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Simon Gergel

Lead Portfolio Manager, The Merchants Trust; Chief Investment Officer, UK Equities, Allianz Global Investors, Merchants Trust

Search every verified Simon Gergel interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Simon Gergel, lead manager of The Merchants Trust, appeared in two episodes of the trust's "A Value View" podcast series in September and October 2026. In the October episode on market bubbles, Gergel discussed lessons from historical episodes such as the railway expansion and the dotcom boom, noting that genuine technological change can lead to excessive investor enthusiasm. He said that rather than trying to predict whether a bubble is right or wrong, his team focuses on buying cash flows and businesses at valuations below what they are worth, and that capital concentration around a dominant theme can leave opportunities in out-of-favor areas. In the September episode, Gergel and fellow portfolio managers Andrew Cosh and Richard Knight discussed the team's investment decision-making process. Gergel said that decisions are considered and challenged by a broader team, and that he does not work alone. He described an approach of actively trying to disprove investment ideas, stating that if an idea withstands challenge, conviction in it is stronger. He also noted that the team has never held a formal vote, relying instead on calm discussion and agreement.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“I'll probably use a phrase from one of the films, follow the money. If you can see a stream of cash flow coming from a business or an industry, and you can invest and get access to that stream of cash flow for below what it's really worth, that's pretty compelling. And at the moment, there are plenty of opportunities to buy into streams of cash flow for what we think is well below what they're really worth. And I thi”

“I think the problem is there is so much money chasing these areas that if you don't participate that money will go elsewhere and somebody else will facilitate that. So I think what we tried to do is just stand back from that and say look, if everyone's going over there, there may be other areas that are being left behind that might be opportunities where we can have a lot more confidence in the cash we're going to ge”

“I would say when you've got an investment idea, what you want to really do is try and disprove it, try and prove it wrong. And if you can't prove it wrong, give it a hard time, get somebody else to give it a hard time. And if after you've really challenged it, you still think it's a good idea, it's much more powerful than if you come up with a good idea and don't really think about the alternatives. I think working i”

“I think it's really great because there may be an impression that it's sort of just me working on my own in an ivory tower somewhere, but it's not. It's the three of us and actually a much much bigger team behind us as well. And it's really important people understand that when we're making decisions, they are considered, they're challenged. There's different perspectives brought to bear and it's not just me and you ”

“I think the biggest lesson that I've learned is to back that judgment, to be willing to stand aside and stand apart from the general trend, providing I've done the work, providing we've done the analysis and we have built conviction in an investment to be willing to stand back and take that view and have confidence that most times that will work out. Clearly not every time, there's things we'll get wrong, but on aver”

“Experience gives you perspective in the market and I think humility. I mean, there are lots of things we can't ever know and we can't know with certainty, but experience teaches you to recognize certain patterns of behavior, certain patterns in the market, and certain events. So, things never recur exactly the same, but as they say, history rhymes. So, you get to see familiar patterns in markets and you get to see an”

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