Talking with … Aviva Investors' David Cumming

Square Mile’s series of informal interviews

clock • 7 min read

Aviva Investors chief investment officer David Cumming talks active management and activist investing, information advantages and playing the piano, with Richard Romer-Lee

How did you get into the industry? Markets have power - more than people imagine. So when I left university, having read economics, I joined Royal London. I was more interested in macroeconomics than companies at the time, as well as economic strategy in less developed countries. That was in 1983 and I placed my first trade within three weeks of joining. That wouldn't happen nowadays. I ran my own fund - a UK income fund - at Edinburgh Fund Managers a couple of years later. What makes a good equity fund manager? Being emotionally dispassionate and being aware of, but not involved wit...

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