The Pioneer
The frontier and an appetite for the unknown, goes first.
Ben Goldsmith emerges in this interview as a Pioneer whose leadership spans the frontier where environmental conviction meets capital markets innovation. Goldsmith recounts building Web Asset Management as one of London's earliest sustainability-focused investment managers, then structuring Menhaden Capital as a permanent capital vehicle to take genuinely long-term positions in the green industrial revolution.
“Environmental concerns. Clearly they've been very important for you over the last couple of decades. Where did this environmental passion originate? So I grew up with a kind of profound fascination with and love for nature. Now I grew up in suburban West London in Richmond, but actually there's a lot of nature there.”
“I wrote to country life and I said I thought their readers lacked imagination when it comes to the topic of wild boar and that of course we should have what and they sent me a coat and the 99 year old Duke of Wellington wrote a letter into the next magazine referring to letter Ben Goldsmith, previous issue if any wild boar show up at Stra…”
“It replaces the CAP system that was much criticized and one of its three planks is payments for rewilding, which is obviously close to your heart.”
“So natural England under the new scheme is now saying look, the same amount of money is available, but we really do need to see some nature recovery this time, which means far fewer sheep, but you can double the number of cattle you've got, you still have lots of Dartmoor ponies, but it's got to be fewer sheep and no sheep out in the wint…”
Money Maze Podcast: “Rewilding: The Next Big Investment Opportunity? With Ben Goldsmith, CEO and Co-Founder of Menhaden Capital”
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