Andrew Mitchell, Founder and Senior Portfolio Manager of Ophir Asset Management

Welcome to Euros Harley's Finding the Front. We're eager to know the people who front some of Western Australia's leading companies, providing you with real insights into the way they think and approach things both in business and in life. So get the volume adjusted in your car or your headphones sorted and settle in for a great story. Here's your host, Tim Fanfield. Hello everyone and welcome to Euros Harley's Finding the Front. It is just fantastic as always to have you tune in and what an opportunity we have in this episode. For those listening that aren't familiar with Euros Harley's, we are a proudly Western Australian diversified financial services company listed on the ASX stock code EZL. Our wealth management business, combining wealth management, strategic advice and stock breaking is build on relationships established over many many years. If you'd like to learn more about Euros Harley's and the financial services we provide, please don't hesitate to contact us or visit our website at www.euroshartley's.com. Now onto the main event. Our very special guest for this episode is Andrew Mitchell, founder and senior portfolio manager of highly regarded Sydney based fund manager O'Fear asset management. Founded in 2012, O'Fear has grown to become a multi-billion dollar small and mid cap, global and Australian New Zealand fund manager. They manage money on behalf of pension funds, family offices, wealth management firms, high net worth and private individuals. O'Fear's flagship O'Fear Opportunities Fund has generated some 23% per annum. Net returns after all fees from inception in August 2012 to 30 June 2026, some 14 years. Andrew loves what he does, he lives and breathes investing. He provides some fantastic insights into what has shaped his career and his views across business and life in general. So without further ado, it gives me a massive pleasure to introduce to Euros Harley's finding the front, the founder and senior portfolio manager of O'Fear asset management and all round great guy Andrew Mitchell. Andrew welcome to Euros Harley's finding the front. We are really grateful you could squeeze us into your very busy schedule coming over from Sydney to Perth and it's great to have you in the studio. So thanks for joining us mate. Well knowing that we're going to get some footy chat in, I made sure there was plenty of room. Extra time to talk about our Amitableg footy. Okay well look you know there's, you've got a great career obviously very accomplished in the Euros Funds Management and we're going to get to that with a fear asset management. But one of the main drivers of this podcast finding the front is to really get to know you a bit about your background and how it shaped you to get to where you are now. And I do know that you grew up in the mighty city of Adelaide and. Mighty. And mighty yeah. Yeah. How was growing up in Adelaide? I had a very normal childhood lived in suburban Adelaide, rode my bike around on the weekends and loved playing footy and going and watching the Adelaide crows and that was my life. Well that would have been. What was the most fun life of Adelaide's about funds management until I was probably 22 years old that had even existed? Went to primary school, did you find it easy at school? No I was probably just slightly above average student. I was more interested in recess and lunch you know. Yeah. Playing hide and seek chasey or something or whatever game is the craze, four square, whatever it was. I didn't have the greatest attention span and sort of got through with you know good grades but I was not a brilliant student by any means. I was more interested in other things in school. Yeah I get it. What about your mum and dad? What were they doing at the time? So fantastic for me. My mother's a social worker and so she's looked after you know, like work with a lot of indigenous people and you know sort of people who you know who didn't grow up with everything and she had a good career then had children and went back as a social worker because she could work part time and she's an incredibly caring person so that was just fantastic having a mother like that and my dad was, he's a businessman, he was a public servant but in the department that's all about growing South Australia so probably didn't do very well but he was sort of similar to a funds management. He was attracting investment into South Australia but when he wasn't working and he worked really hard he showed me the principles of like I know my dad left for work every morning at his 80s, Wheaties with Honey I think he had on them and then he was off for work at 730 every morning and I would get dropped at school at 745 and there wouldn't be a single person I remember. Very well in primary school and I was just the only person sitting there and then I'd go to after school care and my parents would, my mum would pick me up and after five I was basically the last kid to get picked up. The number of times I was sitting there with the the carer by the phone like you know like trying to work out where my mum is and I'm the last person there and yeah but I had great parents and they taught me a lot of great values of family and friends and tried to get me to study harder and listen to them and just love sport and all this things. Did you take, I mean ultimately knowing where you ended up, did you take a bit of a lead from your dad in terms of the being a businessman style of person within the Adelaide environment growing up? I don't know if I said this to you before Tim but the greatest day of my life was Channel 9 Adelaide News and they were in Whomera or something like that and there was like some satellite being launched and they had like some American businessman from Kisler Aerospace or I think that's what it was and then my dad was there like in the sort of background of the news. I was like oh that's my dad and I was probably 21 when this half I was 15 or something but it was a very sheltered life but yeah my dad did work very hard it was very focused on work and he showed me I guess that dedication and the likes and he always had time for the family as well and when I went to university all I knew was my dad had done commerce at Adelaide University and had done economics and I did the same thing and my dad said you can get a job in the government in Canberra which was Treasury in Canberra and he was like that's a fantastic place to work and I got the job as a graduate at Treasury and my parents were incredibly rapt that that kid that didn't study at school ended up doing well at university and and sort of in the system now and they've done their job I guess. That was your first role in in Canberra. Yeah as a as a graduate policy analyst. A graduate policy analyst right and did you have any aspirations to do that other than bouncing it off your dad saying dad what are you reckon with this one? No I think as I said I think my dad was just happy to find that I've found some sort of career that opened doors and that was the great thing about Treasury. There were a lot of you know when I went out to the workforce it's like if you've worked at Treasury you have to have a level of intelligence obviously for them to take you on despite what the Treasury may have done recently and those sort of things the people at Treasury are very smart and they some of them or a lot of them are very hard working people who really care about Australians and are really thoughtful about policy. And so that opened a lot of doors the fact that I got to work and the exposure I got like I was talking to people like David Murray who was the CEO of Commonwealth Bank as a graduate and Morris Newman who was the chairman of the ASX. These were the people I was like liased with and it gave great exposure and I got a great work ethic also at Treasury. Damian White was my manager and he's ended up I think he's a depth-sector department of finance now and he was at Australian Office of National Assessment so that's an intelligence agency. He was a fantastic leader because he just showed me I guess the quality of work that's required for the Treasurer who was Peter Costello I remember the first sort of you'd write briefings and I was in banking policy where I started so I looked after APRA and so if anything to do with APRA and the Treasurer it's an agency that the Treasurer's and Treasury has the legislation you know the bills that go up all those things that came through us. I would send my briefings to my manager Damian White and they would come back with so much red ink on them, so many corrections I didn't have enough, I need to have two spaces after every full stop and you know there's grammatical error here and my dot points have to be exactly the same how the format worked and everything like that. And I remember saying to Damien, you know, that this just seems also pedantic and this was a big, I guess, point. And I remember it, I remember it to this day. Obviously, he was like, look, Andrew, if you have little mistakes or little sort of grammar mistakes or formatting that changes the way you do it. When the treasurer reads this, he's going to think that you've cut corners left, right and centre in all the thought process that goes behind the briefing. And so he's not going to believe it. And that's all our job is to do is to give the best arguments towards the treasurer that are the most convincing first best policy. And so was this real aha moment that all the writing that we have to do and all our work and you know, building models at Ophere and Paradise was good for that too. You can't have any little mistakes because little mistakes show carelessness and lack of due diligence. Yes. And it creates a whole, I guess, paradigm of you, short-cut. And so I learnt very early on at Treasury, no shortcuts, double triple check, everything make it perfect so it becomes believable. And then we'll talk about Paradise, but I remember Adam Harve is showing him a model that had circular reference and he was straight away, what's this? And it was on tax, right? And I was like, that's just on tax, it doesn't matter. I would value it on it before tax basis anyway. But he was right because how could he believe that this whole model was going to be accurate if I've got a circular reference in there? Yes. And it hurt me at the time because I spent so much time building the model, but I was like, you're exactly right, I have to make this perfect otherwise how can I tell you that we should be buying this company if I've got circular references in my model? So it was a true foundation laying experience working there in Treasury. At Treasury. It was fantastic, it was a great time in my life and learnt a lot. Just take us through the steps from there. So I went from CBA, so Treasury, I then went into the International Economy Division where you're a proper economist and there's forecasting of international economies and the likes there. And then from that I went to Commonwealth Bank and ComSec had an economics team and Michael Blithe ran the whole economics team from CBA. And so I became a part of that. Rod Maddick, who was an economist and Commonwealth Bank that had institutional equity's business, he was actually the head of the whole research and I said to him, "Geez, I'd love to get into equity's research because I could see that. That was a lot more interesting than writing about unemployment and those sort of things." Yeah. And he said, "I've got the job for you. We're going to start a small cap team and you can be them." Number one of that. Oh my goodness. So that's how it worked. At that point, did you have a passion or anything around small cap equities or equity markets per se? Or just sort of a notion that it might be something you might be interested in? I read about stocks in the newspaper and you could see that the Finder review, the interesting stuff was about companies and I know people love hearing these stories about, "Oh, I've always been so passionate about these things." Yeah. I'm just a passionate person. Before that I was passionate about economics. And then I was lucky that the small caps team was starting at the same time that I was like, "I'd like to get into the equity's research team." And then I was in small caps and then met obviously David Paradise and that's how that happened. But I think a lot of people love telling these stories how their grandfather walked them to the bottom of the ASX and they saw the tickers and everyone goes, "Wow, this person was destined to be a fun manager." For me, I didn't really know what I wanted to do and there's all these serendipitous moments and it's just sort of led me this way. But whatever I would have done, I would have been very passionate about it because it's just in my nature that anything I'm doing, I just find whatever about it is really interesting and I love it. It's interesting looking back on that and there's a couple of observations you could say that you didn't see yourself as terribly academic but you got through. You didn't really know what you wanted to do in your left school but you found a spot. And that's maybe I think sounds a bit a little bit like an influence from your dad and how you ended up in Canberra. Looking at that a little bit. A little bit. And then the passion or the curiosity of mind just took you down this path and here you are in equities. I think if people, if you saw what my life is and when I'm not doing, you know, not on stocks, you know where I am? I'm on Wikipedia down this massive rabbit hole about something that happened in the 18th century and learning about some count of some German servants or something like that. And then having a look at a picture of him and go, "Gee, that was one ugly fella, that guy." Yeah, and I'm just randomly wasting time learning about the count of Brevary or something like that. So do you love reading? I love you. I love you learning. Learning. I'm not a fiction reader. I love nonfiction. I love history. All those things. And I love learning and understanding how things work. And I love that sort of, you know, that aha moment which you get in small caps where you figure something out. Yeah, that's what I like. Yeah, yeah. And so there. You're getting a lot out of me. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just getting very deep. And I feel like I'm in a. It's a therapist chair. Let's just go back to ComSek to the small cap. You're saying your number one employee, obviously a great experience. Yeah. I want to start on that journey right because this is where it sort of starts in earnest. Because you go from there and then as you mentioned a couple of times, it ultimately ends up with paradise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so what happened there? I was way and over my head. I didn't have the finance background or I don't know how people pick it up. This is at ComWelth. At ComWelth, like writing research on small cap stocks. I felt when I was going into meeting management, they thought I was the dumbest person ever because I really didn't understand, like really how a balance sheet and cash flow interacted properly and putting these models together. And that was a real baptism of fire. But there was a lot of learning along the way. And then I sort of got through. But the reason that I got the job at Paradise was because I had an opportunity. And I took it where one of the Paradise portfolio managers was going to Melbourne. He said, "I'd love for you to organise a trip for me." And I organised the trip. But not only that, I spent the whole weekend researching each company that we were going to and typing up everything and putting the numbers. What I thought where the market was and what I thought forecast were and just did all this out. I don't even know. I look back and go, "Why did I do this?" And the payroll at that point? Not at Paradise. I thought, "Is it just writing research?" And was it a mate working it? Well, it was Sam McCornio. He wasn't a mate at that. Like I'd work with him delivering pizzas at age 17. Right. And then he gave me the opportunity. And then I sort of just dove into it and did a heap of work for him. And he just went, "Okay, this guy's different to the average person out there. He's actually cares." I think I talked about a lot about the people we hire. The people who care about doing a good job and care about when they think they've done a bad job and how do they improve. And I think he saw that in me when I put this whole pack together for him. Yes. And then he wanted this person like that to help him out. And that's how I got the job at Paradise. Was it hard to leave the Cornwallth bank? And I could imagine at that point to have an opportunity with David Paradise was amazing. It was amazing. That's a great way of describing it. Amazing. Okay. So what had happened? I'd only been doing this for six months and I was getting heaps of job offers. It was not a. Like it was funny because Macquarie were also trying to hire me on sales at that time. And then there was another fund manager trying to hire me as well. And I went to a person called Andrew Burn who's been out of this market for a long time. And he was always very friendly to me and he was at a fund called MIA. I think now MIA. He used to be at ING. And our older guy experienced he was a UBS analyst and I said, "Hey, I'm getting all these job offers and I've got this Macquarie and I've got the. When you know Macquarie was the millionaire factory back then." Yes. And this is before GFC. And I've got this Paradise and he said another one that I haven't forgotten. Andrew, this is so simple. Learn before you earn. You could always get a job. You know, I like it on Macquarie. It's a broken. But at Paradise you're going to be working with some very smart people and you're going to learn more than anyone. And so that was, he told me the answer and that's probably how I go about stocks. It's like, "Yeah." "Try and do you figure out the answer or do you figure out in a legal way?" "Someone who can help you make the answer." And he told me that. And then, so then Paradise offered me the job and he said, "How much are we going to pay you?" "How much do I need to pay you?" And I told him how much I got paid at Commonwealth Bank, which was not much. Like, I thought it was good, but it was not much, right, at all. And David sort of laughed and he said, "I'm paying you a lot more than that." And I said, "And this is a big thing again." I said to him, "I don't want you to pay me anymore because I want to prove to you like how much I'm worth." And so if you can match that, that's fine. And it's funny, with all the people we hire now, we have to pay extra money to get them to come along and leave places. And I'm like, "Yeah, I'd sort of, I wonder versus myself and some other people we've hired." It was sort of like, they, you know, just to get the opportunity to be with Paradise. I was like, "Hey, just let me sign here. You don't have to pay me any money. I don't want to ruin this at the last moment because I'm looking for a pay rise. Just let me sign here." And it was all that learned before you earned sort of thing. And so taking that principle has been a very important one to me, like, learning and actually increasing the value of who you are, first, rather than trying to make as much money as you possibly can. So you started there at 2007. Pretty pivotal time because the equity markets on a tear, we're all going well, properties going great. And then obviously we run into a pretty big correction. You were getting a few touches for University of New South Wales when I was a little back in the amortally. I was probably getting a couple at that point. Yeah, I retired in '02. No, you're a title-aid too. Thanks for thinking of me as a younger. But going into that time with Paradise, just talk us through. I mean, you're going in there with, as you've highlighted, some really smart people. David's obviously running a pretty unbelievable firm. They're growing their funds under management. They've got amazing clients. And here you are. You're in the middle of it. Or you're being introduced. Yeah, so what I'd say about Paradise is there is some incredibly brilliant people there. You know, Troy Angus, I often say I've just always been just watching him as a younger person. I still think about, you know, like, I reference him a lot, like just seeing this person with so much clarity and seeing him talking to Adam Palmer, who he worked with back then, Matt Reardon and John Lake and Harvey and Rishi and David. And just hearing all these conversations, I was the young guy in the office. I was like one of the youngest in the industry. I was 26, 27, you know, this sort of time. And you just got to be a sponge and just listen. Yeah. The GFC happened. Yeah, okay. We haven't hit the GFC. There's four good times. Yeah. And so I was just learning as much as I could, but I was in over my head. They thought I was a lot better than I was. I'd only been doing this for six months. And I was in over my head. I had to learn very fast. So I was on the weekends working building models, learning as much as I could and just listening to as many conversations as I could and looking up things on Google and all that sort of stuff and trying to learn and reading books and stuff like that. Yes. And that trajectory of learning from the best at the time and you're just continuing, embracing, absorbing it all, right? Just, you can't help but look back on that period of time and go, okay, in came the GFC. Yeah. Right. And we would have had a big impact on your mindset at the time watching the market crumble the way it did. Yeah. How did that happen? How did it just, you know, without getting into detail, but observe observations from that period of time? Well, it's a bit scarier for me than probably the average person because I told you that story about I was delivering pizzas with a guy called Sam Lacornu. He was a portfolio manager at Paradise, ended up being a portfolio manager at Paradise, many when I was 17, went to work for him. He was really good. He showed me how things did, how things went and then Macquarie hired him to go be run their Asian fund and he moved to Hong Kong. And there was no one, there was just me on this fund that had, I don't know, 300 million under management. Sam had gone and then the GFC hits and I'm just sitting there. I literally thought I could lose my job any day here. So, everything's so negative. And so, what I did was I just worked really, really, really, really hard. I remember my weekends, my Saturdays. I was watching, you know, some of the music videos in the morning. Right. Not that early, but the video hits maybe back then. But building models on companies and doing research and then the midday movie would come on and then the foodie would be on and I'd have a laptop on my lap all day. And just work Saturday, Sunday, go into the office, work, Saturday, Sunday. And it was, the GFC was the best thing that happened to me because that's when my learning just went crazy. Yes. And, you know, it was a lot of it was forced, but you, because I just didn't know, I thought I was going to lose my job. Well, I didn't think I was going to lose my job, but I had no idea. Yeah. So, I just thought there was a lot of uncertainty. Yeah, the only thing that you can, you know, the only thing that I could control was my inputs. And so, they had to be at 100%. Yeah. And that was a big moment of my life and I learned a lot. And I'm a product of the GFC. Just remember, here's this 26 year old who's been in the industry for six months covering research and probably named six months at Paradise. Yeah. And then the world blows up. Yeah. You're just sort of like, you become chicken little, a little bit, that things go wrong. And there's a level of paranoia that I sort of have. And I'm not sure if it's a natural or it comes from that moment of the GFC that things can go very wrong, very quickly. And all bets are off. And so, that you take that approach to how you're looking at funds management, looking at stocks this time. Looking at that period of time, just the GFC liquidity dried right up. Yeah. And I just wonder, you know, if that had a role in your mindset that maybe back then you sort of started to formulate how you started to look at stocks and how Paradise at the time came out of that. Yeah. So the fund did really well out of that period. And a lot of it was for chewed us because I'd cut when I first I was in charge of that fund. Right. Before the GFC, like only for three or four months, I cut any company I didn't understand. So I'd cut all these financials because I was like, oh, this is complicated. I'm really over my head here. I got to cut these companies. So that was really good. And then because I'd worked through the GFC, I found a company TPG that obviously was huge. I was able to buy through Paradise. We bought 5% of the company of at 21 cents, 22 cents. And then that was in February of 2009. The March, March, nine was the bottom. And then I think by August, it was $1.60 something. So the biggest position I had in that fund was $1.60. And so the funds fly. Yeah, yeah. And it wasn't the only one. There was some others as well. So the fund did very well. And you really understood very quickly how things change. And the big sell-offs are opportunities. Yes. And don't get over exuberant in the good times because you will see bad times. And the bad times is where you make your real money. And that's like picking up dollar bills off the floor. And I really learnt that at that time. But also that over exuberance. I think the quiddities, King. Right. In small caps, if you get trapped in something that's about a full 80% because there's no liquidity, you can't move out. Yeah. We need to make sure that if we've got higher risk stocks, that they've got a lot of liquidity, the lower risk stocks, we're prepared to go down. I see a lot of fund managers don't differentiate between that and they get stuck in these lobster pots. But yeah, it was a very formative part of my life. And you know, really set set myself up and no fear out through my experience back then in 2008. What a great, what a great initiation. And that is a desire. And for the least note, you heard meach refer to lobster pot. So that's the classic pot where you can get in, but you can't get out. Exactly. In Western Australia we call it. - I was gonna say Crayport. - Crayport. - Yeah, I actually had that, and Joey has a few craypots going on. - Shout out to Simon, yeah. So it's a great, great way to then segue that you were with Paradise, and then obviously you've been there for a little while and about four years, and you decided that it was time to go and do your own thing. - Yeah. - And then your co-founder, Steven. - Yeah. - Just a few asset management began in 2012, but that idea of leaving and getting started, obviously is big step. And maybe you could just share a bit of light on that because it sets the foundation for the next phase. - Yeah, it was, there was, it's not as big a step as you think. The, I think, the fund had done very well. - Yes. - And when a fund does well, it creates other issues with people in it and other things. And so David understood those issues. And when we left, David was in full understanding that we were going to leave. And he actually said, "You know, and I understand this, and I'm going to invest money in your fund right from the start to show I support." And this is, you know, it's unfortunate that these things are happening. It's not your fault. It's not our fault. This is just what happens when funds do very well. And, but there was a group of industry funds that knew us, knew Steven and I well. And so we had three industry funds with $50 million each that invested pretty well right from the start. There was actually the original one that was meant to be invested before all the other three was the one that didn't invest. But we had $150 million from very, very early. - Which is a great place to start. - Well, it's, yeah, when you have a fund that's, I think, you know, the, yeah, it was the number one performing equity's fund in Australia by a long distance on a five. So we'd been there for, I think, like four years, 10 months or something like that. And Steven had been there for two and I'd been there for the full time. Running that fund and David was, yeah, that's 100% his or their track record. - Yeah. - And they knew us anyway because paradise is obviously of, it's got a very good relationship with a lot of industry funds that it was very easy for them to invest. They're like, oh, here are these guys that have done this huge out performance over the last five years. It's the number one equity's fund in Australia. And we've got a chance at investing with them when they start. - Yes. - It just went bang, bang, bang. And then, you know, we're off and running. - I want to come back to it later, but that hunger of an early stage manager is often attractive to investors. - Yeah. - And that would have been right where you were at that point. - 100%. - But I can tell, right now you still got the hunger. - No, no, no, no, no, no. It's funny because like when I started, I used to start work at eight o'clock in the morning and this is Ophere the early days. And I'd finish at six, six or 15. And now I start at six, 15. And I finish at five, 15. So I can get home to put my daughters to bed and have dinner with them at six o'clock. But I'm actually working bigger hours now. - Yeah. - And more intense than I probably was back then. But it's sort of being forced upon me as we were talking earlier before the show. It becomes more competitive. The market becomes more efficient every year. And I, Steve and I talk about it, we have to get better every year. And the firm has to get better every year. And for a long time it was Steve and I started at eight. Then it was 7.45, 7.37, 6.30. Now at six, 15, we start every day in Stevens. Probably in about 6.30, 6.40. And we're the first in the office. And we start the, yeah, that's the precedent for everyone else. - Start the day rolling. - Yeah. - We'll get to the changing market. It's quite interesting to discuss that. I wanted to just talk about a fear asset management as the business that was starting. Now, I know that people have probably heard this before, but fear, the name comes from the first gold discovery about, in 1851, about 30 kilometers north east of Orange. - You don't have that written down on a piece of paper right in front of you, Lee. - Well, I wrote it down because I just thought, I saw you bring that piece of paper out. - I thought, I thought, - There you come. - Some facts. - I just thought, what a great way to establish what it was the first gold discovery. I mean, I didn't know that at the time. But it's quite a famous gold discovery back in the mid-1800s. - Yeah. - So tell us, what started the name of fear? - Do you really want to know the full story? - Well, Stephen and I are like, right, we're doing this business. Stephen's like, I think we should be called Pursuit Capital. And I was like, I really like the name Hawkeye. He hated it. He's like, Hawkeye's from Matt. - Matt. - Bad name, bad name. I was like, yeah, it was a good character. And then we said, then I came up with the idea where I said, let's just find pivotal moments in Australia and world history and see if any of them work. And then Stephen came back and he goes, I found one. Do you know where gold was first discovered in Australia? I don't know, Belorat. And he's like, no. Ophere, Ophere. It's just outside Orange. And there's a East African oil and gas exploration company called Ophere. So I'd seen the word before. - Yes. - And then did the research and it's from the Old Testament and it's where, and then we actually just created the narrative that small caps. It's the, because what happened with the gold rush is the people who are first the gold rush are the ones that make all the money. And then all the Johnny come lately is that come at the end. These guys are moving on to the next gold rush wherever that is. And the guys who are finally moving over from California to Australia, they're at the back. And this is the same as funds management. There's the guys that we're always selling our stocks to after we've made the first, the easy 20, 30%. Then there's people that we're selling those stocks to. You don't want to be the person that's buying the stocks off the people who made the easy 50%. - So it's the first mover advantage? - 100%. But we created that narrative after we came up with the name. So it's not, I'd love, this is a, as I said, this is a therapy session. So I'm telling you, not, this isn't the BS. - But it's not an unusual name, you know? So what, what, it's quite interesting to hear the background of it. But there were certain principles that you and Stephen had in mind in the formation of this business. And it's quite, it's like companies have their values. And I'd say these principles were, are your values in terms of managing other people's money? - Yep, 100%. And you know, we are doing this presentations right around Australia. And the first thing I talk about in every presentation has not changed. And that is this, we have all our personal money outside of our house invested in the funds. We have incredible alignment. As Charlie Munga says, you show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome. The Ophere staff are the second largest investors in the fund after one of those first industry funds. And we will be number one, which is all that compounding. I'm putting in more money this month. I put in money last month and the money, I've just got a direct debit just going straight into the fund. But the idea is, and it sounds pretty corny, 'cause I'm not some super wealthy dude or anything like that. But this is our own family office. And while I have the staff working for me as my family office managing my own money that's invested in all the funds, the staff are all heavily invested in the funds as well. And I know one of them, and I loved it when he said, he goes, and I heard it second hand. One of them said, oh, Michael actually said, you realize Andrew's working for us. Yeah, I've affected it, 'cause they've got the money invested in the funds. They share in the performance fee. And it's like, yeah, that Andrew's working for us as much as we're working for him. And I love that analogy, because I am, because if we're a whole family, this is our whole family office of all the individual families that are the Ophere staff, we're all working for each other managing the money. But that alignment for the investors who are right alongside us is phenomenal. And when you really, really care because, hey, this is something bigger than just a business we work in. This is us managing our own family wealth and all those things. That's when you get good outcomes. And that was a, I don't actually get that whole speech when I do these presentations. But the next point is when you have that level of alignment and you're in small caps, you have to constrain the capacity of the funds. You cannot let them get too big. And so we will close funds. We're going to soft-close our global small cap fund in the not too distant future, because it's getting obviously good inflows given the performance. And we can't let it get too big. Sure, sure. It's important. I'd like to-- And that hasn't changed. And that was your point. Sorry, Tim, just finished this off. We were talking about that in the very first year when we saw our very first investors, which included those industry funds. That was the pitch. And it's still the pitch today. And with Lonsketech or Zenith, one of those guys who are the big ratings houses, I'm pretty sure it was Lonsketech. And I just loved it, 'cause they're obviously very good at what they do. They said there has been, we would have to say there's no manager who's been true to what's their label and who they are with constraining capacity as you have been over the 14 years that you've been going. Well, that does align, or use that word, align, but that was one principle, but also you want to invest in good businesses. Oh, okay, we're talking about business in prison. Well, no, but it's like, when you're starting a business like a fear, asset management, the two of you got together and said, "Right, what are the things where you're going to be bound by?" And one of them is alignment. Yeah. Obviously, very passionately and very transparently aligned for investors and staff and just to keep on the straight and narrow. But, you know, what were the other things that you said, "Right, we're a small cap manager. What's our bread and butter?" Well, the bread and butter has didn't really change from paradise. It's not like we went and said, "Hey, we used to look at value companies at paradise. Let's go and look at growth companies." We just did exactly what we did doing at paradise. It was same companies, all the small, - But under your own stewardship. - Exactly, exactly. But what the principles are that they have, they had at paradise as well, is we are looking for companies that are growing, taking market share in hopefully industries or that are structurally growing themselves. So, if you're taking market share, you're obviously doing something well. - Yes. - And if that industry is actually structurally growing and has tailwinds, it's growing faster than GDP. You sort of got that growth on growth element and you're obviously doing something well. This company is going to go well. Now, the only, you know, sort of, I guess caveat on that is, and this is the hardest one, the company needs to be doing it at a greater rate than the market is expecting. And so there's two elements to that. We have to work out, okay, what is the real trajectory that this company is on? - Yes. - And there's obviously a lot of work that goes behind that. And then we have to work out, what is the real trajectory that the market thinks it's on? And that can be quite difficult at times as well. And that is, you know, that's the, if there's a sausage that's the OPS sausage, that's how it's made. And, yeah, we speak to management teams, but that just gives us the idea where we make our money is getting edge and you get edge by talking to customers, customers that are used, whichever this company is, is products, and say it's a fantastic product, and we're gonna buy more in the future. You talk to competitors. Some of the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, TPG investment. - Yes. - I had a day to make that decision, less than a day, half a day. I didn't even have time to build a model. There was a 5% line that was going for sale. I called Bevan's Lattery, Clive Stein, over here in WA, Mike Malone, over here from IONET. - Yes. - And maybe even Vaughn Bowen, from who was later Unity Wireless, and I said, "Hey, I don't even know." This company's got amazing numbers. It was called SP Telecom at this time. I'm looking at this, this result. It's phenomenal. Who's this David Tio guy? Is he any good? And they were like, they were all he is the best. He is so good. He's, you know, and they explained he's cheaper than, you know, than Telstra taking a lot of market share. So if a competitor, who should, normally they say bad things, all these guys just said amazing. - So complimentary. - PG. That's unusual. Likewise, another big one. You speak to, I've got 100% hit rate with this one. You speak to an ex staff member. You know, I work there a year ago. This is why I work there, and this is why I left. Quite often, didn't get along with the CEO. I was a senior exec, and didn't get along with the CEO. And so you sold all your stock now? Oh, no. No way. I'm hanging on to this one. The company has got, you know, years of doing very well ahead of it. And, you know, the CEO for their faults has got all these good things as well. I just didn't like working with them. When people should say bad things, and they say good things, customers, competitors, suppliers, you go through that whole network. And when they're all saying the same thing about a company, it all adds up. You go long, and that's when you make money. It helps execute. And that's just the process that we have each time. But it requires hard work. And I know I spoke to you earlier today, and I probably shouldn't say about this one, maybe in the podcast. But there's things that we do. And I would imagine, you know, when we're talking, and this one is talking to the retailers that sell a particular product. Anyone who's listening to this podcast on this company, or about this company, could call the retailers and ask them how good their product is. There's only 10 of them in Australia. And I know I'm the only one who's done it because I do it to the retailers, and I ask them, have you ever spoken anyone in funds management? And they're, no, I've never spoken in a funds management before. It's a very technical product. And they're saying it's the best product they've ever released, the new product that come out and how amazing it is and how the waiting list is so big. The market doesn't know this yet. Now maybe I should say, like it's probably not a bad thing. So their company's codan, it's gold detectors. They've just released a gold monster 2000. There's only, there's not very many people who sell this. You know, these are gold detectors, they find gold selling into Africa. You can ring up the 10 different distributors and sellers of these around Australia and ask them, what are these, hey Tim, hey, you sell these gold detectors. How good are they? And they will all tell you that the latest one is just the most amazing detective that this company has ever released. You do a lot of these sort of calls and you work things out. And we've got real edge and now everyone who listens to the podcast has got edge that the new codan detector is absolutely amazing. And there's a waiting list. And the retailers think that it should have a lot higher price tag on it, even though it's double the price of the last one. - Very interesting. - So that's just stuff we do to get edge, right? And it's not hard, but you'd be surprised how many people just don't do it. Well, how many people, all the investors in codan, no one else has done it. It's easy. I just look them up at Google. Who sells mind lab gold detectors? Boom, here's your list of 10, call 0-8-8-2-B-B-B-B-B-B-B. Hi, my name's Andrew Mitchell. I'm a fund manager. You know, like you sell gold detectors. What do you think of the new mind lab detector? It's amazing. It's the best detector we've ever seen. We've got a wait list of two months. We wish they just had more of them. It's just people are finding gold. They've never found before. And we're getting people in Africa calling us up every day, trying to get them. Okay, thank you very much for your time. Money, but no one does it. - Fascinating. I mean, it does make logical sense, but to your point, you've got to actually take the time out to do it. - Yeah, and we all get caught. And I see myself there. I think, what does it, Malcolm Gladwell talks about? Like people who say that they're busy. I could spend a day working, right? And I actually do nothing that actually gives you an edge. But I'm looking at all these stock results and all this great stuff. But then all you have to do is pick up, you know, Google, who actually sells these detectors and ask them, are they any good? - And they're like, yeah. - But no one's done it. - Well, yeah. - And that's the edge. - What's the edge? - And so you can be busy. And yeah, like the gold price is sort of a bit if you get the moment and there's, you know, there's other things with codeon that are maybe not so good. And yeah, the valuations high. So I'm not saying people go run out and buy it. But we're doing this sort of stuff on every different company that we look at. And we're just trying to get edge, you know, work out things with the information that's readily available to everyone else. If you're just prepared to sort of put yourself out there. - It's a bit like monitoring foot traffic in shopping malls. You know, and things like that. - I'll tell you a funny story. There's a very, very well-known company with a, you know, billionaire founder who's invested in our funds. And he was trying to work out why we do so well. And I was telling him how I'd bail up retail like the girls behind the counter at particular retailers and just ask them how that particular store, so you know, they've got 250 stores around Australia or whatever it is. And just, I know the best stores. And I just go and ask them, how are you going? How are you going? And, you know, you get a flavor. Just going from one to the other to the other. You're getting a flavor that, oh, they're going well. Or they'll tell you, oh, the new range is not actually selling that well at the moment. Or the new range is doing amazingly. And he absolutely loved it because this person, who everyone will know and everyone will have shopped in his shops before, he's like, oh, we do the same things. He's talking about his family. A holiday just went on with his wife and went into a different country. And the great thing is we got stores there of competitors and things and how he goes in and does the exact same thing. And he out there, he's got a lot of things. absolutely lit up hearing it. And then he's a founder. I'm a founder and we sort of bonded over that whole founder mentality that this is the stuff that sort of makes money. That when you're a founder, you work out on your family holiday, how you can pop into that store and ask them how they're going and doing all those sort of things. And he's saying, yeah, I do the exact same thing and managing my wife and family as I take a detour to on the family holiday, if you can do a shop. And I'm 100% off the mat, many times. My wife's not happy with me. And we have to go to Strathfield in London to go and see this store and ask the person how the new range is trading and all that sort of stuff. So let's just focus a little bit on the first fund, the Ophere Opportunities Fund. And I think by what we've just discussed, you get a good feel for the thematic around that fund. And it has done extremely well. I mean, it's generated 23% per annum net returns after all phase from August 12, which was when he started to June 26, which is some 14 years. Do you step back and go, I'm genuinely very proud of that? No. What do you feel like? This is just the beginning. Because-- What is the beginning? I just stress that this will be the last year that I'll be able to get those returns. And I'm always stressed about what's-- What's around the corner? Next year's-- No, well, yeah, what's around the corner? But what is next year's company that doubles or triples? And I have to find it. And what is it in the portfolio? I can't see it at the moment. And I'm constantly stressed. There's never a point as a fund manager. I don't think-- and I'm sure that founder I spoke about. He's a bit older now. So he's probably had time to think about this. But there's never a time you think you're executing at 100%. I'm doing talking to our investors at the moment. And I'm not over the portfolio as much, because I'm not looking at 100% of the time every day, because I'm talking to our investors. I'm stressed about that. So I'll get back tonight to my hotel and be over that. And you get those returns. It just creates bigger expectations. And in my head, how do I continue to do that, continue? And 10 years ago, I would have been stressed like this. And I'm still stressed today. But last year, we did 22.5%. And the average is 23%. So we're still hitting about the average. Yeah. But there's never a time that I feel that we're doing really well. We can always get a lot better. And we have to. And if we don't get better, we're going to get eaten up by the new young people out there who are hungry and want to make their mark on the world. Which draws us back to that hunger question, right? And when the starting fund managers, the fund managers, as you just pointed out, are out there. They just want to get their first 100 million under management. Here you are with multiple billions. You know, like the hunger, I can say it in your body language, is still really driven to be the best. But what keeps you going? I mean, apart from ours at the office, the cause to potential investments, what's the driver? Is it still that intrigue? Or is it the-- from that you had when you were being a policy analyst, in essence, you want to keep growing? He's a really interesting story. I actually told this last night for the first time in a long time to a lot of investors. I won't say who told me this, but it's a very well-known F4M1 identity who knows Lewis Hamilton very well. And people will know who this person is. And through investment, I got to actually spend a couple hours with this guy and ask him a heap of questions, just open him up. And talking to him about Lewis Hamilton. And he said, you know, the thing about Lewis-- and this is when he was the top of the top-- he's the most insecure person you will ever meet. He thinks that God, I think, has given him this special power, but it could get taken away at any moment. And he's so paranoid about that that he works harder than anyone else on the grid to be the best. He knows the reaction time of the young people. He's getting slower, and he can't do-- he can't improve it because it's just a thing about getting older. So he has to get as a better driver. And he's got that continued, continued, angst. And I'm not an elite. And I'm not the Lewis Hamilton of funds management. I'm not trying to make that into that. I think the-- I love that sort of-- and I think a lot of the people at O'Fear have it. They're sort of the imposter syndrome, the self-doubt, all the sort of element. You know what I'm getting at. It actually leads to a growth mindset. You're always trying to get better, and you're never actually happy with where you are, and you think the next problem's around the corner. And I'm not the only person who has it at O'Fear. I think I picked the rough diamonds to come work at O'Fear. They generally haven't gone to the best schools, and they haven't had the easiest life sort of thing. And-- but it comes to great outcomes. Dodding eyes, crossing tees, you're always worried what's going to go wrong. You underestimate your own ability, which is a lot better than overestimating it where you make big mistakes. And I reckon that's the best way of sort of describing the O'Fear and the hunger. And it's not just me, it's everyone, right? And I know a lot of this has been about me. O'Fear is an organism in itself. And it's that that sort of comes. And I think a lot of people are like that at O'Fear. The business itself has grown. Obviously, the flagship fund is the opportunities fund. You then decided to go global. Yeah. And basically replicate the same model. Yeah. But on a global stage. Yeah. Did you have any apprehension at the start on actually investing globally from Australia? Yeah, big time. I hope you have what right do we have to take on some really smart Americans as fund managers? Because this was around 15, 18? No, 2018. But we probably, it was probably 2017. I think maybe when I can't remember when we all started. Yeah. For formulation, there was a big build up. The track record though, that is the first day we started investing. Was that day? It's not a-- there was a year of Mulligan's and then starting again. Yeah, it was. But we told every investor because our sort of Australian funds were closed in 2018. We'd already raised 1/2 billion or whatever it was back then, a billion, whatever. And we had told everyone, because everyone was saying, what's the next fund? What's the next fund? Would you do a microcapt fund? And we said, well, only do another fund if we think it's going to make us better at what we are currently doing. And what we like about global is it certainly makes us better. But we would have to do it the hard way. This isn't-- I'm not, as you can probably tell, I'm not motivated by money. I'm motivated by winning and sort of having to fuel my sort of imposter syndrome and low self-esteem sort of thing. They have to continue to do well, to have a place in this world. The US, we had to do it the right way. And the right way meant you have to get a team in the US. And that's very hard, because you have to get Australians who want to move. And then they have to stay there for their life in the US. And we've just built methodically slowly. We didn't go out there and raise as much money as we possibly could. We did, obviously, got off to a good start. We just did it methodically and slowly, and we improved the process. Because in some ways, the US is in global-- because we invest in the Western world, right? UK, Western Europe, and US. And most of it's 2/3 of the US. The US, it's like-- I wonder where you call it. It's quite hard. It's easy in some respects, but then it's a lot harder. In others, you get absolutely crucified if you make mistakes over there. Hedge funds go hard. There's lots of short reports for stock misses. There are 50% on the regular. You've got to be dotting your eyes and crossing your teas. There's a lot of hard work there, but there's a lot of opportunity. There's, as I say, all these companies, like Zip, Zip Money is looking to list in the US. And I'm like, no, no, you're rare in Australia. Yes. This company of this quality, with this growth into the US. In the US, you're not rare. There's so many good companies over there. And if you make a misstep, there's no one there to buy you, because they just move on to the next good company. They don't need a company that's going through a challenging time. And so there's so many great companies to find, but at the same time, you make mistakes. It really hurts. And that has evolved, though. I mean, you've managed to refine the art of investing with a US base now. You've got an office in Denver? Yeah. and that's just gradually progressed. I mean, the global fund had a, the global opportunities fund had a phenomenal last financial year. - Yeah. - You know, up 31.8% again, net of fees. - That's a good memory. - It's a, I mean, look at that. And look at that in light of the current climate and how the Australian fund's gone. It's been a great FY26 for the company. - That brings us to the modern day, current view sort of. - Oh right, yes. - And I'm our think for the list that we can see where the business is now currently positioned. But as an investor in this current world, it's a bit challenging. It's a bit tricky. There's a lot going on. And I noted that you've just come back from the US. So you've done a lot of company visits over there and with the US office and obviously you've got your finger on the pulse here in Australia. How are you seeing things in the current climate? And in Australia or all the US? - I think we'll start with Australia, but we'll further expand that out to the global. But, and look, we haven't got all day either. So I'm conscious of that. But, you know, if you want to rant about the latest tax changes, you've come to the right place. - I was going to give you the Treasury, the Treasury analyst in myself talking about us becoming more of a socialist country. - Yeah. - And how, you know, it becomes a catchphrase of the coalition and I don't like it, but aspiration. The US attracts the best of the best because if you put in there, you get rewarded for it, right? And so you're attracting the best talent to the United States. - Yes. - And what Australia has done is don't come here if you're any good because we're just going to take from you as much as we possibly can and we're going to reward people who turn up. - Yeah. - And it's the opposite to who I am as a person and it's an opposite to what I think as a great economy. - The entrepreneurial culture. - Yeah, exactly. - Now we are a fantastic country because the US is, look at the homelessness. My wife, people ask, will I ever live in the US? There's no way my wife is ever living in the US unless I'm worth a billion dollars one day and I can live in this upper east side in some penthouse or something. There's no way she'll live there. The homelessness, horrible. The access to healthcare and all these things, it's horrible. They don't look after the people when it's very much run for the 1%. And so I do value very, very much the country that I'm in, Australia, and what we do for everyone. But I think that we should be rewarding aspiration, as the coalition says, entrepreneurialism, attracting the best talent to Australia and really encouraging companies and everyone to invest in themselves and take risk and have ever invest in other people and take risk. And that's what a really good economy is. And that's my rant for what it is for what it's worth. - Well, thanks for sharing. That's it. - I think everyone just told everyone what they already think. - It's important. And I think when I was looking through, one of the things that I observed about a fear is the transparency on reporting in terms of your monthly newsletters and also there's a number of posts on LinkedIn, just giving different views. And that's everything I've found quite interesting reading. One of the things that came out of one of your LinkedIn posts was, you took it an observation around graduate jobs, saying that engineering and I'll quote it, "Engineering, computer and information science exposed and humanities and social science grades are proving more resilient." And the quote was along the lines of our real worry, is that the junior staff lean on AI to think for them. They never learn to problem solve or critically evaluate the answer. And that becomes a skill in itself. - That's me talking from an Ophere point of view because making mistakes, going and learning things in that whole process is where you get to be a fund manager like myself and if people are just going to AI to get the answer, it's great for me because there'll be competitors are doing that but I don't want anyone at Ophere doing that. They have to go through the whole process to be able to put it all together because if everyone thinks like a robot, we're going to get robot results. - Which is a really interesting point in today's world and I think it will be well received for people to hear that. But coming back to it, let's just start with the macro environment. - Oh, the macro, yeah. - Okay, so in the US, I could be wrong here, but we've got Fed decision coming up and we'll find out probably when people listen to this. We don't think, if you think about Wash, he's come in. He was very transparent. He will be data dependent as the new federal governor. So when he was hawkish in his first meeting, it shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone because at the time the oil price was high and your rear prices were high and things weren't great. Now, by the time this goes to air, Trump could have said something and the oil price will be over a hundred bucks and everything's changed and I'll look silly. But the oil price in its current state will be temporary. You just have to look at the futures and the futures market where it's currently set, sitting in the market doesn't think like that. When Wash comes out this next time, he's looking at temporary high oil prices that have come down and we've seen them come down very quickly, which isn't a reason to move interest rates. We'll be having a look at the US economy and whether. We're expecting that either way, he won't be as hawkish as he is. He's reacting to the data as he sees it. So from that perspective, there's been a big breadth in the market has been coming right from the start of the year. We're seeing the manufacturing index, the PMI, actually starting to grow again, which is fantastic. But a small caps EPS, which is really the domestic US economy, is being revised up and it's been revised up since the start of the year. That's not normal and that's really good for the US economy, but also for small caps. And so what we've now seen is small caps are re-rating compared to large caps, which is fantastic news. For us, especially, the AI trade, obviously there's a huge amount of leverage that went into buying all those semis and memory. And as we're talking now, they've just started to melt down and come off a lot. We have only ever held an index, or just under an index position, which is around 8, 9, 10% of our index in the semis and memory, because we've got nowhere to go on this big, huge. These margins they've never had before, some valuations that have never been had before, with growth that's never been had before in a very cyclical industry. It seems like a recipe for disaster. We haven't got any edge there. So the returns, and you said, "We did 32% last year. That has not come from semiconductors and AI, but for hedge funds to get massively long this sector, what they did was shorted software, shorted healthcare, and shorted all this other range of companies. And so, as we see the semis come off, we're seeing the broadening healthcare, the med tech ones, especially, starting to rally. You're seeing the SaaS rally. It's a lot of quality rally, because it's short cover, but we have seen some broadening. We need to see the oil price come down to see the consumer go up again, but we saw signs of consumer doing better as the oil price came off last time. So, we're quite. What's the word I'm looking for? We're quite bullish on the US economy to the end of the year, especially considering Trump and the midterms. And we know he's going to be really focused on the economy, rock 'n' and rolling into the mid years. So, we're expecting that this breadth is going to continue. Notwithstanding, if Trump opens his mouth and starts more conflict with Iran at the moment, it's simmering down, but we're one missile, one drone off another. A change. A conflict. Yeah, it's hard to talk at any time and to record a podcast. No, no, no, absolutely. I understand. But, yeah, we're quite positive view on the US stocks to the end of this year. Yeah, OK. And then Australia? Australia is a bit harder. It's. we've been all pushed in, or the market has been pushed. into a very narrow field because we've got rates high, discretionaries without going on that round again. We've got rates going higher because the feds are taxing wealth, but then they're spending more. So rates are going higher, it's hurting the consumer. We've got housing obviously that's struggling with all the taxes and things like that. The best quality companies in Australia for a long time have been software and that's still got a huge question mark. So everyone's been forced into this very small subset, either resources or a few sort of AI related businesses. The sort of I guess, contrarian in me thinks, okay, this is as bad as it gets. Now's the time to just sort of start adding to the discretionary stocks, but from what we're seeing at this point in time, there's not very many companies doing well and to what I said earlier, that makes it quite challenging in terms of finding those companies that are doing better than the market expects. And the foreseeable future doesn't look like it's going to change too much. Well, as long as the federal government continues to spend as strong as they are and push rates higher, then it's not good for the Australian economy. But the market always wins and this will all be an opportunity and it won't be as bad as this. It's just we're finding it a lot harder to find those companies that are winning outside of the resource sector. Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. Sorry, I need to give you more of an upbeat. I'm pretty upbeat on the US. We've got lots of opportunities and finding stocks there is a lot easier than Australia at the moment. I hope I didn't depress you. Sit us on the banks and do like that. I wanted you to cheer me up here and get me fired up into it. You know, I can see that you're not totally despondent about the Australian situation, but you can see there's better opportunity. You're in WA, you're fine. You just invested in resource companies and that's going well. That's all going well. Look, I'm conscious of time, but I just had a couple of quick questions. Who in your career, who's the fund managers you started out looking up to? Who were the people you inspired to be? A lot of the people you inspired to be. So do you mean like Peter Lynch or do you mean like globally domestically? I domestically, you know, the people like Paul Hannan, he was a bit scary, but then on my first day at Paradise, I was actually at the, what is it, the Bearwood Casino here? Yeah. And we were going with Euros to the North West shelf tour, and I remember waiting for a taxi at a bus to pick us up or whatever it was at 4 a 30 to go. And then Loops gave me this really nice pep talk. He's like, you know, you got the job at Paradise. Well done. The thing about us guys in small caps was we're all nice guys. We all get along. So welcome on board and it was nice to me. And I always thought the way he went about it, he was very smart and he's now retired. Paul Hannan. I think guys at QVG, they're sort of more contemporaries. Guys at Osville, they're pretty good. QVG, you know, L1 is listed now. Like Rafi does an amazing job there. I don't know how he makes so much money, but he's got some magic touch that I certainly don't have. They're probably the guys that I don't really look at the L1 results other than the fact it's listed. Yeah. The QVGs, Osbils, they're the sort of ones that I look at. There's probably some of the couple others I've forgotten there that you know, see how they're going because I think they're pretty good investors. Yeah, that would probably be the answer. The David Paradise, you know, getting to work at Paradise, that's the obvious one. Yeah. Most of the content, I was the youngest guy when I started, it was 26. There was no other fun manager at my age. So most people are retired now. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just good to get an insight into how you're seeing it currently. And I suppose from that perspective, if you're a young fun manager coming out, you know, an Andrew Mitchell at 2627, you know, looking to start out. How would you look at it now? Have you changed your views a little bit on the industry? When we started, there were 40 fun managers in the survey. There's now 150. So there's a lot of people, oh, and I didn't say Matthew Fist at Fire Trail. And the guys at Maple Brown are but Matt Griffin, who I know really well there are there. Two other guys are really, really rate highly. And the reason that's important because if you're starting out now as an Andrew Mitchell fun manager, well, you've got Matt Fist and the guys at Maple Brown are at Matt Griffin. They're out there raising money at the moment. They've got really good numbers and they're really smart. They've made a lot of mistakes that they've learnt from. Yes. I'm not saying that they make mistakes, but that's a really, you know, you need to have done that. That's what experience is. It's going to be harder to raise money. We were the only guys out there at the start. It was like no one had started a fun for a very long time. They were very few boutique fun. So it was a lot easier for us when we started. So what would I say to them? If you're asking me for advice, I think this is what Charlie might, have you heard this one? Yeah, come on. Charlie Munger said, who was it? Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett said, if you're asking me for advice, you probably shouldn't be in the game. I can't remember how he did the analogy, but it was basically. Along those lines. Yeah. You started this business. How did you do it and all this sort of stuff and wanting to learn? If you're asking for advice, you probably. You're probably making a mistake right from the start. Maybe that is a good. Sorry, I've actually forgotten the analogy completely, but he had this one that if you're sitting there and asking us what to do, that's what's different from all those other billionaires because they're just out there doing it. They're not sitting there pondering all these different, should I do it, should I not? They're just going. Straight in. They're just going straight in. So the advice I would give is, you know what, go in. Don't half it. Don't get a backstop like a cap person who gives you capital. We own the fund 100% right. We don't have a backer. Put yourself in. Feel like you could lose everything. And it's only when you could lose everything that you get to actually do very well because you have to put it all on the line. That's what makes you the best. And that was what we did. I don't know if it really went into that, but I put all my money into the fund when I started. It just had to work. That was the nature of it. So that would be my advice. Go all in and don't half. I was going to say a word, but don't half. Sorry. No regrets. I was going to say half-ass. That's not worth that. Don't half-ass it. No regrets. Get in there and go hard. Yeah. Don't look back. Excellent. Excellent. Now, I'm conscious that you had a stellar football career. Please, I did not tell it. It really was too much. I did not tell anyone. The Glenunga Ram Football Club award-winning life member. He got all this from the website, by the way. I did not tell Tim this thing. But I must say, you know, footies had a big role in your life. And I wanted it to leave it to last year. Yeah, I've got the two points to complete our catch-up. But one of them was football and one of his family. And I know you've mentioned work-life balance with your family. It's extremely important how life's adjusted to that. Footies also had a massive role in your life. You know, not only from the people you've met and the teams you've been a part of and the enduring nature of it. But tell us what you've taken out of sport in general and what it's taught you that you've been able to put into life. Footies was the first thing that I found out I was good at something. And this was after I left school. And I, you know, that award, you say, where I won the association that amateur league, the league I was in. I mentioned this before the chat and he said, don't mention it. But then I was just dropped to the conversation, casual dropping. No, but it wasn't the top division, like it was the first grade team, but not in the top division in our league in Adelaide. And I just never thought I could ever win anything in my life. I was just sort of like, you know, I participated. And then I think that gave me a whole new sort of mindset that if, you know, you really put in and then just seeing, you know, the people in the team like respect me and you know, and all those sort of things. It was just a great, and the great thing about playing as people would know, done amateur league, footy. You get to just, you know, You know, I'd like to get to Mingle and get to know all these different people. And I really enjoyed that amateur league and it's funny. My dad's the same. He's really into that 40 club. And I love, live for that on Saturdays, just checking the score and watching it on YouTube. They're games and they knocked off. Glengar knocked off. Salisbury North, who are top of the Division I amateur league in Adelaide. They knocked him off by 80 points. Oh, he can. It was a big win. And that made the rest of my day pretty. You've been surprised at sort of like, yeah, stock upgrades. It's up 25%. Glengar wins by 80 points versus the top team. I don't know what's better. Like it's a thing. It makes me really happy just saying something that I guess it was feeling a belonging of that team and that club. sing that club, sorry, I should say. And that belonging of a club is something that I value very much. So I really enjoy just saying, even though I'm not involved in the club as much as I used to be, it's just really good seeing them do well. So yeah, that's a part. And I think you asked about family, everything. I've got three children, two beautiful daughters and a six-month-old son. And I try to be as present as I possibly can. They make me so happy. They make me laugh. The middle one, especially. Found a photo and unfortunately for her, she looks a lot like me at the age of two and a half. It's unfortunate for her. Yeah, I love spending time with her family and that's. Wonderful. speaks my all my face. Yeah, wonderful. Fantastic. Well, look, that's a good place to wrap it up. But I must say, look, on behalf of Eros Harley's, congratulations on a. To you and the Afir team for outstanding, you know, 14 years so far. And it's only just starting, but the sound's just listening to your talk. Sorry, it's so obvious that, you know, you're just scratching the surface in a way. You know, you feel I can tell you just. you're excited. I'm just. as you know, hopefully see. I'm a pretty passionate guy. I love what I do. I love the human interaction. And I've got the best job in the world. I know it, like it's just the best, you know, getting to have people. Probably everyone's tuned out at this stage, but, you know, people actually wanting to hear me talk. It's just, you know, it's pretty incredible, like, I'm just some average dude from Adelaide who tried hard. That's it. Oh, look, you know, we certainly do appreciate the time that you've taken to come and join us because it is a whirlwind tour through Perth. And I know you've got functions on left, right, and centre. Yeah. Yeah, thanks again for taking the time, Mitch and. And it's always a pleasure. Yeah, thanks very much, Tim. Really appreciate it. And, you know, thanks to the broader UROs community, like, I really, really rate your research analysts and, you know, the whole team. And I think it's. the teams that really impressed us as Adelaide Fear over the last couple of years. And I think doing a great job, it's the UROs Hartley's team. If they're not number one, there'd be number two or three out of all the teams that's doing the best for us. So we're really happy with the relationship. And, yeah, thanks again for, you know, the whole UROs just being there. Good on you, mate. Thanks again. Thanks very much. Cheers, Mitch. Thanks for listening to UROs Hartley's Finding the Front. This podcast is for General Information purposes only. Please check out UROs Hartley's.com for more information. Euros Hartley's Holts Australian Financial Services last is 2-3-0-0-5-2.