By day our Chief Investment Officer, Brendon Barnes, crunches numbers, reviews trends and researches investment opportunities, but after hours, his focus is on his young family and their herd of Red Devon cattle on the 60 acre property called home, halfway between Tauranga and Katikati.
Brendon was born and raised in Whanganui before heading to Victoria University to complete a Commerce Degree. He started his career at Deloitte as a Tax Consultant soon after graduation before moving to the (then) National Bank of New Zealand in their structured finance team. At 25, he embarked on his OE arriving in London and joining the investment management firm Merrill Lynch, before moving to Australia’s multinational Macquarie Bank. It was in London that he met his wife, Leona.
With an opportunity to work in the Middle East presenting itself, Brendon, always one for jumping at new and challenging experiences, moved to Abu Dhabi where he’d stay for eight years. Six of those years were with the UAE powerhouse, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund that manages the surplus oil reserves on behalf of the Government.
In 2015 Leona and Brendon decided to head back to New Zealand so that their young son and newly arrived twin daughters could be nearer to family and enjoy the Bay of Plenty lifestyle. He joined Quayside later that year.
As Quayside’s CIO, Brendon’s focus is on sourcing opportunities for Quayside to broaden its investment portfolio while retaining a strong dividend back to our shareholder. Diversification is a key motivator. “We are cautiously contrarian to opportunities and blessed with a very wide mandate that allows us to build enduring wealth through channels that are not normally available to many institutional investors”.
Brendon’s philosophy on life is to keep on learning, to stretch and challenge his mind and keep active. He is learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu, is a mad-keen hunter and trout fisherman, and is a fervent reader of history and science-based literature. Brendon and Leona’s collective ethos to preserve the land they are blessed to call home drives their busy rural life. “We were lucky to have found our Tūrangawaewae; raising free-range kids is in our country’s DNA”. Through pest control, the planting of natives, and a holistic approach to animal welfare and conservation, they intend to rebuild the whenua for their family to enjoy for many years to come.
