James Anderson and George Osborne enter Lingotto. Elkann: We have long-term goals

Lingotto, an investment management company wholly owned by Exor, the holding company of the Agnelli family, with over $3 billion in assets under management, strengthens the team. James Anderson, big finance, joins the team. Anderson is an early lender to the likes of Amazon, ByteDance and Tesla. He actively managed what became the UK’s largest investment fund, reporting a return of 1.155% between April 2000 and March 2022.

George Osborne, meanwhile, has been named non-executive chairman and will work closely with Chief Executive Officer Enrico Vellano. For the past five years Osborne has chaired Exor’s Partners’ Council, a position he will step down from once he takes up his new post. He is a partner at investment bank Robey Warshaw and was previously the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer between 2010 and 2016.

Lingotto, authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, is based in London and is an independent and entrepreneurial investment management company, which is based, explains a note, on the successes achieved by managing partners Matteo Scolari and Nikhil Srinivasan: it provides gifted professionals investment talent a home where they can pursue their passion, without the bureaucracy inherent in many large organizations or the solitude of managing their own funds.

«The objectives of the Lingotto company – explains the founder John Elkann, who is also the managing director of Exor – are long-term: an appropriate fact since this year we are celebrating Lingotto, the Fiat gigafactory in Turin inaugurated a century ago in 1923 by the my great-grandfather Giovanni Agnelli. Thinking about the meaning of the word ‘ingotto’, we hope that this historic name will be a good omen for the new company».

The Agnelli leader explains the company’s goals the day he begins life as an investment management firm. «We are committed to providing our partners with attractive long-term returns – says Elkann – protecting their capital from permanent losses and accepting that our investments are concentrated, illiquid and volatile. For us, success means growing the assets we manage thanks to the performance of our investments rather than the inflow of new capital. The people who work with us are our greatest strength and indeed we are fortunate to already have a capable and experienced team. We motivate and attract the best talent by creating a home where they can pursue their passion for investing, without the bureaucracy of many large organizations or the solitude of managing their own funds. We are rigorous and rational in making investment decisions. We offer unique, different and complementary investment strategies, each led by managing partners who can decide independently, but in a collaborative spirit. We operate according to the principles of responsibility, integrity and transparency».

In turn, Vellano comments on the arrival of Anderson and Osborne: «Being able to attract leaders of their quality and experience testifies to Lingotto’s level of ambition and our determination to build a great investment management company».