Business security

Jupiter: the spy who coached me

They are best known for gathering secret information on foreign governments, but former CIA agents are now coaching fund managers in the art of interrogation.

Jupiter Asset Management, the £36.2bn UK-listed fund house, last month hired ex-employees of the US intelligence agency as consultants to give its portfolio managers an edge over rival asset managers.

Maarten Slendebroek, chief executive of Jupiter, said the aim of the exercise was to teach fund managers interrogation tactics.

“Our fund managers spend a lot of time interviewing management teams of the companies they would like to invest in or are already invested in, and the behaviour assessment techniques such as reading body language for incongruences are specifically designed to help them hone their skills in doing this,” said a spokesperson for Jupiter.

“Ultimately, the aim is to give us a competitive edge in delivering outperformance, over the longer term, to our clients.”

The small group of ex-CIA agents put 40 Jupiter employees through training exercises to help them identify when business associates are lying, or when clients are uncomfortable.