the noise” surrounding the ever-changing markets.
Shane de la Haye, portfolio manager at Capital International Jersey. Picture: OLLIE JONES
“We are not interested in sudden uptrends,” said Shane. “Instead, we look at longer corporate performance – often going back 20 years or more – as well as margins, consistent earnings and free-cashflow generation, to see how companies are performing individually and compared to their peers. We then carry out further research to see why some are performing better than others and use momentum indicators to add insight into where investment flows are heading.”
“Our focus,” added Gary, “is very much on large-cap companies in developed markets. As there are thousands of these, we use Bloomberg to help us screen for key metrics and identify those businesses which meet the criteria we think are important for successful investors returns. If a company hits enough of those criteria, is able to maintain its financial performance and meets our qualitative requirements, then it becomes a candidate for inclusion in our strategy and portfolios.”
The goal, the two agree, is to then apply their knowledge of the macro environment to pinpoint those businesses which are likely to “outperform the market”.
“I enjoy the macro side,” admitted Gary. “When you think about the past five years, we have seen everything from Covid; the subsequent recession; reflation and the resumption of inflation; and higher interest rates followed by [US president] Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, the impact of which we haven’t yet seen.”
Acknowledging that the change in president has “made life more interesting but also harder to forecast”, Gary said: “We often don’t know from one week to the next what will be announced and what the impact will be either on individual companies or entire countries. However, despite that uncertainty, stock markets are seeing all-time highs, as companies are generally in good health and have the resilience to weather these storms.”
Given the unpredictable nature of such announcements, Gary and Shane say that it is important not to “react to everything that comes your way”.
“You have to take a step back and try not to look too closely at the news flow because if you reacted to every announcement, you would quickly be whip-sawed by the markets,” said Gary. “There is so much noise, and that can create the chaos and confusion which leads to mistakes (as well as opportunities). We try to tune that out and focus instead on what companies are doing, the momentum of share prices, quarterly earnings and what the businesses themselves are saying about the challenges and opportunities they see.”
With clients also hearing the “noise”, communication, the men add, is critical.
“Our messaging to clients, their advisers and intermediaries is important,” said Shane, “but many of our clients have been with us for many years, so they don’t panic because they understand our approach and know how we tackle periods of volatility. And, again, it all comes back to the quality of the companies we own, many of which have been through many different cycles and are still hitting record highs, which provides that extra reassurance.”
We are very disciplined and do not move the goalposts to accommodate fashionable ideas – Gary Hill
Underpinning the team’s discipline, Gary adds, is its focus on “quality rather than quantity”, something which he says is shared by Affinity Private Wealth and Capital International.
“Our approach to stock selection and quality of the companies we own is quite distinctive in the marketplace,” he said. “We have a high conviction in terms of what we invest in. We don’t have a portfolio of 70 to 100 stocks, where some of the stocks may make a very small contribution.
“Our approach initially was to have 25 stocks at 4% each, which means that each one has to perform. Not only does that keep you honest about your thinking and decision making, but it also means that you have to keep a close eye on each company’s performance to ensure that it is contributing.
“It also means that if you want to add a new company, you have to consider which stock to remove. While a lot of managers start with that goal, they often add more and more companies over the years because they look appealing. However, the danger with doing that is that those stocks often don’t then receive as much attention as the big ones.
“We are very disciplined and do not move the goalposts to accommodate fashionable ideas. Instead, we have stuck to our principles of diligent research and screening, which underpins our investments in large-cap companies in developed markets.”
Capital International (Jersey) Limited is a subsidiary of Capital International Group Limited and is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission for the conduct of Investment Business and Fund Services Business. Capital International and Capital International Asset Management are trading names of Capital International (Jersey) Limited. In South Africa, Capital International (Jersey) Limited is authorised as a Financial Services Provider (FSP No.51164).
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed within this article are those of the author, and not those of Capital International Group Limited (Group) and/or any of its subsidiary companies and as such are neither given nor endorsed by the Group or any company within the Group. Information in this article does not constitute investment advice or an offer or an invitation by or on behalf of any company within the Group to buy or sell any product or security or to make a bank deposit. Any reference to past performance is not necessarily a guide to the future. The value of investments may go down as well as up and may be adversely affected by currency fluctuations. The Group, its subsidiary companies, clients, and officers may have a position in, or engage in transactions in any of the investments mentioned. Opinions constitute views as at the date of issue thereof and are subject to change.
