Meet Yves Maillot: Our Erudite Investment Management Advisor
With many years of experience under his belt, Yves Maillot is passionate about investing. Living near Paris, the beautiful city, where he was born, a one-time competitive tennis player and instructor, he now likes to engage in sports that test his endurance like swimming and running. Yves is a firm believer that sports help one’s efficiency at work.
After pursuing the Master’ degrees in Economics at the Paris Panthéon, Sorbonne University, Yves studied management and finance obtaining, another Master’s in Business and Finance. During his time at the university Yves, quickly understood that he has “a real passion for finance and markets mostly because of an inspirational professor and listening to lectures about Forex”, which explains why he now enjoys teaching finance as a lecturer in Finance at the French business school, ESSCA.
After a three-month training period at Crédit Commercial de France which was a profitable medium-sized Banking Group acquired several years later by the British HSBC, Yves started as a junior portfolio manager in a team dedicated to High Net Worth Individuals, “I remember now that I was pleased and proud.”
Yves spent close to six years at CCF and started managing equity funds in the Asset Management Department as well as managing portfolios that used derivatives to enhance returns, “it was a great experience of mixing assets for improving performances while reducing risk. CCF also gave me the chance to prepare and pass the diploma of the Financial Analysts French Society (SFAF), a French version of the CFA.”
Before leaving CCF to join the asset management entity of Barclays Bank in France, Yves Maillot worked with one of the first quant teams in Paris that were dedicated to managing index funds and structured products. At Barclays, for five years, he managed equity portfolios and multi-asset funds for employees (a specific French corporate scheme named épargne salariale) as well as for French Institutions.
Yves left Barclays Bank for a much more exciting opportunity when he was offered the task of setting up a new business and a new dedicated team in Paris for the well known and established asset management firm, Robeco.
Yves Maillot had a multi-tasking function as a member of the European Equity team based in the Rotterdam headquarters, covering French listed big caps responsible for the investment process implementation for funds managed in France for the retail and institutional business and above all, as Head of this nascent Fund Management team. It was a management role but, also, an operational function as Yves was fund manager of equity portfolios and was, moreover, responsible for multi-asset funds for which mixed quantitative and fundamental processes had been implemented.
“It was for me a very open and intense 14-year experience that ended because of the Group shareholders’ (Rabobank) decision to close the asset management unit in Paris,” Yves recalls.
A few months later, Yves Maillot joined Natixis Asset Management as Head of European Equity Investment Division and Director of the Core Equity Business Unit. Asked about his main focus at Natixis, Yves reveals his deep passion for the field, “my mission was to run 24 billion euros in Long Equity portfolios invested in Europe and the Eurozone using fundamental strategies (my first love) for large caps, small and mid-caps, value and core blend investment styles portfolios and thematics funds. The role was both managerial and operational with 25 employees of which 16 senior portfolio managers to coordinate. I spent 5 and a half years at this position before leaving a few months ago.”
Yves became convinced that as an investor it was difficult to excel in the position that he held. He was also tired of working in such a massive company as Natixis (by the end of 2017, Natixis Investment Manager reached more than €800 billion of Assets under Management). So, after more than thirty years of experience as a professional of asset management, Yves founded his own financial consulting start-up offering specialised expertise in financial markets strategies, asset allocation and digital assets. Here, he can fulfil his wish to provide training, advise and mentorship to professional investors and asset managers.
When asked about his take on the world of finance, Yves Maillot answers with the confidence of someone who has pondered the question for many years, “I have always found that the financial markets are a great space to observe the impact of a combination of fields, such as, economics, politics, as well as, physics, mathematics and, of course, psychology.”
For this reason, Yves believes that behavioural investing is the field where we need to expand our understanding the most. He explains his interest in this relatively new field, “my natural openness drives me to the belief that mixing traditional rules for investing, analysing fundamentals of the macro and the microenvironments under the frameworks of the quant approach is key to success. But this is not enough and behavioural investing bridges the gap between psychology and investing. Solutions lie in the design and the adoption of investing or trading rules, investment processes that are at least partially robust to behavioural decision-making errors.”
When asked why he decided to join SwissBorg as an adviser, Yves Maillot explains that one of the most critical factors in evolution is innovation, “finance is lagging and needs to reinvent itself. Technological advances and changes in investor behaviour pose major challenges but also present great opportunities.” Yves believes that it is essential for traditional financial institutions to invest in blockchain technology. He believes in the vision of SwissBorg founders’ wanting to bridge the gap between traditional banking and the new world of fintech and blockchain will make the young fintech a “key market player in the convergence of the traditional world of finance and the crypto economy.”
Having spent many years in the field of traditional finance, Yves is an expert who is open to all the new financial technics and is fascinated by the new crypto assets markets. When asked what he will bring to SwissBorg he answers, “up until now; clients were captive due to the lack of transparency and accessibility provided to them. New solutions are needed. Investing is always a question of time-horizon, and risk management. That is where my experience and knowledge will make an impact in this new space.” To underline his point, the new SwissBorg adviser ends our interview with an appropriate quote from the Stoic Roman philosopher, Seneca, “there is no favourable wind for the sailor who doesn’t know where to go.” Yves Maillot loves to help projects, and people find and arrive at where they want to reach.
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