(First Meeting, EP.17) Value Investing at GMO

Ben Inker is the head of the Asset Allocation team at GMO, a $60 billion asset manager known for its value bias under founder Jeremy Grantham. Ben joined GMO right out of college nearly thirty years ago and has been there ever since.

Our conversation starts with Ben’s early investment lessons from renown economics professors at Yale and how that led him to GMO upon graduation. We discuss his framework for thinking about investing and the struggles of value investing over the last decade, including the impact of global dominators, technology, and interest rates. We then turn to the case for value today, the challenges of value going forward, and the characteristics Ben sees in allocators’ successes and mistakes. Lastly, our conversation took place a few weeks ago, but the world’s changed a lot since then. I reached back out to Ben late last week to get his current thoughts on the market.