The ability to understand emotions of others

STAR MANAGERS SPECIAL

Katana Asset Management:

Katana Australian Equity Fund

Romano Sala Tenna (portfolio manager)

Romano Sala Tenna from Katana Asset Management, who has been named one of Financial Newswire’s Star Managers for running the top-performing Katana Australian Equity Fund, has said that the key feature of every aspiring portfolio manager was the ability to control your own emotions while understanding the emotions of others.

Romano, who started his career in the 1990s and first worked as a computer programmer and analyst before commencing a career as a professional adviser and investor in 1996, has said there are three equally important things that would benefit every future portfolio manager. These are: the power of compounding, the importance of a stop loss and understanding of emotional quotient (EQ).

“The first two are well known and well covered, so I will delve a little into the third,” he said.

“The smartest man I have met thus far on my journey tried and failed in investing – several times. It is not IQ that will determine your success in the markets – it is EQ – Emotional Quotient.

“And what is EQ? It’s the ability to understand and control one’s emotions and to be able to understand the emotions of others (en masse).”

“We don’t think in terms of lead manager as our approach is more collaborative than hierarchical,” Tenna stressed.

After having worked as a private client adviser at William Noall, Romano moved to join in 2000 Taylor Potter which was subsequently assumed by Bell Securities to form Bell Potter Securities. However, in 2003 Romano decided to co-found Katana Asset Management, a Perth-based fund manager that is run by four investment professionals with a combined investing experience of in excess of 80 years.

Katana’s investment staff consists of three portfolio managers, including also Brad Shallard, a portfolio manager with 26 years of experience and  Giuliano Sala Tenna, an investment manager of 22 years, as well as junior equity analyst Hendrik Bothma.

Tenna set up Katana AM together with Shallard, who specialises in large caps, and the team issued their first fund in January 2006 while the Katana Australian Equity Fund was launched in April, 2011.