J Stern & Co Opens New York Office

Tom Burroughes

23 March 2023

, an investment partnership based in London, is opening an office in New York to serve North American clients.

The firm offers strategies in global, US, and European equities, corporate and emerging market bonds, and multi-asset investing. Its flagship World Stars Global Equity strategy has run since 2012.

As part of the move, the firm has welcomed Christian Picot and Ronald Dooley as principals in the new operation. Picot and Dooley were formerly members of the management committee of Stewart Asset Management, a concentrated long-only growth equity investment manager.

From 2004 to 2018, Picot was a portfolio manager with alternative fund managers Alexandra and Odyssey. Prior to working in the investment fund industry, he held key global management positions in the investment banking divisions of both Credit Lyonnais and Paribas. Dooley held senior-level positions in consulting with Alvarez & Marsal, and in corporate and investment banking with Scotia Capital. He has extensive experience in financial transactions, performance improvement, risk management and portfolio management.

In August last year the firm opened a new office in Malta, giving the firm a continued foothold in the European Union following the end of the UK’s access to a marketing passport scheme.

Last September, J Stern & Co spoke to this publication about its views on emerging market debt and the opportunities in that space.

History
The organization oversees assets for the 200-year-old Stern dynasty. Opening a New York office is in some ways is a return to an important part of its history. The Stern banking dynasty traces its origins to a wine merchant family which transformed its business into a bank in 1805 on the counsel of their neighbors, the Rothschild family, who had gone through that transition a few years earlier (coincidentally, the same year that Swiss private bank Pictet was founded). The family flourished, operating across Europe. During the Second World War, the French branch of the family represented by J Stern & Co fled to New York in 1940.

Whilst in New York, Maurice Stern created an investment strategy of long-term value stock picking. In 1946, he returned to Paris to rebuild the banking business in Europe, including an asset management business. After being run for two generations, the business, called Banque Stern, was sold in 1988 to Swiss Bank Corp (later known as UBS). The family created a family office in Geneva for the Stern family. J Stern & Co is the continuation of that family office, having been brought to London after the global financial crisis. J Stern & Co became a regulated entity in 2012 when it took on third-party clients. Today, it has offices in London, Zurich and Malta. (One of the benefits of its Malta presence is that it gives the group a foothold in the European Union after the UK left it.)