MBMG Founder Paul Gambles Extols the Virtues of Risk Management and Conservative Portfolio Curation

---

---

Executive Interview

Paul Gambles has been a stalwart of Thailand’s wealth management scene for more than 27 years, having first arrived in Bangkok in 1994. Not only has he raised his family there, but he has also built the MBMG Group into perhaps the largest and best-known multidisciplinary financial practice in the country, which includes leading independent asset management and advisory business MBMG Investment Advisory. His founding partner, Graham Macdonald, retired in 2016, but Gambles continues today, running a team of 6 in the Investment Advisory team, with Assets Under Advice equivalent to USD1.5 billion at the wealth division, MBMG Investment Advisory.

It is always a pleasure to meet up with Paul in person, but yet again, Hubbis had to make do with a video call to hear him update his perceptions of the Thai wealth management market and how he is curating investments and advice for MBMG’s roster of over 30 private clients, institutions and, their main focus, family offices. We heard how the firm sticks resolutely to its ethos of a fee-driven model that embraces transparency. And we learned why Gambles believes investors should be extremely careful in their portfolio risk management, as he sees global risks at their highest since the 1970s, and certainly higher than the troubled 1980s.

Despite warning of the potential for an end-of-era 1930s style debacle, his native wit and forthright character shone through in what was an illuminating and often uplifting conversation.

Paul Gambles of MBMG Group

“Perhaps the idea of putting clients’ interests first and foremost was anathema to them,” he quips. “After all, the history of this industry is replete with motivations amongst the intermediaries and advisors that might be well hidden, or perhaps deeply embedded, including trailer fees. In fact, if one is very cynical, one might assume that people can make more money if clients don’t actually realise how much they are really paying for something.”

---

Gambles also reports that the continued presence of Covid-19 has naturally meant that their technology investments and digital infrastructure had been boosted, while their administration has been streamlined and made more efficient.

“MBMG Group recently received an award from the Ministry of Commerce here for being the best digital accounting practice in Thailand,” he reports. “We do of course maximise the reach of technology in all aspects of our business and teamwork, and aligned with that we have used technology to help us focus even more diligently on our core strengths in risk management, scenario modelling, and so forth.”

He says they have also been experimenting with the use of AI to help guide analytics and investment decisions, but that it is still very much a work in progress. “We have embraced technology throughout the firm,” he says, “but we also know more of its limitations, whether around communication, asset allocation, analytics, processing, and other areas. The human elements and skills, even including our human quirks, are still vital to this business, we believe.”

---