For this edition we welcome back Christian Putz, Founder and CIO of ARR Investment Partners, based in London, UK.
We last spoke with Christian in September 2022, where we discussed his background, Russian bear markets, and his investing style/strategy. You can listen to the episode here.
(Disclaimer: This interview is for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be seen as investment advice. Please do your own research before investing in any company mentioned).
Christian, the last time we spoke was about four years ago. How has the business grown since then, and has the strategy changed?
Quite a lot has happened.
When we last spoke, ARR was a founder-led business running the strategy through separately managed accounts, and 2022 turned out to be our best year so far: while most equity books were hit by the Russia-Ukraine war and the simultaneous equity and bond sell-off, we had our best year ever being up high double digit returns. That year put us on the radar of a very different type of investor.
Since then, the business has grown organically both in terms of AUM and number of clients. The investor base has matured from single-family offices and high-net-worth individuals towards multi-family offices and institutional allocators.
We have also been selected by several multi-strategy funds and alpha-capture programmes, won the HFM Performance Award for Global Equity under $500m in 2024, and were featured in The Hedge Fund Journal’s Tomorrow’s Titans.
The biggest milestone was launching our first commingled vehicle, the ARR Global Long/Short Equity Fund, a Cayman master-feeder, on 2 February 2026. Institutional investors, including sovereign wealth funds and endowments, had been telling us they needed a fund structure to invest with us.
The majority of our existing SMA investors moved across and a number of new investors joined. We have since won several new institutional mandates. SMAs remain available alongside the fund.
We have also built out the team. Mitchell Waters joined as COO, we have a quantitative research team with Amir Dehkordi and Yuting Li, Yves Bowonnaowarux in investor relations, and Anthony Yadgaroff, founder of Apex Investment Advisers, sits on our Advisory Board. We are currently recruiting a senior business development manager.
The core strategy hasn’t changed: a global, sector-agnostic, quantamental long/short equity strategy that looks for extreme, asymmetric opportunities in four buckets (long stock rebounds, long dynamic profit growth, short bubbles and short structural losers) and aims to do well when markets crash.
What has changed is the discipline around it.
After a difficult 2021 we reviewed everything and made four changes that have shaped the strategy since 2022: progressive exposure management (build a profit buffer first, cut gross and net exposure quickly after losses); a more concentrated book of 20-40 high-conviction positions; tighter entry criteria, where fundamentals and technicals must both line up before we commit capital; and much greater use of index futures and ETFs to adjust net exposure within minutes.
On the long side we have also shifted the emphasis from deep-value rebounds towards dynamic profit growth, using deep value mainly when there is a clear catalyst.
How has PARIS evolved over the past four years, is still working well at finding opportunities? And has AI become part of your investment process?
PARIS (our Portfolio And Risk Investment System) is still the backbone of the process, and it has changed more over the past two years than in the previous 6 years.
Originally it was a set of Python scripts, Excel templates and a Windows GUI.
In 2025 we rebuilt it as a modular, cloud-based web platform with automated daily data updates, more sophisticated screening and market monitor, a live portfolio monitor, and post-trade and contribution analysis.
Because it is modular, we can improve one part without breaking the rest. We also have built our inhouse OMS and PMS system.
Is it still working? Yes. This year PARIS flagged many of the top performing stocks and bubble stocks early on.
AI has become a meaningful part of how we work, but as a tool, not as the decision maker.
We use it to go through analyst notes, expert-call transcripts, industry deep-dives and financial statements much faster, and to challenge or confirm the conclusions from our own work.
We also use it on the operations side. PARIS gives us breadth and consistency, AI makes the fundamental work more efficient, and the final call on every position, including sizing and risk, remains mine.
I expect that edge to compound over time for a lean, technology-driven firm like ours.
Where are you finding opportunities at the moment - is there any particular theme, country, or industry that stands out both on the long and the short side?
The theme running through our book this year is dispersion: markets have been headline-driven, but under the surface there are big gaps between winners and losers, which is where a global, unconstrained strategy can thrive.
On the long side, three areas stand out.
First, Central Asian and Caucasus financials, such as Kaspi and Bank of Georgia: high-quality, fast-growing businesses at discounted valuations that benefit from strengthening currencies, higher oil prices and falling local interest rates.
These are exactly the kind of idiosyncratic drivers we want when the macro backdrop is uncertain.
Second, refiners are among the clearest winners of today’s energy backdrop. Hormuz disruption and US-Iran tensions have pushed refining margins well above normal while crude stays high.
Integrated players like Repsol benefit on both fronts: Q2 adjusted net income more than tripled year on year and the buyback was raised. On undemanding valuations, they offer earnings growth that doesn’t depend on the wider market.
Third, selectively, the AI and compute build-out, including semiconductors and photonics, where earnings growth is still accelerating and neocloud and memory companies’ results keep confirming the strength of compute demand.
On the short side, our two highest-conviction themes are both in Europe and both driven by rates. The first is European construction materials companies.
Rising yields are pushing up mortgage and project financing costs, which weighs on housebuilding and infrastructure activity just as these energy-intensive businesses face elevated input costs. That squeezes them from both the demand side and the margin side.
The second is European banks. After a strong run, a flattening yield curve erodes the gap between what banks earn on loans and pay on deposits, which threatens the net interest income that has driven their recent earnings.
A stagflationary backdrop also raises the risk of higher loan losses. More broadly, Europe’s dependence on energy imports leaves it particularly exposed to the current mix of high oil prices and rising borrowing costs
How are you dealing with all the macro events such as rising bond yields, political tensions, conflict in the middle east - is any of this changing how you’re positioning the portfolio?
The macro backdrop has definitely become harder. Our answer is exposure management and a focus on idiosyncratic opportunities which meet our criteria of our four investment buckets.
This year we ran very low gross and net exposure for much of Q1 because of the US-Iran conflict, elevated oil and European gas prices and the stagflation risk; moved net long after the April ceasefire as US earnings came through strongly; and de-risked substantially again in June.
Today we are more selective and positioned more defensively, while still trading around tactical opportunities.
On positioning, higher yields and sticky inflation are a headwind for long-duration and highly leveraged businesses, which is where we have focused our new shorts.
On the long side we favour companies with strong, self-driven earnings growth and pricing power.
Periods like this, with elevated volatility and regime shifts, are where our strategy has historically added the most value.
This year reminds me of 2021: a strong bull market that was followed by a sharp bear market in 2022, which was our best year.