The strategies, including the BNY Mellon Global Dynamic Bond, BNY Mellon Sustainable Global Dynamic Bond and BNY Mellon Global Dynamic Bond Income fund, were placed under suspension in June 2023. Ella Hoxha, formerly at Pictet, took over as fund manager in December of last year.

Square Mile stated that after meeting with Hoxha and discussing the changes to the portfolios, its team believes “it will take time to fully appreciate the impact of those changes”. In addition, Square Mile found the medium-term returns “not in line with expectations”, resulting in the funds’ removals.

Jupiter Value funds, including the AAA-rated Jupiter UK Special Situations fund and A-rated Jupiter Global Value Equity fund, were suspended after Ben Whitmore and Dermot Murphy announced their departure for July 2024 to create their own investment boutique. While JO Hambro Capital Management’s Alex Savvides will take on the UK equities portion of the funds, there is still discussion over the global equity assets and whether they will transfer with Whitmore, Square Mile said.

See also: RLAM and Artemis funds added to Square Mile academy

Despite the three funds dropped from BNY Mellon, the BNY Mellon Futurelegacy fund range gained a responsible Positive Prospect rating. The group of five funds are managed by Newton Investment Management and launched in February of last year.

“In what is an under-represented area of the market, Square Mile believes this range has all the attributes necessary to provide competitive long-term returns while following the team’s sustainable investment approach,” Square Mile stated.

The Brown Advisory Global Leaders fund was awarded an AA rating, managed by Mick Dillon and Bertie Thomson. The fund, launched in 2015, comprises 30 to 40 holdings which Square Mile claims is “differentiated from its peers and a very solid offering for long-term investors”.

Aikya Global Emerging Markets gained a Responsible A rating while Rathbone Greenbank Multi-Asset portfolios obtained a responsible recommended rating.

Three strategies, the CT UK Social Bond fund, Artemis SmartGARP Global Emerging Markets Equity fund, and WS Montanaro UK Income fund retained their ratings despite changes in management.

In total, Square Mile conducted 52 interviews with 31 asset management groups in the month of January.

This article was written for our sister title Portfolio Adviser

The Chinese property sector, which makes up around a quarter of the country’s economy, has been a particular drag on returns over the last year. In January, one of the sector’s leading players, China Evergrande, entered into a forced liquidation.

This was seen in the month’s worst performing individual funds, with the £14.1m Redwheel China Equity, £203.3m Baillie Gifford China, and £5.8m JPM China all among the bottom 10 for returns. Climate strategies, such as Baillie Gifford Climate Optimism and Active Solar also struggled in January.

In contrast, IA North America and Technology were the two best-performing sectors, up 3% and 4.8% respectively.

Ben Yearsley, director at Fairview Investing, said. “These two are so intertwined that it does distort the picture of US equities. Microsoft is again the world’s largest company with a value just under $3trn. But with Apple, Alphabet and Amazon also in the top ten, a tech fund, a Nasdaq tracker, an S&P tracker and a MSCI World tracker look very similar and perform in tandem.”

See also: Global sustainable funds see first quarter of outflows

He added: “The positive equity stories of 2023 all continue with tech, India, and Japan all starting 2024 with a bang. Two of those areas look pretty expensive – then again they almost always do. Japan remains one of the most interesting stories with corporate change and more shareholder awareness helping drive markets. On the other side, China can’t seem to escape the doom loop – Beijing need a big bang to pull markets from historic lows.”

Yearsley pointed out that, for a brief period of time in January, markets regained some confidence after Beijing announced stimulus measures. However this confidence evaporated, with the Hang Seng index finishing the month down by more than 9%.

“Contrast that with Japan where the Topix put on almost 7% – the BoJ has kept the world’s last remaining negative interest rate policy and wants inflation. Despite the excellent returns from Japanese equities many fund managers are confident on future returns and thinking this is just the start of a sustained bull run. The FTSE had a lacklustre start to 2024 falling 1.27%.”

Oxeye Hedged Income was the top performing fund, returning 9.5% in January. Yearsley noted the fund has regularly topped and tailed the monthly performance tables over the past few years.

Jupiter’s India-focused offerings, Jupiter India and Jupiter India Select, both performed strongly by returning 8.7% and 8.3% respectively. The average IA India fund returned 1.8% over the month.

Others, however, believe the decision is more nuanced, and say the problem lies in the regulatory design of the FCA’s Consumer Duty and Assessment of Value regulation as opposed to with the platforms themselves.

In July this year – the same month that the Consumer Duty rules first came into force – Fidelity took the decision to restrict investors from buying into certain funds and trusts on its platform which it deemed to be poor value.

The FCA’s 121-page paper on Consumer Duty states that companies “must take proactive and reactive steps to avoid causing harm to customers through their conduct, products, or services… their design, terms and conditions, marketing, [sales] and support”. It added that this should be implemented with a degree of “reasonableness”, meaning the rules and guidance “must be interpreted in line with the standard that could reasonably be expected of a prudent firm”.

The first product that Fidelity shielded new investors from buying into was the RIT Capital Partners investment trust which, at time of writing, is trading on a 24.1% discount to its net asset value. Residing in the IT Flexible Investment sector, the investment company has lost 16.1% during the past 12 months, 3.9% over three years and 1.7% over five years. However, it has gained 71.9% in the past decade. Its listed ongoing charges figure – which is applied to the underlying net asset value of its portfolio – stands at 1.6%.

Since then, there have been a further 14 funds and investment trusts that Fidelity platform clients can no longer access – although a small number of these restrictions come from the investment firms themselves, for example Royal London Global Equity Select’s units are now limited issue.

Funds and trusts which Fidelity has proactively prevented investors from buying into include: MIGO Opportunities Trust, AVI Global Trust, Momentum Multi-Asset Value Trust, CT Global Managed Portfolio Income, LF Odey Opus, LF Brook Continental European, Jupiter Fund of Investment Trusts, four different share classes of VT Argonaut European Alpha, Abrdn Private Equity Opportunities investment trust, Premier Miton Worldwide Opportunities and GVQ Opportunities. It has also prevented clients from buying into any Valu-Trac Epic funds.

In October this year, Interactive Investor decided to follow in Fidelity’s footsteps and prevent investors from buying into certain products they deemed to be poor value, although the firm does not provide a published list of these products. Other platforms that are willing to restrict investments into some funds and trusts include Aviva, Barclays Smart Investor and HSBC.

To read more, visit the December edition of  Portfolio Adviser Magazine

The private bank has hired Anna Zakrzewski as group chief operating officer.

Zakrzewski served over two decades at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as managing director and partner. He will be based in Luxembourg and will work closely with Eli Leenaars, outgoing chief operating officer for Quintet.

Leenaars is retiring after four decades in executive roles for four different banks.

The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI)

The professional body has appointed Mandy Gill as its executive director of global learning.

Gill will join the CISI in late November from the Gambling Commission where she was director of industry and specialist knowledge. Prior to that she was director of compliance at Commission from 2018 to 2023.

Gill has experience in vocational education and regulation, working with Ofqual for three years, and professional services. She became a qualified solicitor in 1993 and worked at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Nucleus Financial Platforms

The platform company has hired Andrew Tully as technical services director.

Tully is a pensions expert and industry commentator. He has spent 35 years working in high profile roles, such as technical director at Canada Life and Pensions Technical Director at MGM Advantage.

He will be taking over Neil MacGillivray, who is retiring as head of the technical support unit after a 25-year career with James Hay and Nucleus.

Robeco

The international asset management company has named Nick King as head of its ETF platform.

King previously spent eight years at Fidelity. Before that, he spent nearly nine years at BlackRock where he was promoted to senior portfolio manager in ETFs.

WRISE Group

The multi-family office has hired Helen Lam as group chief operating officer and Gaven Koh as group head of risk and compliance.

Prior to joining WRISE, Lam worked at the Bank of Singapore Hong Kong branch on strategic business operations.

Koh has 12 years of experience in the private banking industry and led a team of analysists at Credit Suisse AG across Asia Pacific.

Atomos

The wealth firm has appointed Jonty Warneken as head of the Harrogate office.

Warneken previously worked at Sanlam for seven years until 2019, when he joined Brooks Macdonald.

Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management (CGWM)

The wealth management firm has recruited David Blake as experienced investment director.

He joins as investment director for Rathbones and has previously held roles at Jupiter Asset Management, Bestinvest and Brooks Macdonald Asset Management.

Fidelity International 

The investment firm has named Talib Sheikh as lead portfolio manager across multi-asset income strategies.

Sheikh brings over 25 years of experience in the investment industry, most recently as head of multi-asset strategies at Jupiter Asset Management.

Sheikh succeeds Eugene Philalithis, who has announced his retirement in 2024.

The asset management giant has announced chief financial officer and director Richard Keers has decided to retire.

Keers will leave Schroders on 31 December 2023.

Richard Oldfield will succeed Keers as both chief financial officer and as a director of the company on 2 October 2023.

Oldfield is currently vice chairman and global markets leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) leading all market-facing activities, initiatives, and strategy.

Also, Schroders has hired Iain Mackay as an independent non-executive director, effective 1 January 2024.

He will also join the audit and risk committee and the nominations committee. Mackay is currently chief financial officer at GSK plc and was previously chief financial officer of HSBC Holdings.

Nucleus

The wrap platform has named Laura Barnes as director of business development.

She joins from Parmenion, where she was head of intermediary distribution for almost three years with responsibility for sales strategy and growth.

Royal London

The UK life, pensions and investment mutual has appointed Ronnie Binnie as head of strategic partnerships. He will be based in Edinburgh.

Binnie joins from Evelyn Partners, where he was managing partner and head of office, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Lombard Odier

Amer Malik has been named local managing director of the bank’s Dubai office.

He has over two decades of experience working for financial institutions in the US and the Middle East, including Julius Baer and HSBC Private Bank.

Pictet

The wealth manager has appointed Raymond Sagayam as its 47th managing partner in the 218-year history of the firm, effective 1 January 2024.

Sagayam joined Pictet Asset Management (PAM) in 2010 as head of total return fixed income. He was then appointed chief investment officer of fixed income for PAM and a member of its executive committee in 2017.

In addition to these responsibilities, he was named equity partner of the group in 2018 and head of PAM London in 2022.

Impax Asset Management

The specialist asset manager has named Yasumitsu (Yasu) Iwasa as head of Japan.

Prior to joining Impax in March 2023, he was head of Japan at Fullerton Fund Management, an asset management arm of Temasek Group.

Jupiter Fund Management

Non-executive chair Nichola Pease has stepped down with immediate effect.

Pease has quit for personal reasons, according to a stock exchange announcement on 26 April.

She has been replaced in the role by David Cruickshank, independent non-executive director and chair of the audit and risk committee.

Karl Sternberg will step in to act as interim chair of the audit and risk committee, while Roger Yates will join it. The appointments remain subject to regulatory approval.

Jupiter said at least one new independent non-executive director will be added to the board at a later date.

Knight Frank

Henry Faun, head of the firm’s private office in the Middle East, has relocated to London.

Faun will continue in his current role as head of the region but will now be based out of Knight Frank’s headquarters, travelling frequently into the Gulf to serve his clients from the Middle East.

Knight Frank will continue to have a private office presence in the Middle East with associate partner Paul Sacco based in Dubai.

Excello Law

Katie Brassington has joined the national consultancy law firm based in Chester.

Qualifying in 2004, Katie has over 18 years’ experience advising individuals, families, trustees and business owners across Cheshire and north Wales.

She joined Excello from Knights where she headed up their private client team in Chester.