RIT Capital Partners' Maggie Fanari - why permanent capital is a privilege

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Today’s podcast takes us to the heart of London, where we sat down with Maggie Fanari, the CEO of J Rothschild Capital Management Limited, manager of RIT Capital Partners plc.

RIT blends a rich heritage with a modern approach to both asset allocation and private markets.

Lord Jacob Rothschild founded Rothschild Investment Trust in 1971. RIT listed on the London Stock Exchange with total assets of £280M. Today, the firm stands tall as one of the UK’s largest investment trusts with over £4.7B of total assets.

The firm’s permanent capital and family office heritage have enabled the firm to think long-term, according to Maggie. “Permanent capital is a privilege,” she said.

Maggie has brought an institutional allocator’s background to RIT. She joined as CEO of RIT from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in 2024, where she was Senior Managing Director, Global Group Head of High Conviction Equities at OTPP, which has a global mandate to invest in public and private companies.

Maggie and I had a fascinating discussion about how the firm invests across public and private markets, balancing both top-down portfolio construction and bottom-up asset selection. We covered:

How RIT has aimed to compound wealth over time.Why top-down portfolio construction and bottom-up asset allocation are equally important.How can investors capture as much growth, limit market volatility, and compound growth over a long period of time?How RIT finds unique and different managers in private markets, which includes some of the top investors in the world.What market structure changes mean for investing across public and private markets?How to invest when the world order has changed.Taking a family office mindset and applying that investment mindset for investors in RIT.Why permanent capital is a privilege.How to be early to a theme rather than chase the trend.Why RIT decided to invest in SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, and Epic Systems.Where do investors bucket RIT into their asset allocation?What is a manager’s edge and how can they apply that edge with consistency?Why depth of network matters for private markets managers.Why RIT invested in firms like Thrive, Greenoaks, and Ribbit.Bio

Maggie Fanari is the CEO of J. Rothschild Capital Management Limited (JRCM) , investment manager for RIT Capital Partners plc. She is Chair of JRCM’s Investment Committee.

Maggie was previously Senior Managing Director, Global Group Head of High Convictio