Ollie Smith: Picking up tonight's overall award for Best Asset Manager is Vanguard and joining me is Robyn Laidlaw from the company.
Robyn, congratulations. Vanguard is obviously a manager from an active and a passive perspective. What are the challenges and opportunities of both approaches in 2024?
Robyn Laidlaw: Well, I think often the conversation has been around active versus passive, but it's really active and passive and how do those things work best in portfolios for investors. And at Vanguard, I guess we always like to say, what really counts is low costs for investors. And obviously, you want to get great investment management services at the right cost and then hold on to them for a long time in your portfolio. So, we think the two work really well together.
OS: And what are you looking forward to throughout the rest of the year? There's some doom and gloom around markets and the uncertainty of the year so far, interest rates seemingly staying put for now. What are you looking forward to? What's positive?
RL: Well, I think one of our key messages always for investors and for advisors is it's sometimes hard to see past the doom and gloom when we're so overwhelmed by it in the media. But really…
OS: Sorry...
RL: Exactly. I'm sorry to say the media. But our core message is always, ignore all of that, stay the course. Most people have a really long-term goal in mind and just keep working towards your long-term goal and try and just zone out all that noise in the short term.
OS: Robyn, pleasure to meet you. Congratulations on the big award win. Have a lovely evening.