Reclining on a black sofa in newly renovated offices near London’s Liverpool Street station, Patrick Thomson appears surprisingly at ease. Less than two months ago he would have been anything but. Then, the UK’s £10 trillion asset management industry was reeling from a market meltdown and the near-collapse of a string of niche pension funds in the wake of then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget.
Thomson, who had joined the Investment Association as its new chair that very week, had to act fast: the lobby group coordinated with Treasury officials and regulators including the Bank of England in trying to stem an asset sell-off that threatened to infect other parts of the financial system.
