I'm Peter Williams, the Finance Director of Daily Mail and General Trust. I've been FD for nearly 19 years, and have been with the DMGT group for nearly 28 years, during which time the group has changed enormously. I'm also a trustee of our pension funds, chair of the funds' investment committee, and was chairman of trustees for a number of years.

I am married with three children, aged 28 to 22 and all now moved to their own homes - which doesn't necessarily mean they're all off the payroll!. In my spare time I play hockey and golf, watch most sports, help my wife keep our extensive garden under control, and collect the stamps of Ascension Island.

I'm responsible for the DMGT group's finances, so looking after my own finances is a bit of a busman's holiday. However, I am interested in the investment world, so I do look after my own investments, but perhaps not as assiduously as I should.

My wife and I don't any have joint accounts - we never have, despite being married nearly 30 years (or perhaps the latter is a result of the former!). We both use our ISA allowances each year, and I look after these, but otherwise we look after our own finances.

My wife is very risk averse - most funds she has are in National Savings or deposit accounts - so I balance the risk scale a bit. I'm a director of a venture capital trust, so I do invest in some of the available venture capital trusts. I use a fund supermarket to invest in unit trusts. The internet is a godsend to me, since I never have time for my own finances during the working day.

I am generally better at timing the purchase of investments than the sale - I suspect most people are the same. Almost certainly the best investment I ever made was to buy a sadly small number of shares in Psion around 1998 just before the "dot com" boom. Less than 18 months later, I sold half of the shares for three times my total outlay. Unfortunately, I held the other half and watched them fall well below my purchase price! However, I made a profit overall - it really is right that no-one ever lost by taking a profit.

What's my view on current economic prospects? I broadly agree with our own economic forecasting company, BCA (part of Euromoney), who think that recent months have seen a correction in a "bull" market, rather than the start of another downturn. The question is what's going to happen in the UK, given the "austerity" measures that the new government are introducing. Again, I'm broadly positive, given that these measures are being phased in gradually and that, thankfully, we stayed out of the Euro and so have our own exchange rate. With this view and with interest rates at all time lows, I currently favour investment in equities over bonds and cash deposits. I hope I'm right for all our sakes!

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