Francis Pike

Francis Pike (born 13 February 1954) is a British historian and business, economic and political advisor. He lived and worked for 20 years in Japan, China and India and has advised financial institutions as well as governments in Japan, Australia, India, China, Singapore, Bangladesh, Europe, the Middle East and the United States. In 1989 Pike was responsible for setting up the first development capital fund investing in the countries of Eastern Europe. As a historian he has specialized in the relationship between the United States and Asia. His first book, Empires at War, A Short History of Modern Asia since World War II [2010], was followed by a prequel, Hirohito's War, The Pacific War 1941-1945 [2015]. Hirohito’s War has been described as the definitive one volume history of the Pacific War and has been favorably reviewed in journals such as The Spectator, The New Statesman, Foreign Affairs, Military History Monthly, World War II History Magazine and Publishers Weekly.

Francis Pike was born in Leicester in 1954. He attended Stoneygate Preparatory School in Leicester and then Uppingham School in Rutland. He was the house captain of Lorne House and won the 6th Form English Literature Prize. An early interest in history was demonstrated by a dissertation written on the Katyn Wood Massacre in Poland in April–May 1940. He gained an A in history A Level and grade 1 in S Level history.

Afterwards he spent a year studying economics at the Université de Nanterre (part of the University of Paris) before going to Selwyn College, Cambridge to study history. He was taught by various historians including Richard Overy, Christopher Andrew and Victor Gatrell. At Cambridge he was the cause of a history faculty battle when his tripos paper on 19th Century British Economic history was awarded a first by one examiner and a fail from a second examiner – a left wing historian who took offence to Pike’s libertarian interpretation of the causes of the industrial revolution. At a special faculty meeting called by Reverend Owen Chadwick, the Regius Professor of History, it was decided as a compromise to award him a 2/1 grade.

After working briefly for Price Waterhouse in 1976, Pike returned to Leicester to take over the running of family business because of his father’s ill health. He built a golf course and catering enterprise into a profitable business, which was subsequently sold.

In 1979 he joined the investment management division of Samuel Montagu & Co., whose investment division subsequently became INVESCO PLC – now known as INVESCO Ltd., which is quoted on the New York Stock Exchange. He started work as a fund manager/analyst covering Japan, all Asian markets, Australia, South Africa, Commodity markets worldwide and the UK Overseas Traders sector (including trading companies and plantations).

In 1983 Pike relocated to Japan to set up INVESCO Asset Management Co. (Japan) Ltd. Here he researched Japanese companies and also travelled extensively to do research on other Asian markets. He also spent a considerable amount of time in South Korea working with the sovereign advisory department of Samuel Montagu on advice for the South Korean government regarding the development of their capital markets.

In 1987 he secured one of the first foreign investment advisory licenses from the Japanese government. From the mid-1980s he took a close interest in the opening up of the Chinese economy by Deng Xiaoping and became a frequent speaker at international conferences on the subject of China as an emerging capitalist economy.

At a financial conference in San Francisco June 1989, Pike controversially stated that the social unrest in Beijing was primarily caused by the Chinese government’s deregulation of prices as it attempted to move toward a market economy – a move which initially caused food price inflation. In other words, the student calls for democracy were a side issue to the core social and economic difficulties of moving to a market economy. Pike concluded with the forecast that the Tiananmen Square protests would prove to be just a blip in China’s route to rapid modernization and economic growth.

In 1987 Pike returned to London to become the head of Japanese and Asian Fund Management at INVESCO. He was responsible for Japanese and Asian stock selection strategy, and country allocation. He resumed management of Drayton Far Eastern Trust PLC, which according to AITC (Association of Investment Trust Companies) figures ended the decade as the best performing Far East trust and the second best performing investment trust in all sectors in the UK over 10 years to the year end 1989.

Pike also started the company’s pension advisory business in the United States. He developed various new companies between 1987 and 1991 including Drayton Asia Trust PLC, (the first investment trust specializing in non-Japan Asia), Drayton Korea Trust PLC, (the first investment trust specializing in Korea), Nippon Warrant Fund and the European Warrant Fund, (the first derivative funds set up in Luxembourg); in addition he set up a number of mutual funds in the UK and launched a mutual fund company in Singapore.

In 1989 Pike set up the first development capital fund for Eastern Europe, The East European Development Fund and became Chairman of Central European Asset Management.

In 1991 he moved back to Japan as President of INVESCO Asset Management Co (Japan) Ltd and set up a domestic pension fund management team. He designed a pension fund product and presentation for the Japanese market and initiated a marketing campaign that won the first corporate pension accounts awarded to an international asset management company. Pike was then made Chairman of INVESCO Investment Trust Management Co in 1991 and over a year increased the assets under management of the unit trust business from US$1.3bn to US$2.3bn. In 1992 he was made Managing Director of INVESCO Asia & Pacific.

In 1993 Pike joined Peregrine Investments Holdings Ltd and in 1994 moved to India and set up the first foreign owned Indian investment bank, Peregrine India of which he became Chairman in 1997. Peregrine India, based in Bombay, consisted of a research group, sales, brokerage and corporate finance. He also set up an investment bank in Madras, the capital of Tamil Nadu. In 1995 he was responsible for the appointment of a country head and the setting up of an investment bank in Bangladesh. In 1997 he was asked to develop the group’s activities in Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia and initiated the purchase of Carnegie’s Eastern European emerging markets business. He left Peregrine some three months before the company foundered after its development of a junk market of ‘junk’ bond business in Hong Kong and the failed underwriting of a Steady Safe, an Indonesian company.

Pike joined NM Rothschild & Sons Limited as a Director in 1998 and was also appointed Director of Continuation Investments NV and Chairman of Rothschild Ventures Limited, responsible for overseeing the establishment of the European venture capital business. In addition he sat on the Asia Strategy Committee and was Chairman of Rothschild Japan KK and set up the first Leverage Buyout Fund in Japan. [See Some past positions]

Some past positions:

• Director, Continuation Investments NV 1998- 2001

• Director, ECI Ltd. 1998-1999

• Director, Rothschild India 1998-2001

• Chairman, Rothschild Japan KK 1998-2001

• Chairman/CEO Rothschild Ventures Ltd. 1999-2001

• Director, Executive Committee of Peregrine Investments Holdings 1996-1997

• Chairman, Peregrine India 1997

• Director, Peregrine Asset Management 1993-1997

• Director, Peregrine Capital Limited 1994-1997

• Director, Peregrine Small Companies Fund 1994-1997

• Director, Flagstaff Venture Capital (Mauritius) Limited 1994-97

• Director, Indonesia Strategic Development Fund 1989-1997

• Director, Kazakhstan Fund 1997-1999

• Director, Drayton Far Eastern Trust plc 1988-1993

• Director, Drayton Asia Trust plc 1989-1993

• Director, Drayton Korea Trust plc 1990-1993

• Managing Director, INVESCO Asia and Pacific Executive Committee, 1992-1993

• Chairman, INVESCO Investment Trust Management Co. Ltd. 1992-1993

• Director, INVESCO Holdings Ltd. 1990-1992

• Director, INVESCO Asia Ltd. 1993

• President, INVESCO Asset Management Co. (Japan) Ltd. 1991-1992

• Director, INVESCO Investment Management Ltd.1990-1992

• Director, INVESCO OUB Investment Management (Singapore)

• Director, INVESCO OKASAN Investment Management

• Director, Tiedeman International Research, TIR 1989-1991

• Director, Drayton Far Eastern (Finance) Limited

• Chairman, Asia Tiger Warrant Fund 1988-1993

• Chairman, Asia Super Growth Trust 1987-1993

• Chairman, CEAM (Central European Asset Management) 1989-1990

• Director, East Europe Development Fund 1989-1993

• Director, European Warrant Fund 1989-1993

• Director, Nippon Warrant Fund 1987-1993

He is a Director of NPJ Asset Management, (a UK based hedge fund company specialising in Asian equities).

Pike is also a co-owner of the Temple Gallery, which is a noted dealer in Russian and Byzantine Icons and Byzantine artifacts. The Gallery also deals in Southeast Asian and North Asian art. See www.templegallery.com

Pike is a business adviser to Pestival, a mobile festival and events organization combining science, education and entertainment aimed at the development of a better inter-connectivity with insects and the natural world. See: www.pestival.org

Pike is on the Advisory Board of Photo London.

Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia since World War II

* Hardcover: 784 pages

* I B Tauris & Co Ltd (November 30, 2009)

Hirohito’s War: The Pacific War 1941 – 1945

* Hardcover: 1,110 pages

* Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd. 2015

For details see: www.francispike.org

Both books are available in paperback and digital format.

The Development of a Death Cult in 1930s Japan and the Decision to Drop the Atom Bomb – Asian Affairs Magazine, 2016 Vol. XLVII, no.1, pages 1–31

BBC History Magazine Interview about Hirohito’s War: 6 August 2015

Rethinking the Bomb 70 Years Later – San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 August 2015

Five Myths About Emperor Hirohito – History New Network, 27 July 2015

ABC Radio interview about Empires at War: 19 April 2011

What To Do About China Now, On how to contain the new superpower which Hong Kong has just joined - The Spectator, 4 July 1997

There’s A Smile On The Face Of The Tigers, What the rich Orient now thinks of the continent which they once held in awe. But what does Asia think of Britain? - The Spectator, 15 March 1997

Where Some Sons Do Have Them, On the surprising power, and varied duties of Japanese women - The Spectator, 18 January 1997