YouSaid · the spoken record

Jack Sommers

lines on the record: 49
first: 2022-10-20
most recent: 2022-10-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Knowing what you don't know is more important than what you do know. It took me a long time to figure out. I probably still haven't completely figured it out. Or I don't behave like I haven't figured out all the time. I guess that's aspirational too, but it's been fun knowing that there are a lot of people with better ideas around things than I have.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'm an ultra extrovert or something like that. I just love being around people. That definitely comes from my mom. My dad is not like that at all. But when I think about what my mom has taught me when she's with people, she is just so engaged with the people she's talking to and enthusiastic and asking great questions with such caring that I feel like if I can bring some of that to the people I interact with, it helps me feel great and hopefully helps them feel better as well.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I saw somebody jogging from a conference room to another conference room recently and I was like, oh my God, I used to do that all the time. It's just a sign of not delegating enough, not trusting other people enough. And we have done a lot of delegating, but it's been too late and not enough. And certainly in my early years, that held us back for a long time”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gotta go with my dad. He's been a role model for me. He helped me find a great career path, taught me a ton of lessons. We've had a great time along the way. He's given me tough feedback when I need it. So definitely my dad. And the second one is my partner, Bill O'Malley. We've been working together now for 28 years. He's really one of my best friends from college. So it's crazy to have a friendship and a business partnership that has lasted so long. And we kind of have the same resume having gone to the same college. We've learned over the years that we're actually very different people. He is great at bringing energy and optimism to everything he does. I'm not always so great at that. I would also say he's much more creative than I am and willing to question the status quo. I'm more of let's fix what is wrong here, guys. So I think that combination and finding the sweet spot between those two.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I hate to bring politics into this, but the political conversation has become so polarized and hyped up. And sometimes I feel like our pundits are falling into that same trap where they just display this incredible arrogance. It's a real turnoff for me.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to go with biking. We used to ride the roads a lot. We've kind of stopped doing that for safety's sake. And I spent a lot of time on the Peloton now, which I don't want to say is my favorite activity, but it is certainly efficient. My two favorite biking events are doing a tandem ride with my wife, Anna. Get the endorphins going, make sure I'm being a good listener. I can be up in the front. If I'm getting some feedback I don't like. I don't have to say anything. I can just pedal harder. That is great. And our favorite vacations are doing bike trips and different spots. It's just a great way to see the world. So I think we've done seven or eight of those”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Free pressure is real. We try to be fair. Growth can help offset some of that. The distribution part of the business has become much more concentrated. The OCIO trend, the growth in plant sizes, all that has led to larger asset amounts per relationship. So that all helps. And we do recognize that it's important for us to say in some kind of sweet spot, back to this gray area thing, where we're small enough that our security selection can make a big difference, but we're big enough to have the resources to have first class technology team compliance team, obviously investment in client team. And that's all become a lot more complicated, as you said, LDI and now ESG is going to be a significant resource spend for us, but we believe in it and we're committed to figuring out how to do it right.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As we would say Always a balancing act. You talked about having enough resources to meet the client needs and outperform the various benchmarks that you have. That only gets increasingly challenging in the world that we're in now with constant fee pressure. How do you make sure you can continue to deliver for clients when at the same time you've got clients and those damn consultants coming at you trying to get the best possible terms they can for the money they're putting to work?”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's tough. We have an old joke, and we've tried to lose this term. Instead of IRNM, we used to call ourselves IRN yes, because we would say yes to anything a client asked. We've learned over the years that through a good dialogue and some understanding of what the client situation is, often you can help the client help themselves and get to a simpler solution that might be cheaper for them and serve them better. So the other thing I would say is that we've recognized as we've been through growth periods that protecting our investment engine is critical. And there are times when we just have to say no to some business because you want to make sure you have the resources that you need to find attractive bonds and getting them in the right portfolios in the right way. It's definitely a middle ground. We are happy to customize if it makes sense, if it's an attractive piece of business for us still from a risk return.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We talked about what fixed income means for different investors and how much broader that's become over time from just managing core bonds to much more specific approaches to different parts of the fixed income market or liability-driven investing. In the partnership that you want to have with clients, I imagine that often means that you want to fulfill whatever a client's need is. That's a great way to approach things, but that never ending customization runs against running a business efficiently. How do you balance that? Customization and that right instinct of wanting to do what exactly the client works versus the scale of having funds and having more scalable investments.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In a few, but usually not without one of our capable people by my side. They know a lot more about what's going on in the portfolios and the markets than I do at this point. I love being in those meetings. I typically am not providing any valuable information, but I do enjoy playing the facilitator role, making sure the client is getting what they want and that the team's getting across the points that they think are important. So I love being in those meetings and I also love having those personal friendships that I talked about, keeping those going is an important part of what I want to happen for myself over the future years.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Broader investment world, and they have a culture similar to ours. So we have a lot of great cultural mind shares. That's been great. And they've become good personal friends as well. When that happens, that's the best. The other one that I think is cool is one of our first clients was a state pension fund, and we've now been working with them for 35 years. There's been a lot of different people that we've worked with within the organization, but they've always been really appreciative. If you look at a fixed income portfolio, sometimes people yawn. But if you can add an extra 50 basis points after fees for 35 years, that really helps that plan be better funded. And they've always been incredibly appreciative and a 35-year business partnership doesn't happen very often.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think as a firm, we have a long list and different people would have different examples here. So this is more personal for me because the things I was involved with. But right before 9-11, we got funded by a large foundation. They'd done incredible due diligence. I felt like they knew everything good, bad, and indifferent about IR&M. That was great. We love that curiosity and they did it in a nice way. So we liked them from that perspective too. It didn't mean we were going to get hired, but they made the process fun and respected the people they were dealing with. And 9-11 was obviously a tough time to get invested. They were incredibly understanding to the ramp up process. We communicated a lot. They were open to that. They are curious and talented investors themselves over the years we've been working with them. I feel like we've learned a lot about not just the fixed income world, but the”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But there are a lot of clients that, when they hire us, it's like you almost become one. And obviously, that doesn't mean they'll never get rid of you. We try not to call our business a family business because you can't fire a family member and a family member can't really quit. And that does happen in business. But that close cultural connection is such a great thing. It's something we really do try to create.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it's happened organically. There are two things that make my career. First one is when somebody that we work with comes to me or somebody else at the firm and says, I can't tell you how happy I am here. I've got a great job. I love my colleagues. I love this firm. I'm going to be here forever. I'm going to help make this place home. That's probably my favorite moment. And I'm lucky enough to have a significant number of those. Unfortunately, sometimes it happens as people are walking out the door too. The client thing is second. If you get positive feedback from a client and they're appreciative for either how you've helped them figure out their fixed income problem or the value you've added or how the client service team interacts with them or the types of thought leadership we're providing, that is fantastic. And I really do think that our client base has become an extension of our culture. And some clients just want us for our investment results.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Turning to the outside world. You guys have always done a great job of taking that culture and extending it to how you partner with clients. Is that something that just happened organically of how you interacted internally, turned into how you interacted with clients? Was it something more intentional? Maybe you should talk about how you build partnerships with clients as well.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We interestingly just put together a number of advisors to our board. And in that process, it was very important to us not just to get investment talent, but to get people that we're passionate about culture. That was another example. I think we have a lot of where we've really asked our leadership team to make culture a competitive advantage. You got to get your people believing that that's the right thing to do, that it's a real priority. And then you have to allocate the time and resources to the programs that are going to make that work. Our shareholders have largely been our leaders. There's a lot of overlap there, and I don't think that commitment or that”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's clear that they need to go. If it's technical capabilities that we can teach or coach people out of, or maybe a small behavioral thing we can help coach somebody up on. And that person is committed to it, we will give that a shot, put a limited time frame on it. And hopefully, if we do have to part ways, nobody's surprised and it's done in a human way.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not as well as we should. So, this is more aspirational, but we can border on being too nice. Nice always sounds like it's a good word, but my awesome executive coach has told me that nice is actually not a good word because it means that you're not telling people things that you're thinking about them. We probably let things go on too long. We're trying to be clear. My experience both doing it myself and watching other people have to deal with these difficult situations. It's great to have a conversation and that's always the right way to kick it off following up in writing is so powerful because you have a conversation and you don't know what was heard. You don't know exactly what was said. But if you follow it up with this is what my message was today. And it might become a written dialogue after that. It just becomes so much clearer. So if we have somebody in that situation, if they're a cultural misfit,”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's thorough. No question about that. When we put in a serious HR effort, we've gotten much better at this. We are much better at identifying what the actual job is, roles and responsibilities. We do a lot of interviews. So there's a broad group of people that interview, particularly senior candidates. It will tend to cut across teams as well. We've developed a great list of questions and we actually assign the interviewers to hone in on certain areas like emotional intelligence or technical capabilities or past experience. It's important to bring that all together so that people making the hiring decision are able to have an informed discussion with the people that have been part of it before they make their decision. The last thing, back to the DE&I front, is that we're now really insisting on a diverse pool of candidates that's already starting to make us much better.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, thank you for that. It gives me chills hearing you talk about it honestly. A lot of people are brought to tears during that week. Happy tears, which is awesome.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That has become so important to us is our Gives Back Week. We have a bunch of charities presented by our colleagues, the whole firm votes on it. We have a fund that's supported by the firm and some senior people. And that money gets given out to charities. And at the same time, we have a ton of volunteering going on. So people going out in the community together, side by side with people they may not sit next to, may not know as well, doing good things. And those bonding moments are really powerful.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, senior people have to live it, making that commitment is significant. We have a really formalized training program now that gives a million opportunities for somebody that's trying to become a better presenter or a new person to the business who wants to understand bonds, all that type of stuff has been pretty well structured and available. And we encourage people to get outside education as well. But we also do a lot of firm training and even more so at the manager level around things like emotional intelligence and how to be vulnerable and how to collaborate better. And along with that training, you get what you reward in some ways. So recognizing that not just financially, but through feedback that people are doing a great job at that has been really important. We do a ton of fun activities, which is great. The one big week that has developed organic.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What are some of the ways that you preserve that culture? I know you've got a lot of events within the company where you're bringing people together, but I imagine there's lots of things internally, the one-on-one interactions that you have where you try to make sure you're reinforcing that culture”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That they're using and they're willing to go pick those up around them that need some help. Part of the subset of that, and this goes back to my dad, is being really candid, but doing it with kindness. It's really important for people to know what others are thinking that are working around them. And we put a lot of HR structure in place to do the structural part of that. But the important part is that it's delivered in a human way as well. That has not always been the case, but it's certainly something we strive for.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have three slogans I'm going to use to do this. Our first slogan is Bond with Us, which I think is cute for the business we're in, but it also captures how much importance we put on our people caring about what they do, about the people they work with, and about the clients we serve. We are really looking for that level of engagement in all three of those areas. Some people will be better at one than the other, but you really can't not have one of those and be a good fit at IR&M. The second one is ever better, which is kind of a scary phrase because it makes it sound like we're perfectionists. We certainly have been. We've tried to get away from it. We recognize that mistakes do happen, but I think it really does capture what we're looking for from our people, which is that they're always trying to grow themselves as people and as professionals. And they're thinking about their team and how it works and the process.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I want to move to culture. You've mentioned it a few times, and I've observed it over the years. What a great culture it is and what a focus you all have on preserving that culture. So first, for those that don't know Iron M as well, if you could describe the culture and then talk about why you're so focused on preserving and reinforcing that culture.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do I have to go through the whole list? We never did any of this stuff early enough. That would be first. I think about DE and I, we talked about it. It was pretty close to lip service and it really took the George Floyd incident for us to make a much more significant commitment to getting after it. And it's going to be a long game and it's hard, but it's good. I wish we had done that earlier. And then from an investment side, we definitely, in our early days, ran very concentrated portfolios that I don't think fully took advantage of the ability to diversify away idiosyncratic risk. And we got burned in 2010.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things like putable bonds and double barreled credit protections and double ATCs, those types of structures that were a little more complex, probably a little less liquid, but often added convexity and end yield to the portfolio.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Making that investment decision and getting intentional about culture were key. And then a subset of that was hiring a senior HR person to come in and get intentional about building an HR function. And then from a investing perspective, if you think back to 2006 and 2007 and what was going on, we basically said no to the, quote, picking up pennies in front of the bulldozer that in hindsight was obviously a very good decision. That was huge. And the other thing I would say in our early years is we spent a lot of time focused on structural inefficiencies in the credit markets in particular at the expense of credit research. And that has definitely changed over the years, but those opportunities were ripe for the picking at the time and we got after them hard.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One or two decisions along the way that you look back and say, boy, that was one we nailed. That's a big reason for our success, that we decided we're going to be XYZ or we decided we're going to do this.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Partners until we made Bill CEO a couple years ago. So as we were all trying to manage the business and serve clients and manage the portfolios and do credit research and trading, it became pretty clear that we were pretty stretched and it wasn't just a capacity problem. It was a capability opportunity. We started talking to people outside, knew we had to get more help. It was both getting more hands on deck and getting some very capable hands on deck that really allowed us to manage the growth properly. It was across everything. The only thing we didn't really go out and hire, and I kind of shifted into this role, was leadership. And we never really had dedicated leaders, but I started to spend a lot more of my time on that.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Started September of 87 with three people and $60 million. Ten years later, we had a couple billion dollars 12 coworkers. And then 10 years after that, which happens to be right before the gray financial crisis in 07, we had $10 billion and 50 co-workers. Shockingly, the Great Financial Crisis was like the greatest business opportunity for us ever. After that, our assets grew the fastest they ever had over any ten year period. And we got up to about $70 billion in 17 and 170 colleagues. And since then, it's flattened out some, which is great. It's given us a chance to pause and make sure we're doing everything we can with what we've got. So today we have about $90 billion and 200 coworkers. And if you look at the skill sets, I should mention we brought Bill O'Malley in in 1994. So Bill and my dad and I were basically the three managers.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's funny that that's a differentiator to just stick to what you do. So I want to come back to that growth over time. You mentioned it was just you and your dad starting out. How did the employee base grow and what kind of skills and roles did you realize that you and your dad and the first few people in the door couldn't do and you had to add along the way?”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's staying true to that mission and knowing that if we lose that focus, we put our existing business and our existing clients at risk. We talk about our focus as a huge differentiator. We basically are a US dollar fixed income, pretty high quality firm, and that's what we've been all along. So we haven't stretched it and don't want to risk what we've built. We joke that if we don't do a good job at that, we don't have a business, which I think is true. That's a pretty good motivator.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. We've seen some opportunities for some business line expansion. So we've done a little bit of that over the years. It's true to what our core capabilities are, but it is certainly much different business than it was 35 years ago.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is definitely the same and it has evolved. So we started the firm to basically be a bottom-up bond picker to help clients beat their fixed income benchmarks. And that hasn't changed. Part of what makes that work is not making big macro bets, and that really hasn't changed. So we've been true to how we started, but obviously we've had to evolve a ton as the world's changed and our businesses changed.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Honestly, it started out fantastic. I feel really lucky. He's always been a gentleman. He loves the business. I don't think he ever raised his voice at me, but he always gave me feedback. He was my primary mentor, and I basically sat next to him for thirty-five years now. I can't think of many disagreements. I think he had some tough messages to deliver to me along the way, which he did in a very nice way. And I needed to hear him. I would also say that he was open to giving me a lot of rope so that I could stretch myself and keep growing in my capabilities and help the firm go to the next level. I feel very thankful for all that. And we still have a great relationship.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and not just financially, but to make it work, you really got to pour your heart and soul into it. I know Dick did that, and my dad definitely did that as well.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, not just in the first five years, but yeah, absolutely. It always felt like a pretty low risk thing for me. I was young and didn't have a bunch of kids in college, hadn't taken a big pay cut. So it was really on my dad's back. I never thought about not doing it, but we definitely had some challenges.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, we go in there and stare at each other and we had a lot to do to build the right infrastructure to be a real investment management firm. But that was achievable getting the clients part was the hardest. So we started in March of 87. By September of 87, he had gotten two of his old clients to give us some seed funding that really got us going. That was a blessing. And then for the next five years, until we had a track record, it was pretty tough sledding.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It wasn't going to work, that was fine. So, all my classmates were interviewing for regular jobs. I was putting on a coat and tie in my dorm room and going into the first IR&M office via the red line for three or four hours a day after class.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I went to Harvard. I pretty much went to business school knowing I wanted to be in the asset management business. I was interviewing for summer jobs, thought it would be a good idea to see the equity side at the time active equity was still the dominant part of the asset management business and was in the process of some final interviews with a couple of firms. My dad strangely invited me to come meet him at this old Boston watering hole and we went upstairs and got a beer and I really never saw this coming. I knew he was thinking about a career change, more a firm change than a career change. But then he laid out this plan to start his own firm and gave me an impassioned plea to come hook up the Daisy Wheel printer and all that type of stuff that he didn't know how to do. It didn't take me long to say yes. It was no risk for me, a lot of risk for him was basically a summer job.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and i started out in the public utility group which at the time was refinancing a lot of debt that was issued to build nuclear power plants and that required me to spend a lot of time on the fixed income sales and trading floor i decided i had a lot more fun on that floor than i did sitting with my investment banking colleague so i thought that was a good sign and i actually was able to engineer a switch to the sales and trading floor and specifically government bonds started to learn about duration and convexity and relative value trades and they got the bug but i looked around and said maybe this isn't the best long term path for a variety of reasons and having watched my dad make the switch business schools seem to make sense and away i went”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I grew up as a small fish in a very big pond on Long Island and was fortunate enough to have my family move up to Boston and stuck with a small theme and went to a small liberal arts college. Was lucky enough to have a dad in the investment business. So he started out in the sales and trading side and made the shift to portfolio management. And that's what brought us up to Boston. We never talked about it at the dinner table when I was in college. I was in econ major and I definitely was fascinated by the markets and some of the economics classes I took were focused on that, but I didn't get a big lecture from my dad about how I needed to go into the investment business. I will say when I started to think about what I want in my first job to be, he was instrumental in helping me figure out what I wanted to do, which ended up going to one of those investment banking analyst programs. So I was lucky enough to get a job at Morgan Stanley.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Today's manager meeting, Tim McCusker interviews Jack Summers. Tim is the chief investment officer at NEPC and a past guest on capital allocators. He oversees investment research and strategy for the $1.5 trillion consultant. Jack is the co-founder and executive chair at Income Research and Management, a $90 billion core fixed income investment firm. He was instrumental in developing IR&M's disciplined bottom-up investment approach and served as a portfolio manager for 20 years. Their conversation covers the early days of IR&M when Jack and his father faced the challenges of establishing an investment management business, growth of the business over time, evolving landscape for active fixed income investing, and the importance of culture. Please enjoy this manager meeting with Jack Summers from IRNM.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm Ted Sides, and this is Manager Meetings. This show is an exploration of investment opportunities through conversations with money managers conducted by one of the managers institutional clients will share the stories and strategies that attracted their attention and capital. You can learn more and join our mailing list at capitalallocators.com.”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
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2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Capital allocators is brought to you by AlphaCents. Here's something for you. Most AI tools today are very good at sounding right. But can you actually trace it back to a filing, transcript, or specific passage that drove the answer? Or are you just trusting the confidence of the output? For allocators, that's not a minor concern. A missed filing, incorrect source, or context that gets lost somewhere in a retrieval chain aren't edge cases. They're how decisions go wrong. AlphaSense is the AI platform built specifically for this. They own the content over 500 million curated documents from broker research and expert transcripts to filings and earnings calls. And they own the retrieval layer on top of it. That means every answer can link back”
2022-10-20 · Capital Allocators · Jack Sommers – Core Fixed Income at IR+M (Manager Meetings, EP.39) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source