Fixed income strategies Aegon High Yield Bond and BlueBay Emerging Market Unconstrained Bond were among the funds to receive the rating, which recognises strategies the FundCalibre research team believes to be the best among their asset class peers.

FundCalibre research director Juliet Schooling Latter noted the £611m Aegon fund’s “excellent” track record in recent years, which has seen it placed among the top quartile of performers in the IA Sterling High Yield sector over one, three, and five years, according to FE Fundinfo data.

Elsewhere, Ashoka India Equity Investment Trust was also commended by Schooling Latter.

She said: “Launched in 2018, this trust invests in Indian companies of all sizes. The trust adopts a stock-picking approach to target scalable businesses with sustainable superior returns on capital. Aided by a huge bank of experienced research analysts, the trust has comfortably been the best performer in its sector since inception.

“We like the trust’s unique approach to stock selection and its ability to go deeper into both the mid and small-cap markets. A highly unconstrained vehicle, we also like its approach to ESG, specifically governance, which can be a critical issue in India.”

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Fidelity Asian Smaller Companies fund manager Nitin Bajaj was commended by FundCalibre for his clear philosophy and wealth of experience investing in the region.

“This is a genuine stockpicking fund with an emphasis on buying good businesses at prices discounted by the market. The fund has a contrarian ‘value’ bias and high active share. Risk is considered in absolute terms rather than relative to any benchmark or peer group,” Schooling Latter noted.

Comgest Growth America was commended for its “clear process” and “experienced management team”. The $990m strategy has achieved top quartile returns in the IA North America sector over one, three and five years.

Meanwhile, the £257m Martin Currie Global Portfolio Trust was also highlighted for its long term performance.

“The trust’s manager, Zehrid Osmani, has proven himself to be an excellent manager of high conviction strategies. The highly-driven research approach has proven to be extremely successful over the longer term across a range of portfolios and we see no reason why this cannot continue on this trust,” Schooling Latter said.

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Ninety One Diversified Income, which launched in 2012, is designed to either replace or complement bonds in a portfolio. The majority of the fund is held in fixed income assets, while it also incorporates strategic equity positions.

“We also like the team’s use of future options and swaps to hedge equity, duration and credit risk,” the FundCalibre research director added.

Four funds were also handed the ‘Elite Radar’ badge, which is awarded to strategies that are on the research team’s shortlist and could receive an Elite rating in the future.

The strategies receiving the rating were Artemis Leading Consumer Brands, GQG Partners US Equity, Man GLG Dynamic Income, and Redwheel Biodiversity.

This article was written for our sister title Portfolio Adviser

After the announcement that Guy Strapp is leaving his job in April 2019, with Wai-Kwong Seck replacing him as chief executive, the Asian arm of Prudential has confirmed two other departures.

Ted Pull, chief financial officer, and Phil Stockwell, chief operating officer, have announced they will also be leaving the firm.

Pull, who has worked for Eastspring since 2013, will leave at the end of February 2019; while Stockwell, who was appointed in 2015, will be leaving immediately.

A spokesperson for the company said that their departures are not link to Strapp’s retirement.

Meyado Private Wealth Management

Meyado’s Singapore business has appointed Nick Glover as general manager. He will be responsible for bringing in systems and processes to fit the firm’s expanded asset base, following the acquisition of financial advice firm iFS last year.

Glover has over 20 years’ experience in the industry; holding roles at St James’s Place, Axa and Zurich. His main focus will be on the needs of the higher net worth expats in Singapore.

STM Group

The cross border financial services provider has appointed of Peter Marr as chief operating officer, in addition to joining the board of directors, with immediate effect.

Marr held the same role at Police Mutual before joining the firm, and has also worked for Capita Insurance Services as operations director.

BMO Global Asset Management

Big changes for the asset manager, with Kristi Mitchem taking the top job. She succeeds Richard Wilson, the previous chief executive, following his retirement.

Mitchem joins from Wells Fargo where she also held the top position for the asset management business.

Amundi AM

Triple hires for the French asset manager with Pascal Duval, Julien Fontaine and Ashley Fagan leading different department of the business.

Duval has been appointed head of retail solutions, Fontaine took the head of partnerships position, while Fagan joined as head of ETF, indexing and smart beta development for UK and Ireland.

Both Duval and Fontaine are also members of the executive committee.

CFA Institute

The global association of investment management professionals has confirmed Kazim Razvi will take the role of director, financial reporting policy, Emea – effective immediately.

The role will be based in London and Razvi will be working on advancing financial and corporate reporting in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

He was previously global head of accounting research and policy at Fitch Ratings and has also worked for the Moody’s Corporation.

Martin Currie

The Legg Mason affiliate has hired two professionals to work on strategies across Europe, the US and Latin America. Barry MacLennan joins the Edinburgh office as head of wholesale distribution, while Mark Cho has been appointed head of intermediary distribution in the Americas based in New York.

Columbia Threadneedle

The investment firm has appointed Jon Allen as head of Asia Pacific, based in Singapore. Allen joined Columbia Threadneedle in 2010 and previously held the role of head of distribution for the region.

Royal London

The firm’s intermediary arm has announced Tom Dunbar as distribution director, following his predecessor, Jim Smith, stepping down.

Dunbar held the role of group strategy director in the firm since 2017 and will ease into the director position following a transitional period with Smith.

Dentons Pension Management

The UK-based Sipps and Ssas provider has appointed, with immediate effect, David Fox to the board. Fox joined Dentons in 2011 driving the business sales strategy after holding positions at firms like Standard Life and Dominion Fiduciary.

Artemis has announced that ex-JP Morgan Asset Management UK head Jasper Berens is to take over from head of distribution Dick Turpin who is set to retire after a 30-year career.

Berens is slated to join Artemis in October at which point he will take over from Turpin before his retirement at the end of the year.

He announced he was leaving JP Morgan AM back in March after over 20 years at the firm, most recently serving as head of its UK division.

Turpin has looked after sale and distribution for Artemis since 2002. He is also a partner and member of the fund group’s management and executive committees.

He began his career over 25 years ago working for Merrill Lynch, followed by posts at Aetna and Barings.

Turpin then moved to ABN Amro Asset Management in 1998 where he became managing director of ABN Amro Fund Managers, which was subsumed by Artemis in September 2002.

St James’s Place

St. James’s Place, the wealth management group, has made several changes to its range of funds.

The changes, which take effect from 30 July 2018, include:

• Boston-based Steve Gorman of Wellington Management will be appointed lead manager for the Alternative Assets fund.
• Ken Hsia from Investec Asset Management will manage the Continental European fund and will co-manage the Greater European Progressive fund.
• The AXA Framlington Managed fund will be renamed the Balanced Managed fund. A blended management team of Ben Inker of GMO and Mark Baribeau of Jennison Associates will assume responsibility for this strategy.
• The team at Majedie Asset Management, managers of the UK & General Progressive and UK Growth funds, will be given additional flexibility to invest up to 20% of its strategy in overseas equities.
• The Schroder Managed fund will be renamed the Managed Growth fund for life, pension and international products.

Martin Currie

Martin Currie has poached from Blackrock as it confirms equities jack of all trades Tom Walker will retire from the business.

Walker, who leads the global long-term unconstrained team, will hand over responsibilities to Zehrid Osmani.

The team is responsible for $500m of assets under management.

Martin Currie told Portfolio Adviser the handover would take several months, but they said a date for Walker’s retirement had not been set.

AJ Bell head of active portfolios Ryan Hughes said Walker is experienced both in tenure and range of strategies he managed.

Walker has been responsible for Asian, US and global funds.

BlueBay

Global specialist fixed income manager, BlueBay Asset Management, has hired Stephen Thariyan to the newly created role of co-head of Developed Markets.

Based in London and reporting to Raphael Robelin, chief investment officer, Thariyan will work alongside Mark Dowding, also co-head of Developed Markets.

He will assume responsibility for the Developed Markets’ corporate credit investment process and help develop and grow BlueBay’s corporate credit strategies across investment grade, leveraged finance and convertible bonds.

Thariyan has more than 25 years’ experience as a credit investor, most recently at Henderson Global Investors where he was global head of Credit for the last ten years. Prior to this he spent 8 years as a senior portfolio manager at Rogge Global Partners and has also held roles at Natwest Markets and Chevron Corporation.

VanEck

VanEck is expanding its European ETF business with the appointment of Dominik Schmaus as product manager.

Schmaus will work with the team to develop innovative products and help to expand the range of products for European clients.

He is joining VanEck from Deka Investment GmbH, where he gained numerous years of experience in developing and implementing exchanged-listed index funds as a member of the ETF product management team.

Deloitte

Isobel Clift has joined Deloitte’s UK tax investigations team as a senior manager. Clift began her career in tax more than 18 years ago at the Inland Revenue where she qualified as a Inspector.

Her experience in the private sector has spanned more than a decade in both the Big four and a smaller tax advisory firm.

Clift provides specialist advice and assistance on all matters relating to dispute resolution with HMRC including enquiries into the tax affairs of individuals, corporates and owner managed businesses.

She has several years’ experience in assisting clients with voluntary disclosures to HMRC, particularly those relating to offshore assets.

Amundi has named Laurent Tignard as head of multi-assets for institutional clients and Raphaël Sobotka as head of multi-assets for retail clients.

Tignard and Sobotka report to Vincent Mortier, global head of multi-assets and deputy chief investment officer for Amundi Group.

Before joining Amundi, Tignard worked as chief executive at Edmond de Rothschild AM. Previously, he was chief executive of HSBC Global AM France and Halbis Capital Management.

Sobotka joined Amundi in 2014 with responsibility for multi-assets management for institutional clients. Prior to that, he was chief investment officer of HSBC Multimanager Emea in London from 2007.

Moneyfarm

Digital wealth manager Moneyfarm has appointed Richard Flax as chief investment officer and Paolo Savini Nicci as chief financial officer.

Flax joins Moneyfarm having previously held portfolio management roles at both Pimco and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He brings more than 17 years’ institutional experience to the role and will oversee the full remit of Moneyfarm’s investment decision-making.

Savini Nicci joins with more than 15 years’ experience in principal finance and private equity, including roles at Morgan Stanley, AnaCap Financial Partners and Cabot Square Capital portfolio companies. He will be responsible for ensuring the company position goes from strength to strength, particularly as Moneyfarm looks to further diversify its offering and expand internationally.

Their appointments follow the company’s launch in the UK earlier this year as well as recent news of a strategic investment by Allianz Ventures.

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank has strengthened its innovation team with two new appointments. Elly Hardwick will become head of innovation and Philip Milne has been appointed as chief technology officer for innovation.

Hardwick will be based in London and Milne in Palo Alto. Both will report to JP Rangaswami, chief data officer, head of strategy and innovation for the chief operating office.

Hardwick will join the bank in early December to lead it’s innovation activities and manage the Deutsche Bank Labs globally. She will work closely with fintechs and the bank’s business divisions to drive the adoption of new technology solutions.

Milne joined Deutsche Bank in early November and will act as an interface between the Deutsche Bank Labs and the bank’s wider technology organisation.

City Financial

Independent investment management firm City Financial has announced the appointment of four senior operations hires.

Amy Wong, William Dumas, Justin Brodersen and Simon Taylor have joined the firm with effect from 1 December 2016. They will report directly to Lou Thorne, global chief operating officer.

They all join from Fortress Investment Group where they previously worked with Thorne in the liquid markets business. Wong was co-director of operations and treasury, Dumas was co-director of operations, Brodersen was director of middle office, and Taylor was UK operations manager.

Wong, Dumas, and Brodersen will be based in New York, while Taylor will be based in London.

Martin Currie Global Portfolio Trust

Martin Currie Global Portfolio Trust has appointed Marian Glen and Gary Le Sueur as non-executive directors of the company with immediate effect.

Glen was previously corporate partner and head of funds and financial services at solicitors Shepherd+ Wedderburn and general counsel at Aegon UK. She has also been non-executive director of Friends Life Group and Murray Income Trust. 

Le Seur has played a key role in over 30 investment and exits over the past 19 years at venture capital firm Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) where he is co-founder and partner. He also has experience in corporate law and structured financing having previously worked with companies such as Shepherd+ Wedderburn, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and National Australia Bank.  

Legg Mason acquired Martin Currie as a wholly owned and independently managed affiliate in October 2014.

According to a statement issued by Legg Mason, the management of all the funds will remain unchanged as will their current investment objectives.

Economies of scale

Adam Gent, head of UK sales at Legg Mason, said: “We have taken the decision to merge these funds into the Legg Mason Global Fund range. The decision has been taken with the clients’ interests in mind since the economies of scale provided by Legg Mason will greatly benefit the clients.”

Andy Sowerby, head of sales at Martin Currie, added: “Our partnership with Legg Mason enables us to leverage their scale in both operations and distribution to the ultimate benefit of our clients.”

The seven affected funds are as follows:

• Legg Mason Martin Currie Global Funds (GF) Asia Long-Term Unconstrained Fund
• Legg Mason Martin Currie Global Funds (GF) Asia Pacific Fund
• Legg Mason Martin Currie Global Funds (GF) Global Resources Fund
• Legg Mason Martin Currie Global Funds (GF) Greater China Fund
• Legg Mason Martin Currie Global Funds (GF) North America Fund
• Legg Mason Martin Currie Global Funds (GF) European Absolute Alpha Fund
• Legg Mason Martin Currie Global Funds (GF) Japan Absolute Alpha Fund.