Matt Cooper, chairman of Octopus Asset Management, likes to present himself as a man of great ambition.
A former management consultant and serial entrepreneur, Mr Cooper has set his sights on the UK fund management industry, which he believes is \'ripe for reinvention.\'
""Traditional fund managers are providing a ridiculously bad service to their customers,"" he says. ""We thought there was a huge opportunity to bring in best practice in marketing, product design and customer service.""
Mr Cooper, who holds a chemistry degree from Princeton University, concedes that he knew very little about the fund management industry when he joined Octopus, a London-based start-up company, two years ago.
His move followed a meteoric career at Capital One Financial Corporation, the US financial services group, which Mr Cooper helped to launch in the mid-1990s. The group, which rapidly expanded from credit cards to consumer savings products, is known for its aggressive marketing and \'entrepreneurial\' corporate culture.
It is an approach that Mr Cooper believes is ideally suited to new fund management businesses such as Octopus, which was created by three young ex-fund managers from Mercury Asset Management, now part of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers.
""If I were to be glib, I would say that we\'ll try to reinvent the fund management business in the way that, say, Capital One recreated the credit card business,"" says Mr Cooper, who describes himself as an \'over-involved\' chairman. ""I\'m one part non-executive, one part business coach and mentor, and one part jack-of-all-trades.""
Octopus has been seeking to establish itself as a retail brand in the venture capital trust sector, which has been hit by a growing risk aversion among investors. The inflow of money into VCTs - which are tax-sheltered funds that invest in small unlisted companies - slumped to £50m in the year to the end of April, down from £150m in the same period last year.
The collapse in the VCT market has left Octopus with only 2,000 clients and £20m of assets under management. Nevertheless, Mr Cooper insists that the company\'s strategy is working.
""It\'s an opportunity to make a big splash in a little pool,"" he says. ""We\'re building a brand name that is so powerful that we can jump into the next pool.""
The company is now planning to expand into \'guaranteed\' or structured products designed to protect the investor\'s capital during a downturn. ""We think it\'s possible to structure those products in a much more honest way than what\'s in the market,"" says Mr Cooper, pointing at the high-income bond debacle.
Another feature of the company\'s investment process is that it does not measure itself against benchmarks. And, to demonstrate their commitment, fund managers have to invest a significant part of their own money in the company\'s funds. ""Losing less than someone else doesn\'t constitute success,"" says Mr Cooper. ""If we don\'t believe that we can make a better return from an investment than we would if we left the money in cash, then we won\'t invest.""
