Ian Wenham grew up on a farm in regional South Australia where he learnt the value of perseverance and hard work. Post-school, Ian worked in Queensland sand mines and then to university. Via a role working for one of Australia’s richest men, he now advises families about maximising their personal wealth.

Ian was brought up in Jamestown, in the mid-north of South Australia. “My parents came from the land, we had a very small property. Mixed farming; sheep, a bit of wheat, pigs and poultry; a genuine mixed farm back in the early 60s. Life generally was pretty tough. My parents never, ever had what you would call a lot of spare cash. Both my parents worked throughout my entire childhood. We all kind of kicked in around the farm doing chores after school and on weekends.”

There were, however, benefits to living in the country. “My parents were highly respected musicians, community-minded people, and that’s the great thing about growing up in the country. You understand the strength and power of those communities – whenever anybody’s in strife, it’s all about helping each other out. You’re brought up with a high sense of respect for others, and a strong Christian upbringing. Church was a very important part of life back in those days.”

After school, “We went away for a holiday to North Queensland in 1974. That was around the last mining boom, and things in that area were just out of control. There were mining projects, nickel refineries and railways; you name it – it was under construction. On that trip I decided I wanted to do some travelling; get away from the farm, get away from home, move out and just see the world. I spent 18 months in North Queensland working in various jobs including the best part of a year working at a silica sand mine driving a truck.”

Insights into another culture also followed. “I was lucky enough to have a good association with a group of native Australians, seeing how they operate in both the natural environment and the one in which we and they now live. We would struggle to catch fish, whereas they would just walk off the beach onto the coral with a spear and catch barramundi. It was just incredible to see what they could do. Sadly, their reaction to alcohol was alarming, because their personalities changed in a matter of seconds from being completely normal, to brothers attacking brothers with spears.”

A turning point came from a simple question. “I’d been there for 12 months and the mine manager and his wife invited me to Christmas lunch. The manager’s wife asked ‘what on earth are you doing here? You know you should be studying, you should be doing something a bit more sensible than just up here in the bush driving a truck.’ I did a bit of thinking around that, and the next year I ended up going back to school.”

Ian didn’t quite know what he wanted to do. “When you don’t know what you want to do, you do Arts, which is exactly what I did, and I had a marvellous three years at Adelaide University.”

The family farm was sold by then “and my mother was still doing a little bit of part-time work. Dad was semi-retired, so there was no pressure from there. In fact, they were encouraging me, they were very supportive of what I was trying to do really.”

Whilst at college, “The house master asked: ‘Have you thought about doing an MBA?’ I didn’t even know what an MBA was. At that stage, there were only three places in Australia you could do an MBA, unlike now where you can do one everywhere, including online. You couldn’t do one in Adelaide, so we had to do it in Perth, Melbourne or Sydney, and I chose the AGSM (Australian Graduate School of Management) in Sydney.”

To earn money during that time, “I parked cars at the Wentworth Sofitel Hotel at nights and on weekends. I think you learn the value of hard work. I don’t see myself as being a particularly gifted person; I’ve always done well at school and even at Uni. But I always worked pretty hard as well. I wasn’t a natural, I needed to work reasonably hard to get through University.”

The key lesson from the MBA for Ian was that “it taught me about the stockmarket and my ears pricked up at that point. I didn’t really have much of an idea at all about what the share market was, or how it worked. For me, that was the big legacy out of the MBA program.”

Having worked out he wanted “to be in the investment field in some shape or form, I was lucky enough to end up getting two offers coming out of the MBA program. One was from AMP and the other was from a stockbroker. I took the stockbroking offer.”

In 1980, Ian was hired by Meares & Philips as a research analyst. “We had a research department of four when I joined. Meares & Philips in those days was a small stockbroking firm, with mainly private clients. The firm had recently hired Tim Crament, who ended up building a marvellous institutional business. I was extremely fortunate to have joined a firm which was just about to get going. I was with BZW until 1997, including three years in Hong Kong as the regional head of research. To have joined in 1980 and effectively worked for the same firm for 17 years is something most people don’t do in stockbroking.”

At that point, Ian felt “I’d done everything I could do from a research point of view here in Australia. I’d been working with a firm who had done extremely well. We’d gone from this small broking firm into BZW Australia which was one of the major players in the 80s and 90s. I was looking for a new challenge.”

Ian moved to Hong Kong when his children were six and four. “The junior school systems in Hong Kong work really well. They’ve got a great Western-style education, Western teachers, with a very high standard of education and a very international community. Our kids had been all over the world by the time they were 12.”

Ian was then fortunate enough secure an ideal role back in Australia. “I was fortunate enough to get a job with the Lowy Family Group, which was a fantastic re-entry back to Australia and provided an opportunity to help me reacquaint with my old network.”

The role provide a valuable transition experience for Ian. “It was a small group of investment professionals, running a family office. It was away from broking into the world of funds management, looking after a family portfolio. It gave me the transition from the sell side to the buy side, so it was an important step to take.”

Secondly, the role “still enabled me to do a reasonable amount of travel because we had investments in a range of different things. I didn’t really want to come back to a very domestic type of job. I wanted to still maintain the connections I’d made overseas, and the perspective one gets from living overseas and with respect to China in particular. I’d taken quite a strong interest in China so I didn’t want to give all that up.”

After a couple of years there, “one of my current colleagues, Richard Nicholas, started thinking about setting up an investment business. Richard is one of the founding partners of Peak, and his background was very much around portfolio management, whereas mine was research. We thought together we’d have a reasonable balance in terms of what was a two man team.”

At the outset, “we didn’t have an actual client base. We had a number of people we were confident would come with us, but there were no guarantees in place; we didn’t have 50 clients signed up on day one. We had to knock on doors. To run a business you need more than just your mates helping you out and it always takes longer than you think. The one thing we did have in our favour was the fact that we happened to pick close to the bottom of the market to start a business. At least when we did get going, we did have reasonable returns.”

At that stage, “you either had a stockbroker who may or may not give you good advice – frequently they could be self-interested animals as well – or you gave your money to a BT or Westpac, where it’s just put into a fund and that’s the end of that. To actually have your own personal portfolio manager was relatively new at that point.”

It was different market in those days. “The service providers and the distributors – the banks – were all in bed together effectively. To get independent advice specific to your own needs, requirements and risk profile was relatively limited. I think the conflicts have become clearer now. A lot of that has to do with the financial planning industry which back in 2003 wasn’t as well developed or regulated as it is today.”

Peak concentrates on what they call bespoke solutions for their clients to achieve their objectives and meet their requirements. “It’s very much a relationship-driven service. We listen to what they want to achieve with their particular portfolio. We listen to how sensitive they are to risk and capital protection and construct portfolios which fully reflect those basic objectives. The other thing we do, as opposed to what a financial planner might do, is actually manage the money directly ourselves.”

Ian explains, “Once we decide on the portfolio mandate – the structure of what those investments should look like – we actually do the investments as well. From a client’s point of view, they know exactly who is managing their money; they can ring them up, ask why they bought this or why they sold that. If you go through a planner you may end up with half a dozen different funds in your portfolio and you’re certainly not going to be able to go and talk to the bloke actually looking after your money.”

As with any business, there are highs and lows. “We’ve had a number of highs. Eighteen months ago we made an acquisition of another similar business and that’s worked out extremely well from the point of view of growing our business. Today, we’re running at about $350 million after that acquisition. Through that process we also gained two excellent additions to the team. That also brought down the average age of our team which is quite an important objective moving forward.”

One valuable lesson in business Ian has learned is “Things generally don’t necessarily go at the speed you perhaps first thought. We’ve gone through a couple of pretty tough times in a market sense, such as 2008, and even then we had minimal loss of clients. This meant the credibility of what we do, the services we offer and the way we go about doing our business is an integral part of our success.”

Teamwork is, and has always been, another important element of success. “Having a team of people who enjoy working together is important. It’s especially important when you start out in business to have that working, rather than fighting battles internally.”

How does Ian keep both he and his team motivated? “I love the markets, so I don’t find it difficult to get out of bed each day. I love seeing what’s happened overnight on the Bloomberg screens. That’s something I’ll probably do until the day I die. That’s a strong motivator for me. As far as the team is concerned, they get a lot of interaction with our clients. We’ll have sandwiches around the boardroom table, or we’ll go up to their offices and make a presentation to them around their quarterly or annual results. I’m a keen golfer and so we’ll often take people out to play golf.”

Common interests are also important for both staff and clients. “There are a number of AFL supporters with whom I’ve become involved. We’ve got some wine buffs who love wine tasting. Life is not a battle, it’s more around sharing experiences that you enjoy with your clients. So that’s why I find it very easy to get up in the morning and come to work.”

Ian observes that his team are naturally motivated. “We have a good culture generally. We’ve done some work on that though, as it hasn’t always been okay. We had a number of off-sites a couple of years ago to work on getting that right. There were a few issues that weren’t entirely satisfactory and so we’ve made some changes including coaching. In a small team, people have different skills and, in some cases, people were not necessarily respecting each other’s strengths. A basic education process was needed there.”

• “It’s all about helping each other out.”
• “Having a team of people that enjoy working together is important.”
• “To run a business you need more than just your mates helping you out… it always takes longer than you think.”