Philip Corsano set up as an independent asset manager on February 4, 2004. Prior to this, he worked in the investment management business for close to two decades at some of the largest investment houses in the world, including Morgan Grenfell and Morgan Stanley.

Philip set up GNOSTAM with the help of the largest client of a Swiss private banking group who knew Philip from when he worked in Milan for a medium-sized asset manager. When Philip left the asset management company, this client approached him to manage part of his portfolio.

This was not part of Philip’s master plan. He had wanted to manage equities for a while (long/short globally), but it seemed that almost all managers had to conform to an artificially defined niche—such as value, growth, or emerging markets—all of which seemed to work for onlya limited time.

What Philip wanted to do was manage money in accordance with methods that have stood the test of time: long-term growth, looking for value globally.Absurd as it may seem today, this simply was not possible in 2001. Philip wanted to be benchmarked against the S&P Global Index or the MSCI, but for historical reasons was initially benchmarked against the S&P 500.