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The story of Rogge Global Partners mirrors that of the space it occupies.
Located on the former site of the Church of England's theological library, the building -- and the money manager business -- represent a labor of love built on the philosophy that value lies in differences rather than similarities.
When Olaf Rogge -- CEO and co-CIO of Rogge Global Partners PLC -- was searching for a location in 1998, he specifically didn't want "to walk into a faceless office with marble floors and where (the employees) are all numbers," Mr. Rogge said. So he chose to convert the theological library into office space, a project that ended up taking three years and costing twice as much as initially budgeted.
During the same time, the euro was introduced -- an event that helped define the business as an active global fixed-income manager established on a foundation of relative value analysis across countries. Like the growing pains associated with the company's headquarters, the euro also tested the firm whose employees now represent 13 nationalities.
How did the creation of the euro affect your business? We believe the introduction of the euro leveled the playing field in Europe and massively enhanced productivity. But others didn't ... and the euro went down (following its launch) as the dollar went up. At the time, 95% of our clients were U.S. pension funds, who were being told (by consultants) to get out of international fixed income. By 2002, one euro was worth below (US)80 cents, and that's when we were at the lowest point. Our (assets under management) had gone from about $8.5 billion to about $5 billion. Three years later, the euro was worth $1.60, and clients would have doubled their investments just from the currency movements, plus the extra returns on top of that.
So that was a lesson, and we diversified our client base. Today, we have $57 billion (in AUM). About 45% of our clients are from Europe, 30% are from Asia, 10% from North America,...