Life beyond boutiques

The resignation of two well-respected boutique fund managers in the space of a couple of weeks has served to remind would-be investors that a move to a boutique is not necessarily the last career change an ambitious manager might make. Both Hugh Hendry of Odey Asset Management and Stuart Mitchell of JO Hambro Investment Management have left their respective companies to set up hedge fund companies on their own (see stories on page 5 and 1). Traditionally, it was assumed that if a manager could earn his stripes in a big blue-chip company and battle through the bureacracy, the meetings and...