Mr Riddell was visiting Dunedin as part of a regular series of meetings with high net worth clients in the southern part of the country.
In an interview, he said the clients he had been visiting were or had been farmers, and the talk was mainly around how farm prices had fallen substantially.
"They were happy to have sold out and have the money in the bank rather than facing selling in this market.
"They are now opening up to looking at something else for their investments. Existing clients are promoting us. They want better returns than the bank but protecting their capital is important. That's why they are coming to us."
Mr Riddell said NZ Assets Management was not large in terms of investments, with $800 million under management.
But in terms of "absolute returns", the company was one of the largest.
Looking ahead, the poor returns for cash around the world meant investors were shifting money into financial markets.
Interest rates were set to remain low in the United States for a long time.
While the underlying picture seemed positive for corporate America, there was no proof yet that forecast earnings could come through, he said.
"The second-quarter earnings in the US were atrocious, but were not as bad as the market expected. The third quarter will be the big signal. Industrial production is looking better."
However, NZ Assets Management was looking towards Asia, particularly China, for top returns as the global economy improved.
China was "banking the world" and it was an exciting opportunity for clients, Mr Riddell said.
Asked whether China was a safe place to invest given the high-profile company failures in recent years, Mr Riddell said it was difficult for individuals to invest in the A shares, which were reserved for Chinese.
His company invested in listed Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and the US.
Europe remained an "interesting place" to invest, but it came down to picking the right stocks to be in, he said.
Mr Riddell described his company's philosophy as "managing managers".
NZ Assets Management had five fund managers in the US, four in Europe, four in Asia, two who looked at equities in a global perspective and four trading managers.
Each of the managers did different things, and some of them could go wrong.
That was why none of them had more than 5% of the portfolio.
The best performing manager from last year was the worst this year, and the worst last year was the best this year.
That was why it was important to have the managers work the way they did, he said.
The company had no exposure to Australia or New Zealand since 2007.
Until then, about 7% of the assets were in those two countries, but by 2007 the markets had got too expensive.
• At a glance
New Zealand Assets Management
- $800 million funds under management
- Minimum investment $1 million
- Outperformed the MSCI World Index by 4.8 times over the company's 18-year history.
- Three negative years in 18 years.
