Robertson dynasty takes broker Bell Potter on the hunt for the next Afterpay
The entire Robertson clan now exists as a distinct and intriguing force within Bell Potter’s Melbourne office.
On Saturday afternoon, a special gathering will take place among a parkland of beautiful trees, shrubs and sweeping lawns at a property known as “Bolobek” at the foot of the Macedon Ranges, northwest of Melbourne.
The 570ha farm and its grand English-style garden, one of the nation’s finest, was once part of the estate of the David Syme media dynasty.
There the likes of billionaire investor Alex Waislitz, Afterpay co-founder Anthony Eisen, Lynas chief executive Amanda Lacaze and ISelect founder Damien Waller will rendezvous for what is being dubbed the annual “Bell Potter corporate lunch”.
But the soiree could also be more appropriately called the Robertson family’s client Christmas bash.
For the past 16 years, Brigid and Hugh Robertson – who both grew up on farms in the Macedon Ranges – have owned Bolobek, making a labour of love of preserving and enhancing the property.
The latter has long been an unmistakeable figure among Collin St’s blue-blood stockbroking fraternity who, over the decades, has made his name as a small-cap stockpicker.
Since 2000 Brigid has also been a client adviser alongside her husband, and over the past eight years they have brought their three children – Hugh, Catherine and Hannah – into the stockbroking business.
The Robertson clan and their long-serving team of loyal advisers now exist as a distinct and intriguing force within Bell Potter’s Melbourne office.
“The sublime benefit of Bell is that it is a broad church. Bell will allow a somewhat idiosyncratic business – which is what we are – to exist perfectly easily within its structure,” says Hugh Robertson Snr, who has just turned 62.
It hasn’t always been that way.
Robertson and his team made headlines in 2011 when they walked out on Bell Potter to join fledgling broking and advisory firm Investorfirst, whose stockbroking arm was subsequently sold to Wilson HTM. But by 2016, they had quit the Brisbane-based firm to return to Bell Potter, where they are to this day.
Today, his son is a director of Bell Potter’s equity capital markets (ECM) business, while Catherine and Hannah are client advisers.
“I think we are in the worst market I’ve just about ever seen,” Hugh Snr says bluntly, sitting alongside his son on level 19 of Melbourne’s “Tower of Power”, 101 Collins St.
But Robertson was born an optimist and made his name finding hidden gems in the market. He did the first private capital raising for – and subsequently floated – Afterpay, the buy now, pay later juggernaut bought last year by US tech giant Square for a stunning $39bn.
Robertson says now is when the real money is made in markets.
“It requires holding your nerve. But it is times like this when there will be – and there are already – things that are fundamentally fascinating value,” he says.
His son also likes to work against the grain. At a time when the market has been basically closed to initial public offerings, his team has got two floats away in the past two months and another is scheduled to hit the ASX before Christmas.
“There’s a whole bunch of companies out there that raised private capital in structures or on platforms that may not have been suitable or conducive to staying private for a long period of time. Now we’re seeing the pain of trying to unpick that,” Robertson Jr says.
While he acknowledges ECM is “definitely quieter than it has been”, good firms are still being backed.
“What is showing through is businesses that are growing nicely with long standing, unique operations are still having cheques written out for them,” he says.
Homecoming
Hugh Robertson Jr had just got married and was living in Launceston when his father called him in 2014 with a proposition.
After studying agricultural science and commerce at university, he’d spent five years working at NAB and was considering a move back to his home town of Melbourne, which was being frowned upon by the bank.
“I got the tap on the shoulder to say, ‘Would you like to come and work with me? My first response was ‘No’. The second response was ‘No and ‘f**k off’,” he now recalls with a smile.
He eventually relented and will never forget his first day in stockbroking at Wilson HTM’s Melbourne office.
“I don’t think he told anybody that I was coming. They sat me in the corner and said, ‘What are we supposed to do with him?’,” he says, glaring momentarily at his father. He never believed he would ever work with family. In fact, the Robertson children were always encouraged to do their own thing.
Catherine worked at several firms for more than a decade before joining Bell Potter in the back office, while Hannah was a senior manager at Johns Lyng Group for almost four years before doing the same.
“It wasn’t a preordained thing with myself and my sisters, we had to go and do something else. It was having to go and find your own feet and prove that you’re not an idiot and have some sense of capability,” Robertson Jr says, noting they have long been wary of the nepotism tag.
“We are very conscious of it and therefore have probably made more of an effort to manage it. By doing our time in other businesses, people realise you aren’t just another Robertson or another Bell.”
His father notes that stocks were always part of his children’s lives. “In many cases, the people who run the companies became really good friends over the years. If you go back to when they were growing up, there was a relatively steady stream of people like (Monadelphous founder) John Rubino, Alex Waislitz or others who were part of their lives,” he says.
Robertson Jr says his equity capital markets role has given him important space from his father, mother and sisters.
“It is different and it is important to be behind a locked door … With the benefit of hindsight, if I’d gone on to the dealing desk, I don’t think I would have gone nearly as well. There is still huge crossover and we still work on 95 per cent of things together. But I have been able to be my own person and carve my own identity,” he says.
The Robertson clan has long lived by the golden rule preached by their father since the day he started in stockbroking: the only person that matters is the client.
“When that is the principal point from which your business operates, it’s great when you have members of the family who deeply share that value and understand that value. Catherine was in tears the other day about some of the portfolios,” Robertson Snr says.
While her tears reflected the current market malaise, Robertson and his team also acknowledge that they don’t always get it right. Over the years there have been some spectacular disasters, which have left them with frustrated and sometimes, angry clients.
But Robertson is also clear that when things go wrong, his team is prepared to stay the course.
“It requires, in many cases, taking remedial action with companies, which is not fun. I suppose whether we like it or not, we have a history of fixing things. Sometimes you can’t. But where we can, we will go to remarkable lengths.”
He sometimes wishes he’d more readily taken his wife’s sage advice.
“She is a fantastic judge. The biggest risk in the sector we are in is that you fall in love,” he says, noting Brigid has warned him against doing so with people and stocks. “Women intuitively are so much better than men. The difference is they are also fundamentally terribly risk averse. Unless you take a risk, you can’t make money.”
The Robertsons are clear they never fight over money or principles. They happily blur the lines between their working and private lives, although Robertson Jr says that is – finally – starting to change. At the last family gathering barely a word was uttered about work.
He says his father has taught him the virtue of patience, especially when backing “rough diamonds”. Hugh Snr says his son has taught him to be “more expansive”.
“It is terribly easy to get into a comfort zone. Alex Waislitz can absorb you, he’s like a black hole from Doctor Who. What had started to happen was the business had gone to a very small number of customers,” he says.
“Hugh has taught me that we should never let that happen. It is always dangerous when you have all your eggs in a limited number of baskets. Especially in Sydney, he’s brought on clients I could never have brought on.”
Family affair
The 80-year old Colin Morton Bell, a doyen of the stockbroking industry and one of Robertson Snr’s best mates, died peacefully at his Sydney home on Monday, March 14, 2022 after a long battle with illness.
“I last saw him a long time ago. I’m not very good with people when they are really sick. I probably should have gone and seen him. I was urged to by Louis Bell … Look, it was very sad,” Hugh Snr says when I ask about Bell’s passing.
As he struggles to say more, his son pointedly interjects: “Look let’s be honest, you lost a dear friend,” he suggests.
For a moment his father pauses, takes off his glasses and pulls out a handkerchief to wipe his now downcast and watery eyes, before whispering a single word in response: “Yup”. Bell was the prime reason he returned to Bell Potter from Wilsons six years ago.
Robertson attended a fitting farewell for Bell at the Royal Sydney Golf Club alongside American hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio, who invested in some of Bell’s agricultural interests, and many other industry luminaries.
Bell Potter, run by Colin, Lewis and Andrew Bell and current chairman Alastair Provan, was once the country’s biggest private client stockbroking firm.
Bell and his brothers also built rural firm Australian Food & Agriculture, which owns extensive farming and cropping assets.
“He was, I think, one the last of the great corporate financiers in this country. He created this most extraordinary collection of assets. He started with a crappy little futures dealing business. Through sheer guts and determination and by taking enormous risks, he built this into what it is. Then at the same time he built an extraordinary rural empire,” Robertson Snr says. “He also certainly knew how to have fun. Perhaps, at times, too much.”
He might have been Colin Bell’s junior by 18 years but Robertson Snr planned to spend two days of every week in semi-retirement working at Bolobek when he and Brigid purchased the property in 2006. It never happened.
“Look at me now,” he says.
Barely a day goes by without a suited-Robertson being seen barking into his phone while puffing on a cigarette in the alleyways off Melbourne’s Flinders Lane, or downing a glass of his favourite sauvignon blanc over lunch or dinner with a client at the suave Kenzan or Cecconis restaurants.
“I will give this away the day I stop finding things that are interesting. As every day goes by, this market becomes more deeply inefficient than it was the day before. So there are things that are just ignored,” he declares.
He has long subscribed to the Jesuit philosophy in stock-picking: get them while they are young, ride them through and make them look their best.
“There are ways to present yourself,” he says. “A woman dressed badly can look downright ugly. The same woman, dressed in Chanel, can look drop-dead gorgeous.”