Peter Hargreaves likes to say that timing the market is pure luck. He’s had a good dose of that this year.
The Hargreaves Lansdown Plc founder sold 550 million pounds ($711 million) of shares at the start of February, weeks before markets tumbled on anxiety over the economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.
“By hell, the timing was just phenomenal,” Hargreaves, 73, said in a phone interview Friday.
The British billionaire is now sitting on a pile of cash. He’s invested about 110 million pounds of the proceeds into Treasuries to pay the upcoming capital gains tax bill, but says he’s close to reinvesting some of the balance.
“Myself and my son are quite keen to put this money in the market,” he said. “Very few people are in cash at the moment. So, we certainly think we’re going to put some in. We don’t exactly know when, but I think it’s not far off the bottom now. We’re watching the ticker tape.”
Last week he sent a message to investors noting the investing challenge of his current position.
“I have seen investors wait years trying to time their re-entry,” he wrote. “Following my recent share sale, I find myself in this situation right now -- it’s not an agreeable place! Will I miss the rise? Will I buy too soon? Is today’s bounce the start of recovery or a false dawn? I shall probably procrastinate, but I don’t expect sympathy.”
Hargreaves says he directs his investments through the online investment platform that made him a billionaire. About 66% of his net worth remains tied up in the shares of his company.
He still owns about a quarter of the firm and the stock wipeout has erased about $1 billion from his net worth since the February sale, leaving him with $2.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He expects markets -- and his fortune -- to bounce back.
“When people start to relax about it the markets will go up very, very rapidly indeed,” he said. “It strikes me that you would make money if you put your money in the market now.”