Richard Durant

Richard Durant is the leader of Narweena, an asset manager focused on finding market dislocations that are the result of a poor understanding of a businesses long-term prospects. Narweena believes that excess risk adjusted returns can be achieved by identifying businesses with secular growth opportunities in markets with barriers to entry. Narweena’s research process is focused on company and industry fundamentals with the goal of uncovering unique insights. Narweena has a high risk appetite and a long-term horizon, in pursuit of stocks that are deeply undervalued. Coverage tilts towards smaller cap stocks and markets where competitive advantages are not obvious.

Investments are driven by a belief that an aging population with low population growth and stagnating productivity growth will create a different opportunity set to what has worked in the past. Many industries are likely to face stagnation or secular decline, which counter-intuitively may improve business performance if competition decreases. Conversely, other businesses are likely to face rising costs and diseconomies of scale. In addition, economies are becoming increasingly dominated by asset light businesses, and the need for infrastructure investments is declining over time. As a result, a large pool of capital is chasing a limited set of investment opportunities, which is driving up asset prices and compressing risk premia over time.

Durant has undergraduate degrees in engineering and finance from the University of Adelaide (Honors) and an MBA from Nanyang Technological University (Dean’s Honors List). He has also passed the CFA exams.